March 27, 2022
There are sleep-away camps that are in brick and mortar dorms yards away from any wild kingdom. The camps I went to and worked at and have ministered in, were up close and personal with the tender ferociousness of nature. And more than one Girl Scout camp I worked at had cabins with only one wall! If that’ isn’t an embodiment of vulnerability to the wildness of creation, then nothing is. If you haven’t been close to such wilderness, your first time at camp can be frightful. But for everyone, it is vulnerable.
In camp ministry, we talk about how people get to leave the ‘costumes’ and pressures of the rest of the world on the other side. Go to camp and be welcomed and loved and fed. Go practice being generous and patient and less cruel, or selfish, or whatever separates you from God. Try on being someone more the shape of who God created us to be.
While camp is a whole lot about delight It is also very much about learning the ways of forgiveness. Forgiving ourselves, forgiving our neighbors. There was Nelson the counselor-in-training who broke a Sunfish sailboat because he was showing off for a laugh. Sarah who came to camp with her best friend Jade, with whom she shared everything. And then at camp Jade met Kelly, and now Sarah is left behind in the dust, but Jade doesn’t see that she has forgotten Sarah. Cabin mates who are messy living with those who are not. River the waterfront director, who really just thought they were hired to lounge on the shore all day. Without forgiveness there would be no camp. I am reading a book where the letter D disappears and it causes some chaos. Camp without forgiveness – or school, or family, or grocery shopping – without forgiveness – would be an utter hell. There is no camp, no wholeness, without forgiveness.
Everything everything is here in this parable. If there is one best short section of text that tells all of the Gospel Invites us into why Jesus matters It might be this one. Whether you call it the forgiving father: since that seems to be the easiest way to read it. Or the prodigal son: its most commonly known title, especially when read from a Calvinist point of view. Or as a contemporary scholar calls it: the parent who forgot to count. This parable is as brief as it is infinite. The Lukan sacred storyteller shares Jesus’ words – however that artist infuses them with the whole paschal mystery. In this parable is cross and resurrection and reunion celebrated at the feast. Our gospel lesson starts with the question that elicits this teaching. Jesus who hangs out with the last and the least and the might as well be dead. How can he be of God?!? Maybe they sneer, maybe they genuinely cannot wrap their minds around it. Forgiveness for all for real is hard to comprehend.
Jesus’ response in the part the lesson skips – is first to tell about the ‘counselor’ who searches over hill and dale to find the ‘in her own world and never paying attention’ camper and bring her to the mess hall where the whole camp rejoices. Next, Jesus tells of the camper who is checking the contents of his back pack and discovers that the sunscreen is missing. So he tosses around everything in the cabin to search high and low that he might find what he has lost. When he finds it, he calls all his cabinmates and throws a sunbathing – with plenty of sunscreen – party to celebrate. Lost and found is code for death and resurrection.
Jesus then continues the reply about what terrible company he kept with todays lesson. There were two sons. Two children of a person who has given over his life to his sons. The Greek word that is used to speak of inheritance isn’t the bank account, the word, it is substance – it can be his assets, but it can also be heard as his life. And since Jesus has given us multiple cues that this is about death and resurrection – life is what this person has given. This man, this caregiver has given away his life. Imagine the completeness of what that means in human terms.
The father has lost it all, The wandering son is obviously lost, However, the second son also gets lost. He even gets lost in the interpretations. So invisible that he too might as well be dead. The counselor counted. The camper counted. The father had two sons. There are plenty of people, perhaps more women, who might feel close to this stay-at-home person. Being responsible is a good thing, but not if we are erased by it. The mercy isn’t just a one-way street here. The prodigal-ness isn’t one-sided. The reconciliation here is no cheap grace.
Every single session of camp I ever experienced is in this parable. Whether it be on the scale of cabin or session or organization. We are in this infinitely layered parable. Every family, congregation, school, company. She who does everything backwards, and in high heels, and either reviled or left behind all the time.. Freewheeling fly-by-night cabin mate who doesn’t have a clue, but wins best camper award. The nurse who gives out blanket after blanket, but doesn’t notice the hole in the tent. Unnamed staff who make up for the labor lost and still make the party happen. The volume of mercy that is needed each and every day is not something we can manage or offer on our own. No truckload of kindness or mindfulness or caffeine is possibly enough. This is a story in need of an everlasting lake of God-given mercy.
Forgiveness is the way The way beyond suffering and lostness and nearly deadness and it is the way into feasting. Sacred reconciliation is not weak resignation. That parent gave his whole life and then He looked the comfort of resentment and bitterness in the face and chose mercy. It was not easy. Mercy also isn’t tolerance. Many of us can be nearly infinitely tolerant of a whole lot of not great And at the same time deeply unforgiving of a great deal more. God commands forgiveness. What does it feel like to truly forgive yourself, and one another as we have been forgiven? Does it feel like jumping in a lake? Like a glass of the best water turned to wine?
The forgiveness of God is due to nothing more than God’s wildness. Steadfast love and mercy are wild. They are not the actions of an anxiety or scarcity mindset. The grace of this parable is infinitely expansive and abundant and free. In Jesus, God walks into our cabins where we stash all our resentments. God opens up our door. Says hello, I love you. Jesus unlocks our trunks of tiny words that we have spun into poisonous tomes and he recycles and shreds them – all of them – all our failures and hurts and lostness and deadness. Forgiveness doesn’t ignore wrong and hurt; it chooses the wildness of God that overcomes the evil in us and the world with steadfast love. I wonder – is this wild mercy of God is something we embrace or Are we building walls and locking the doors against it?
Today finally – we invite you to return to the fullness of the table, coming close again to the wild fermentation of God In the wine of the Holy Eucharist. Do you wonder sometimes at the wild mercy of the Lord? Can you taste and see such liberation today? The traveling son is lost and all but dead, The parent gave his whole life, The stayed put son is lost right where he always was. All but dead, three times. In all of the gospels, none of the stories where Jesus is in the company of might as well be dead things In none of those does he ignore it or let it stay where it is. There is judgment here, But it isn’t about lives of wild ill-repute or gloomy numbness, The judgment here is whether or not we accept that the wildness of God can raise us from all the lostness we can manufacture. And then we are invited to a feast, one centered on fermentation because bread and wine are wild things – like God’s very self. The pattern is set: lost- found, throw a party. Lost – found, throw a party. The Lukan sacred storyteller knows that you might know that party is code for the eucharistic feast. A feast which means what Jesus says – for the forgiveness of sins. Which is bound up in the story of liberation from evil and chaos. Lost – found, throw a liberation reconciliation feast. The countless caregiver, child two, child one, Servants, critters, All invited to the liberation table of this parable, a wild gift of forgiveness of sin by the love of God. A freely given gift of his whole life much much harder than shrugging it off or staying away.
I loved and love the wild peace of camp, but the memories of necessary reconciliation are just as present as the ones of growth and new life. Jesus invites us to be at the feast: a more vulnerable us, ready to be changed. Lost- found, throw a party. It is a wild invitation to become who we are intended to be – lifegiving, liberating, loving people who give our lives for God’s reign.
March 27, 2022
RCL C Lent 4