First Presbyterian Church of Winchester

Serving Christ and Neighbor in Winchester and Beyond since 1800

  • Home
  • Contact Us
  • Sign-Up to Usher or Greet
  • Service Times
  • Are You New?
    • Directions & Parking
    • Accessibility
    • Child Care
    • Sunday School
    • Membership
  • About Us
    • Beliefs
    • History
      • Boyd Memorial Chapel
    • Affiliations
    • Baptism
    • Communion
    • Weddings
    • Request to Use the Facilities
    • Church Leadership
    • Staff
    • Employment
    • Facebook
    • Instagram
  • Ministries
    • Children’s Ministry
      • CM News
      • Kids Sunday School
      • Child Care
      • Safe Sanctuaries
      • Sign up for the Weekly CM Email Blast
      • Vacation Bible School
    • Youth Ministry
    • Adult Christian Education
    • Weekday Preschool
    • Mission and Outreach
    • WATTS 2022
    • Care and Compassion
    • Prayer
    • Music
      • Children’s Choirs
    • Worship
      • Watch Worship Online
      • Worship and Discipleship Council Collaboration
      • New Stone Gathering
    • Stewardship
      • Make a Pledge!
      • Questions and Answers About Pledging
      • Planned Gifting
      • Automatic Withdrawal
        • Printable Form
      • Frequently Asked Questions About Donating Online
      • Donate
  • News & Events
    • View Online Worship Services
    • eNotice
    • Calendar
    • Subscribe to Weekly eNotices
    • Member Directory
  • Sermons
    • Dan McCoig
    • Amanda Thomas
  • WATCH WORSHIP
You are here: Home / Uncategorized / March 10, 2013 The Scandal of God’s Grace

March 10, 2013 The Scandal of God’s Grace

March 11, 2013 by Todd Bowman

March 10, 2013

“The Scandal of God’s Grace”

The Rev. Maren Sonstegard-Spray

Scripture Reading: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32         

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

3 So he told them this parable:

11 Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons.

12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them.

13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.

14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.

15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.

16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.

17 But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!

18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’

20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

21 Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

25 “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.

27 He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.

29 But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.

30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’

31 Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

 

 

This story is so familiar that sometimes it is hard to really hear it fresh.  It is one of the most beloved story in all the Bible.  Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Dickens called it the greatest story in the Bible.  Perhaps that is because we relate to particular characters: the parent because we know what it is like to have our children do hurtful things, the older brother because we can be a little self-righteous now and then, the younger brother because we have lost our way.

There are many titles we could give this story: The Prodigal Son, The Lost Sons, The Waiting Father, The Enabling Father, The Undignified Dad.  I would call it, “The scandal of a father who loved his sons so much that it neatly cost him everything.”

 

We don’t read this story as scandalous because we hear it with our American ears.  On some level we get the younger son wanting to go out and spread his wings and make his way in the world, and what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.  With the trend of young adults moving back home with their parents (I’ve done it), there may be some parents out there who would like for their children to set out on their own.

But Jesus’ culture was entirely different.  This story would have taken the original hearers completely aback.  They wouldn’t have seen it coming.

 

Jesus was eating with sinners, with the lost, and he is criticized for it so he starts telling these parables.  One about a lost sheep and another about a lost coin, and there is rejoicing when these lost things are found (I rejoice when I find my lost car keys).  Jesus is talking about how much God rejoices when sinners repent.

Just as Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them, so does God.

 

Jesus is talking about repentance – it is Lent and we get repentance.

And then out of the blue comes this story – and we think it is going to continue with this theme: something is lost, it gets found, there is repentance and great rejoicing.

But the story is not really about a lost son, and it is not really about repentance.  It is about a scandal.  It is about dysfunctional family with a weak patriarch who sacrifices his honor, his livelihood, his retirement plan, and his standing in the community for the love of his children.

In Jesus’ story the father does things no one in his culture would ever do.

To begin with, the younger son asks for his share of the property that would come to him as inheritance when the father died.

You may have heard this before, but that is like saying to his father, “I wish you were dead” or “You are dead to me.”  He was asking for not only his share of the livestock, but his share of the family’s ancestral land, the land that would have supported the aging father until his death.   Ancient laws had no provision for doing this as far as we know, but the father agrees.  The land is sold and the son who should have cared for his parents until their death, abandons them and his family and his community.

It is difficult for us to understand how great a break of trust this was.

Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “[Jesus’] world was largely agrarian, for one thing. Chances are that nine out of ten of Jesus’ listeners were rural farmers, like the family in the parable. Their land was their livelihood. They received it in trust from their ancestors and they held it in trust for their children. There was no courthouse where they could record their claims to it. Those claims were kept in the memory of the community, where honor was everything. Break faith with the community or lose its respect and your property lines might be “forgotten,” just like that. A great deal depended on being and having good neighbors. When you needed help getting your crops in before the rain came, or raising a barn—or having a baby, or digging a grave—you counted on the neighbors, the same way they counted on you.”

This wayward son brought shame on his whole family.  He has dramatically affected their means of making a living, and their relationships with their neighbors.

It is difficult for us to understand the power of honor and shame in the culture of Jesus’ day.

To associate with sinners, as Jesus was doing, was shameful.

To lose money to Gentiles was shameful.

To leave your family and your land was shameful.

We don’t really understand this – but there are still cultures around the world where honor is everything.  In some places in Africa a woman who is HIV positive who has a baby and who could dramatically reduce the child’s chance of getting HIV by not breast feeding it, will throw away the bottle and formula given to her because it will tell everyone in her community that she has HIV and the shame is too great, and she will be ostracized.

There are places in the world where families kill their daughters because of rumors that they are no longer virgins, even if it was because they were raped.

There are places where boys and girls kidnapped into forced prostitution will not return to their families when they are freed because they are too ashamed and the community will not accept them.

 

Honor was everything – it meant whether you were connected or not, whether you were worthy of love or not.  Whether you were accepted in your home and in your village.

Brené Brown is a research professor at the University of Houston and for years she has studied relationships and she gave a TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) talk on shame and vulnerability that has become one of the most watched of all time with almost 8 million views.

And she says in the talk that she started out studying connection.  We are hard-wired for connection and she discovered through years of research that what breaks connection is shame – shame being what tells us that we are not worthy of love and connection.

The shame that this younger son brought upon himself breaks his connection to his family and his community.  There was even a ceremony that the younger son could expect the community to perform on his return – it is called a Gesasah. This is a ceremony for a son of the village who has lost his money to Gentiles or married an immoral woman. The community would gather around him, breaking large earthenware jars filled with corn and burned nuts and declare that he was to be cut off from the village. His entry into the village would be humiliating as his townspeople expressed their anger and resentment toward him. After that, he is considered an orphan.

So the son leaves, loses everything, becomes an indentured servant to a Gentile, and is sent into the field to feed the pigs, a humiliation to a Jewish man.  Even more than that, he is starving so he even considers eating the same food that the pigs are eating.  And that is when he realizes that if he just goes home he will at least not be starving.

So here’s where it gets interesting.  How many of you think that the younger son is repentant – that he is truly sorry for what he has done?

It is not clear – there are a lot of Biblical scholars out there who doubt that he is.  I always assumed that he was.

Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “The prodigal’s hope, apparently, is to reach his father before the village reaches him. He has his confession ready. He isn’t returning home out of love, and he won’t pretend he is. He is returning home out of hunger. He is returning to apply for a job as a hired hand on what is left of the family farm. If he can earn enough to pay back what he has lost, then perhaps he can dodge the gesasah ceremony. Once again, being in relationship is not on the prodigal’s list of priorities. Being in groceries is. Being under a dry roof is.”

The story doesn’t say that he felt sorry, only that he realized he would be better off a slave in his father’s house because he would be treated better and fed.

In the story about the lost coin and the lost sheep Jesus talks about repentance, and uses the word repentance.  But he doesn’t in this story, at all.  One commentator writes, “Perhaps Jesus’ point is that even scoundrels are joyfully welcomed in God’s household. Just pointing oneself toward home is what unleashes God’s welcome.”

Here is what patriarchs in Jesus’ Middle Eastern culture would not have done.  They would not have tolerated any disrespect from their children because of the depth of honor owed the patriarch of a clan.  Patriarchs did not run. Patriarchs did not leave their places at the heads of their tables when guests were present. Patriarchs did not plead with their children; they told their children what to do.

And yet this patriarch, the father, in our story runs out to meet his disrespectful son.  Aristotle said, “Great men never run in public,” but this father runs.

He runs out like a girl, like a mother instead of a father—he runs and puts his arms around his son, and kisses him right there on the road, where everyone can see them.  He runs to get to his son first, before anyone in the community can cast him out.  He exposes himself to terrible humiliation to prevent his son from being humiliated.

