Sermons

“Coming Home to Grace”

Psalm 32; Luke 15:11-32 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – March 31, 2019

 Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we open our hearts to your extravagant grace and respond with joy.  In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

How do you learn what words mean?  Did you have parents like mine who were fond of answering questions about definitions with instructions to “Go look it up”?  Do you remember learning in school that it’s possible to figure out what a word means by examining the context around it?  I’m pretty sure I did that a lot more often than I turned to a dictionary.  The problem is that the context method is not fool-proof.  Which is why many of us, I’m guessing, long held an impression that the word “prodigal” refers to someone who was bad and then repented.  Is there any other context in which you’ve heard the word “prodigal”, other than this story and other situations using this story as a comparison?  It’s just not a word we use that often.  So we can be forgiven for not having a clear understanding of its meaning.

But if we do actually turn to a dictionary, we discover that the meaning is more precise than we might have imagined.  “Prodigal” means “1. spending money or resources freely or recklessly; wastefully extravagant” and “2. having or giving something on a lavish scale.”  What’s interesting to me about learning the true definition of the word is that we realize there isn’t just a prodigal son in this story; there’s a prodigal father too!

Now maybe that doesn’t sound fair, because we think of the word “prodigal” as having negative connotations.  But there’s no denying that the father responds extravagantly when the younger son shows back up.  The best robe, a ring, sandals, the fatted calf for heaven’s sake, and a party! There’s at least one character in the story who considers this wasteful and excessive.  So what is the difference?

A wise man I know, namely John Mobley, the Regional Minister of the Christian Church in Alabama-Northwest Florida, once told me that stewardship isn’t just about what we give to the church; it’s also about what we do with the rest of our resources.  There’s a difference between wasting your inheritance on “dissolute living” and throwing a giant party to celebrate the safe return of your son, but both are examples of extravagance.

Our lives tend to fall somewhere in between those two examples, so we don’t necessarily experience extravagance all that often. But what if it’s there all the time, and we’re just not paying enough attention to notice it?  For many of us, the character in this story we most closely resemble is the elder brother, out in the field, conveniently forgetting that he received his portion of the inheritance at the same time his brother did and thus feeling like he’d never gotten anything.  God’s extravagant grace doesn’t always look like a party.  Sometimes it takes the form of daily bread, which we easily take for granted.  We haven’t needed extravagant grace, so when someone else receives it, we are tempted to resent it.  Even the best party can be quickly ruined by jealousy.

If we’re going to look at this story as a stewardship lesson – which of course we are since we’re launching our annual stewardship campaign today – the question before us is what is our response to God’s extravagant grace?  Have we learned to “waste” our money on the right things?  How aware are we, on a daily basis, that all that is ours is also God’s came from God?  Are we willing to admit our need for God’s extravagant grace, or do we take pride in the idea that we only require a little?  If we think of this church as a farm that we need to keep running, can we imagine any appropriate role for extravagance?  On the other hand, would this really be a church if we never indulged in extravagance, given what we’ve been shown about how God works?

One of the major moods we aim for during Lent is humility.  And humility, when done right, leads to gratitude.  Gratitude, when lived out, leads to generosity.  So it is no wonder that this parable, chosen for the lectionary on the fourth Sunday in Lent, is a good story to point us in the direction of humble, thankful generosity. It’s especially helpful, because it’s not an easy platitude about being grateful and generous.  Instead what we have here is a story about all the messy family dynamics around money, which gives us a much more real invitation into thinking about our own relationships with money and the church and God.

Because our relationships with money are messy. They’re full of entitlement and wastefulness and scarcity-thinking and resentment and shame.  There is an ever-present human need to try to connect our finances somehow to what we deserve.  It never works.  Yes, there is a sense in which many of us “earn” our money.  We work hard and are appropriately rewarded.  But there are many others who work just as hard who are not appropriately rewarded.  And there are many who can’t work, who our society decides are not worthy of the basic requirements of living.  Where is Jesus in all that?  In the hungry person who has no food, in the prisoner with no visitors, in the stranger whom no one has yet welcomed.  It does not work to try to make sense of our lives based on what anyone deserves.

Some people would look at what the father in this story did when his younger son came home and call it “throwing good money after bad”.  They would want to talk about accountability and solid fiscal management.  But what does God say?  “We had to celebrate!”  It’s not about what the younger son deserved.  It’s not about what you deserve or what you earned.  It’s about God’s love for you, for the younger son, for the elder brother.  God’s extravagance is God’s business, and God spreads the joy all around.  This party is loud enough to be heard in the fields!

As we are called to commitment, to consider prayerfully how we will support the ministries of this church in the coming year starting on July 1^st, it is that extravagant grace that we are invited to respond to.  To be clear, I’m not telling you that we’re going to be building a budget full of wasteful spending.  We have managed to reduce our operating costs in numerous ways this past year.  We are careful with the gifts you entrust to us. But this congregation flourishes because of those who respond to God’s invitation into stewardship as a spiritual discipline joyfully, gratefully and even extravagantly.  Healthy, holy stewardship combines the day-in, day-out faithfulness of the elder son with the zest for life and sense of adventure of the younger brother.  Parties are so much more fun when you’ve set aside the resentment and worry.

There is no doubt that our personal relationships with our finances are very personal.  They’re often messy and fraught with baggage.  Each of us learned different things about money growing up, and then some of us tried to merge our family’s money culture with another’s when we entered into relationship covenants.  The ups and downs of life affect us, giving some of us more than we deserve and others not nearly what we’d expected.  How on earth do I even dare bring up all this deeply buried emotional baggage?  Well, for one, because the Bible asks me to.  And for two, because your church needs your support.  But also, because the love of God is one of the most often forgotten aspects of your relationship with money and one of the most important. If your faith isn’t affecting your financial life, there isn’t much point to it, as far as I can see.  The emotional power of money in our culture is an ever-present reality for all of us, so the liberation Christ can give us from that is something we all need.  Liberation from shame, liberation from pride, from entitlement, from greed and resentment and stress – any of that can be ours when we hand our money lives over to God and come in to the party.

In the coming week, you are invited to pray about your financial commitment to the ministries of Vista La Mesa Christian Church.  You are encouraged to examine your financial situation and make a clear-eyed commitment to regular giving, whether it’s tithing, working toward tithing, or beyond tithing.  We gave you two copies of the Estimate of Giving card to complete this year, one to share and one to keep.   Next Sunday, during worship, we will have the blessing box in here, and you’ll be invited to put one of those cards in the box, which we will then ask God’s blessing on all together.  We didn’t pick this story to insist that everyone give extravagantly.  The point of the story is that God has been extravagantly generous with us.  The goal of our stewardship campaign is to encourage all of us to give serious thought to our response to God’s extravagant grace.  May our hearts be open and light.  Amen