Growth in Wisdom, March 14, 2010

Joshua 5:9-12
Luke 15: 11-32
There is a miraculous event each year in Confirmation, which happens, though there is no specific lesson in the curriculum to teach it. Baptism is a presentation of the individual, as an infant or as a brand new believer, declaring their HOPES and relationships with God and the Faith Community, before they have it all figured out or understood. Confirmation Class teaches the stories of the Bible, the history of the Church and Western Culture developed in response to the Church, as well as what we believe, and the experience of this congregation in mission in this community. All that is teaching. But having the foundation, being given the building blocks of understanding and knowing, believers begin to play with the idea of faith, developing a sense of their self and their relationship to the community and to God, developing experience of Hope, and with this GROW in WISDOM.

GROWTH in WISDOM is what both our Biblical witnesses are about this morning.

The Hebrews had been slaves of Pharaoh for as long as any could recall. They had prayed and God heard their prayer, setting them free to leave slavery and enter the wilderness. For generations, for 40 years they wandered in the wilderness, totally and completely dependent upon God, yet like a two year old continually testing the limits of God's love with their wants and desires. The People of Israel cross over Jordan from the Wilderness into the Promised Land. GROWING WISDOM is not simply a matter of endurance, or of age, or experience. God leads them across, reminding them to be a HOLY PEOPLE. The Community recall being Slaves and the Passover, and they eat the Manna of the Wilderness the food of God's providing for the last time. The Community recall their ancestors being set apart, so they too are Circumcised. Then the People build a Cairn, a Miniature Stone Mountain, a marker to remember: We once were slaves; We once were Nomadic Wanderers in the Wilderness; we have entered into the land of the Canaanites to take possession. We should imagine 4 Things with our every monument, that this is a Marker of our past, this is a reminder of what we have come through, this is a gateway into what we are entering into, but also that we are a people of God.

Joshua led the people after Moses had died. Joshua knew the history from whence they had come. Joshua remembered wandering in the wilderness for generations. Joshua was circumcised to lead this army against all they would encounter. All these things he had learned and knew and understood. When suddenly he was confronted with a Warrior he did not recognize, asking the stranger, “Are you for us, or for our enemy?” At one point in the Gospels, Jesus is recorded as saying “All who are not against us, ARE for us!” And in recent years, when Our Nation was attacked, when we suffered terrorism, our leaders decried the opposite: “All who are not For us, are Against us!” And the Stranger, the Commander of the Army of the LORD , said “NO! But on the side of God!” With the assumed question: “So Joshua, whose side are you on?” GROWTH in WISDOM is not about what we have learned, not about what we have experienced and endured, but whether we have put the pieces together in order that we can HOPE for more than we know. We are the most informed populace ever to have inhabited this creation. Between all the different News Services, Broadcasters, Bloggers, Commentators, the Internet, and Cell Phone Cameras, we are witnesses to all that goes on. So it is, that the question of the STRANGER is all the more important. When we know all the different factions and enemies, when we know what we want, and how we intend to merit and fulfill our desires, we find ourselves asking “Are you for us, or against us?” “When do I get what I want?” When the question we need to hear is “Can you see God in your midst?” “Are you on the side of Hope” “Is this for Redeeming the Lost and challenging others to believe, or for some other purpose because no other matter.”

This parable from Luke, I fear saying anything at all.
First because it is a gem, so perfect, so multi-faceted and complete, it only needs to be shown, like explaining a joke, or explaining why the struggle of the Church throughout time has been how to fulfill the wants of members, while caring for the needs of those outside, the point is lost in explanation.
Second, we need to fear saying anything more about this parable, because it has been explained and interpreted so many different times, as if to make the parable defend the position of each listener.

So this morning, we would hear the parable from two other perspectives, rarely heard from.
Instead of the Parable of the Prodigal Son who wanted the world instead of valuing what he was a part of at home; instead of the Parable of the Elder who wants the world to be Merit-Driven, with reward for accomplishment and payment for what is due, who is challenged by God's GRACE, insulted by God's Compassion. Recognize that throughout time, this parable has been told and retold in the Community of Faith, and even more than the wants of the Sinning Prodigal, more than the justifications of the Righteous Pharisees, the parable is told in the witness of the Community, about the love of God.
In 21st Century America, we perceive everything through the SELF. Individually we project ourselves into the position of each player, to know how they felt. But in other cultures, in other places, and other times, the PRIMARY FOCUS was always on the Community not the individual.

When the Prodigal demands his share, and takes what he knows to be his, to spend as he desires, the Community, the neighbors, those who have been present all his life, are insulted for the Father. When word returns to the community, that the Prodigal has wasted everything and is in trouble, the community would pass the word, “See what happens!” “A fool and his money are soon parted.” One of the descriptions of Northeastern Small Villages, is that when the Great Frontier opened up for Western Expansion beyond the Hudson River let alone the California Gold Rush, our ancestors stood back saying “You go seek your fortune, we'll be waiting right here, when you come back, penniless and in need!”

The conversation that the Prodigal has with himself, when he is in need, so in trouble that he is living with and associating with Pigs, when even the pigs have not shared with him food pods that no human being would ever eat, is GROWTH IN WISDOM, Wisdom that comes from taking a step back to FACE HIMSELF. There is no expectation here, that his Father would redeem him, would take him back, would repay all that was lost, not even an expectation that his father would/could forgive. But only the confession to himself, that he would be better off, going back to being as a slave of his father's house, than being all alone and lost in this wilderness, among these people and pigs.

Realizing the importance of Community, and Community perception, in other times and other places, when word would have come to the Village, the whole town would have turned out, not to give him a ticker-tape parade, as the Native Son whom we are proud of, but that the whole town would have turned out to hiss and to boo and to throw things at him, not only for insulting his father, but for insulting their community, for having gone his way.

Now knowing what that Community was like, we can understand the desperation of the son at having to come passed that marker, back into slavery, back from the foreign land. Which makes the reaction of the Father all the more dramatic. This was not a time when Father's were known for being in touch with their Feminine-side, being in touch with their feelings, but rather the expectation was that Father's were STOIC, unmoved, even to accept this one who had embarrassed him back would be seen as a sign of weakness. And yet, so deep is the LOVE and COMPASSION of GOD as our Father, that God would run through the streets, would run the gauntlet for his son, so as to bear the shame, and receive the insults for his son, that he has come home. Yet, not only for the younger son, but with exactly the same SHAME, the elder son when all the community are gathered at their home for a party calls his father out, before the community to say “I Cannot Celebrate, I cannot have Hope.” This is not a parable like the Good Samaritan where Jesus asks “which one acted as Neighbor, which acted on the side of God?” But rather both the Prodigal and the Elder, the Sinners and the Righteous, and also the Community of Faith have been wrong, because the side of God is to accept the indignation of others for the redemption of the lost in order to bring them inside.

Whenever we hear this story, we wonder, the Father accepted the scorn of neighbors and friends in seeking the Prodigal and in going out on the Porch to redeem the Elder, did the Elder enter in to celebrate and have hope, or did he stay outside, or go his way. Are you on our side or for our enemy... And the answer is Neither, but on the side of God who is ever willing to redeem the lost.
How do we teach Growth in Wisdom?