As one commentator puts it, “His running to meet his son is an expression of a love so strong that one is willing to cast one’s dignity to the winds, to put aside one’s power and position for the good of another.”

Back to Brené Brown’s research – she discovered that what restores relationships, what restores connections that have been broken by shame, is vulnerability.  And vulnerability can look different for different people – but sometimes it looks like offering forgiveness before the other person is sorry, and sometime it looks like saying I love you first.

The father is vulnerable – he offers his son a kiss, which was a sign of forgiveness before the son even makes his rehearsed speech which may or may not be sincere, he offers him a robe, the best one, his own robe, which was a mark of distinction, a signet ring which was a sign of authority, and shoes because only slaves go barefoot.

And the father throws a banquet before anyway can throw a shunning party.  It is a feast of reconciliation for anyone who will come.

The younger son is literally saved by love and vulnerability of the father.

We so often read this story as a repentance story and maybe even apply it to ourselves – all we need to do is turn around and head home.

But it is not really about repentance – it is a love story.  A story about a father’s love that sacrifices everything – honor, wealth, pride, status – for his child.

As Barbara Brown Taylor puts it, “The restoration of relationship means more to him than being thought great, right or even a good father. His son’s salvation costs him almost as much as his son’s abandonment of him in the first place, yet he never says a word about the price.”

That’s how God loves.  God is vulnerable, vulnerable enough to overcome our shame and sinfulness.  This is the scandalous story of God’s grace.  Our gospel was always a love story about a father longing for us to come home.

In the end, as much as we like to explain Jesus’ parables, it is more important that we experience the story for ourselves.  This is our story.  God is running out to meet us.

Amen.

 

 

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Serving Christ and Neighbor in the Heart of Winchester and Beyond

View Online Worship Services

Facebook Feed

Instagram Feed

firstpresbyterianwinchester

A Thoughtful, Compassionate, and Engaged Faith-Based Community.
🌿 All Welcome 🌿
♡ 🌈 ♡
#oldtownwinchester

First Presbyterian Winchester
“What if we shifted our model of church membersh “What if we shifted our model of church membership to church partnership? I could no longer say I am a member of First Presbyterian Church. I would have to say that in Christ I am a partner with others in Christ at First Presbyterian Church who together do God’s justice and love God’s mercy and walk humbly with God.”

The Jesus Following Movement |May 22, 2022 | Dan McCoig
#firstpreswinc #fpcwinc #sermon #sunday #oldtownwinchester
Pictured here are donations from just this week! I Pictured here are donations from just this week! Isn't that awesome?

There's still time to donate!
Sunday or throughout the following week between the hours of 9AM - 2PM. 

#FPC #firstpreswinc #fpcwinc #thankyou
To read the full statement, please visit PC(USA)’s website. It can be found under the “News” Heading. 
May 17, 2022 
#pcusa #matthew25 #fpcwinc
“I’m not sure what it’s going to take for us “I’m not sure what it’s going to take for us to see all of our neighbors as people who were created by God, redeemed by God, and sustained by God — who bear God’s image.  But it’s the place we will need to get to if there is to be hope for us.”

A Living God | 15 May 2022 |  Dan McCoig

#fpcwinc #oldtownwinchester #sermon #msv #lovethyneighbor
The wagon will be at service - this Sunday! Thank The wagon will be at service - this Sunday!

Thank you to all who support this longstanding tradition of giving with CCAP. 

#winchesterva #fpcwinc #fpcwinchester
eNotice- eNotice-
Instagram post 17956345597681536 Instagram post 17956345597681536
Join us for Worship Outside! Sun MAY 29 | 10 AM On Join us for Worship Outside!
Sun MAY 29 | 10 AM
Only one service | Old Town Cidery
326 N. Cameron St
Galatians 6:2: "Carry each other’s burdens and s Galatians 6:2:
"Carry each other’s burdens and so you will fulfill the law of Christ."
We hope to see you there tonight! We hope to see you there tonight!
"We know this epic love story but we cannot stop a "We know this epic love story but we cannot stop at its familiarity. We open ourselves up to the unexpected as we arrive at the tomb and realize we have to lay our own spices down, letting go of what we know how to do to step toward whatever is next. … Do not be daunted by the symbols and signs of death. Do not be overwhelmed by what is, or what you hope will be."

