“Come Home!”
Sermon for MCC
New Haven
March 10th,
2013
Rev. Brian
Hutchison, M.Div.
Texts:
2Corinthians
5:17-20
Luke
15:11-32
We continue
this week celebrating women as part of Women’s History Month. In fact, this
past Friday was International Women’s Day, a day to recognize the accomplishments
of women and to recognize what inequalities still exist around the world. This
special day has been recognized since the early 1900s when the Women’s Suffrage
Movement was active. This year’s theme is “The Gender Agenda: Gaining
Momentum.” On InternationalWomensDay.com, you can learn about efforts around
the world to protect women against violence, ensure equality in the workplace,
and much more.
In light of
this theme, I am going to read today’s Gospel reading to you in a different
form. This time, I will use a narrative version of the Bible called The Message
and all characters have been made female. Listen to see how your perspective
changes.
“11 Then Jesus said, "There was once a woman who had two daughters.
12 The
younger said to her mother, 'Mother, I want right now what's coming to me.' 13 It wasn't long before the
younger daughter packed her bags and left for a distant country. There,
undisciplined and dissipated, she wasted everything she had. 14 After she had gone through
all her money, there was a bad famine all through that country and she began to
hurt. 15 She signed on with a citizen there who assigned her to her
fields to slop the pigs. 16 She was so hungry she would have eaten the corncobs in the
pig slop, but no one would give her any. 17 "That brought her to her senses. She said, 'All those
farmhands working for my mother sit down to three meals a day, and here I am
starving to death. 18 I'm going back to my mother. I'll say to her, Mother, I've
sinned against God, I've sinned before you; 19 I don't deserve to be called your daughter. Take me on as a
hired hand.' 20 She got right up and went home to her mother. When she was
still a long way off, her mother saw her. Her heart pounding, she ran out,
embraced her, and kissed her. 21 The daughter started her speech: 'Mother, I've sinned
against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your daughter
ever again.' 22 "But the mother wasn't listening. She was calling to
the servants, 'Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress her. Put the
family ring on her finger and sandals on her feet. 23 Then get a grain-fed heifer
and roast it. We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful time! 24 My daughter is here - given
up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!' And they began to
have a wonderful time. 25 "All this time her older daughter was out in the field.
When the day's work was done she came in. As she approached the house, she
heard the music and dancing. 26 Calling over one of the servants, she asked what was going
on. 27 She told her, 'Your sister came home. Your mother has
ordered a feast - barbecued beef! - because she has her home safe and sound.' 28 "The older sister
stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. Her mother came out and
tried to talk to her, but she wouldn't listen. 29 The daughter said, 'Look
how many years I've stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of
grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? 30 Then this daughter of yours
who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a
feast!' 31 "Her mother said, 'Daughter, you don't understand.
You're with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours - 32 but this is a wonderful
time, and we had to celebrate. This sister of yours was dead, and she's alive!
She was lost, and she's found!'"
It
changes your perspective a bit doesn’t it? Feminist and Womanist biblical
scholars have made it known for decades now that women’s voices and
perspectives matter. After millennia of patriarchy, sexism, and misogyny, women
have finally given themselves (and all people) permission to see that the truth
of our holy scriptures is for ALL people, not just for those with a Y
chromosome. It is from Feminist/Womanist theAlogians
that LGBT people have also learned to find our truth within the text.
We
can imagine ourselves as that child who decided for whatever reason that
leaving home was necessary. Many of us leave home or are kicked out of our
homes because of our affectual or gender identities. Forty + percent of
homeless youth are LGBT, which is grossly disproportionate. If you see a
homeless youth on the street, s/he is likely to be LGBT. I thank God that there
are programs like the one at MCC New York. “Open 365 days a year, MCCNY Homeless
Youth Services has helped thousands of LGBTQI runaway and homeless youth aged
18-24 to continue their work towards stability by providing them with crisis
shelter, case management, social work, psychiatric, health care and job training
services. The MCCNY Homeless Youth Services Mental Health Services Program is a
critical resource for LGBTQI runaway and homeless youth who have experienced
trauma or mental illness.”[1]
These are the kind of programs that are needed nation-wide. We can’t just hope
that the next generation of queer youth will take care of themselves. The
mental anguish of losing one’s family too often leads to poor decisions
including suicide.