— Commentary by Rev. Larissa Kwong Abazia on Luke 24:1-12
Image: “Prepared” by Hannah Garrity | sanctifiedart #fpcwinc #lent 

A Sanctified Art (sanctifiedart.org / sanctifiedart)
"One day, one day we will say, “It is finished "One day,
one day 
we will say, 
“It is finished”
and only mean the 
book we just read,
the cake we just baked,
the song that made us sing,
the meal around the table,
the familiar drive back home."

—Excerpt from “It Is Finished” by Rev. Sarah Speed
From the Full to the Brim poetry collection by sanctifiedart #fpcwinc #lent 

A Sanctified Art (sanctifiedart.org / sanctifiedart)
eNotice-Easter. Click the link in the bio to read eNotice-Easter. Click the link in the bio to read this week's eNotice.
"We live in a world that feels woefully unfair, th "We live in a world that feels woefully unfair, that is woefully unfair. It is unfair that certain people aren’t seen in their full humanity. It is unfair that not seeing this humanity leads to suffering, mistreatment, lack of care, and loss of life. And yet, when we mourn these situations and honor humanity, we show that our capacity to love has not been taken away in all this."

— Commentary by Rev. Ashley DeTar Birt on John 19:1-30
Image: “Posca” by Carmelle Beaugelin | sanctifiedart #fpcwinc #lent 

A Sanctified Art (sanctifiedart.org / sanctifiedart)
"For me, there is a liminality to standing with my "For me, there is a liminality to standing with my feet submerged, not far from dry ground. Whether a boat ride or baptism, you’re going somewhere you’ve never been when you decide to take that step. The disciples have no idea where their own journey will take them. Peter is at first reluctant to even dip his toes into the water—into the liminality. But they’re assured they’ll be with Jesus on the other side."

— from the artist statement for “Threshold” by Rev. T. Denise Anderson | sanctifiedart #fpcwinc #lent 

A Sanctified Art (sanctifiedart.org / sanctifiedart)
“For now, alongside the disciples, we are invite “For now, alongside the disciples, we are invited to surrender to the moment. Take our shoes off and feel the solid ground below. Rest our weary bodies and souls to be cleansed by the water splashing in the basin. Through these waters, we will become more deeply present to the days ahead.”

—Rev. Larissa Kwong Abazia
Commentary on John 13:1-17, 31b-35 for sanctifiedart #fpcwinc #lent 

A Sanctified Art (sanctifiedart.org / sanctifiedart)
"God of mercy, one of the last things you did for "God of mercy, one of the last things you did for your disciples was wash their feet. It was love in action. Remind us that we are worthy of that same generous love. Help us receive and trust authentic love when it is given. We too are worthy of being cared for. Amen."

—Prayer by Rev. Sarah Speed | sanctifiedart #fpcwinc #lent 

A Sanctified Art (sanctifiedart.org / sanctifiedart)
"Justice will bubble up, hope will raise its head "Justice will bubble up, 
hope will raise its head, 
love will rise to the surface. 
Hate and fear will try to 
drown them out,
but you cannot silence 
what was here first, 
which was love,
and it was good.
It was so good.
So even the stones will cry out. 
Remember that 
at your parade."

— Excerpt from "Even the Stones Will Cry Out" by Rev. Sarah Speed
Image: “Even the Stones Cry Out” by Rev. Lauren Wright Pittman | sanctifiedart #fpcwinc #lent 

A Sanctified Art (sanctifiedart.org / sanctifiedart)
“Expressing our joys, telling our truths, asking “Expressing our joys, telling our truths, asking the questions we need to ask, repenting and making amends, being our honest and authentic selves—these things are too important to be silent. We shouldn’t have to restrain ourselves because some may temporarily experience discomfort.”

—Rev. Ashley DeTar Birt
Commentary on Luke 19:28-40 for sanctifiedart #fpcwinc #lent 

A Sanctified Art (sanctifiedart.org / sanctifiedart)
"Dear God, we all know the perfect sting of a crit "Dear God, we all know the perfect sting of a critic, calling us out when we go our own way. We all know the fear that tells us to stay put, and the anxiety around doing a new thing. It can be all-encompassing. Remind us to trust our gut, to listen to our heart, and to follow where you lead. Help us be brave. Help us be faithful. Amen."

—Prayer by Rev. Sarah Speed | sanctifiedart #fpcwinc #lent 

A Sanctified Art (sanctifiedart.org / sanctifiedart)
Load More Follow on Instagram

Return to top

First Presbyterian Church of Winchester | 116 South Loudoun Street | Winchester, Virginia, USA, 22601

Tele. No.: 540-662-3824 | Fax: 540-662-8498