That’s
why we are here, MCC! No matter how much dirt you have on your face, you can
come to this Beloved Community and be welcomed with open arms. The story
doesn’t always go as Jesus’ parable goes with the child going home to the open
arms of a parent. Too many LGBT youth have told me that their parents said to
them, “You are dead to me,” “No son of mine is going to be a sissy,” or “Repent
or go to Hell.” I’m sure some parents have even used this parable against their
children to say that they need to stop their sinful living and come home to be
good Christian boys and girls. This is not the Love of God that is demonstrated
in this parable.
No,
the Divine Mother that we read about in this parable is Divine Love, Unconditional Love. Even if you have
done every evil under the sun, God will always welcome you back with open arms.
But if instead we choose to embrace fear, our hearts are not open to the loving
embrace that is always available. It is our task as those who claim to follow
the path of Christ to spread the Good News of God’s Unconditional Love so that
more and more hearts will open to the infinite blessings the Divine has to
give. This does not mean proselytizing salvation with tracts that tell us to
fear Hell, damnation, or the end of the world. Fear-based theology has never
truly saved a single life. Fear has a purpose. If a rabid animal is chasing
you, run! If anyone is abusing you, run! But God is neither rabid nor abusive.
God is not to be feared. The old phrase, “Fear of God” does not mean what it
seems to mean at face value at all. The meaning of those words in scripture is
to revere God, to recognize that
Universal Mind, Universal Love, Universal Life guides the ways of the Universe
and conspires to eliminate all suffering.
The workings of our God inspire awe,
not fear. And what is faith but to stand in awe of all that God has done and is
doing.
We
also recognize in this parable that there is a jealous sibling. That sibling
stayed home while the so-called “prodigal” ran away. (Prodigal means
“wastefully extravagant.”) I think this parable has something specific to say to
MCC New Haven today. As we grow as a community, new people will come through
our doors and will stay. People who were formerly part of our community may
come back and want to be active again. If we truly want to grow, when this
happens, we must not act like the jealous sibling who says, “I’ve been here all
along; why celebrate those who ran away?” Instead, we must take the example of
the Parent who accepted the seeker with open arms, saying, “Welcome home!” (Older
translations say the parent “fell on the child’s neck”. I do not advise that! :) ) Not one of us can judge
another’s spiritual journey. And for goodness sake, especially don’t accuse
anyone of spending time in the brothel instead of coming to church (Remember,
the jealous sibling accused her sister of wasting money on hustlers :) ). Remember, the Spirit of God is everywhere. For a time in the 1970s, MCC
San Francisco even held services in a bathhouse!
There
is no room for judgment, ego, exclusion, or fear tactics in MCC. As the parent
of this household, the shepherd of this flock, I will not allow it- period. I
take to heart the words of the Apostle Paul as we heard them today: If anyone
is in Christ (that is if anyone chooses to journey in the footsteps of Christ),
she is a new creation! Everything old (that is: all regret, all pain, all fear,
all self-loathing, all hatred, all malice), everything old has passed away.
See, everything has become new! Church, we must follow these words with all our
hearts. And the miracle that allows us to truly follow on the path of Christ is
forgiveness. That’s really what
Jesus’ parable is about. Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians
that Love does not keep a record of wrongs. This is what Paul is also saying in
our text today, “…in Christ God is reconciling the world… not counting their mistakes against them.”
This
does not mean letting ourselves be doormats. If we are wise with our
boundaries, we don’t let others trample all over us. But it does mean trusting
another seeker on the journey at her word when she says and demonstrates that
her intention is unconditional love. As I have stated before and will continue
to state, “All are welcome. None are welcome to misbehave.”
My
final thought is what lies at the heart of the Gospel. The word “prodigal” is
not a scarlet letter on the seeker child’s chest for all to see that she did
wrong. The text teaches us instead that the label of “prodigal” can be worn
with pride because God too is a prodigal.
If prodigal means “wastefully extravagant,” we recognize that this is part of
the character of God. God is wastefully and extravagantly loving! She
continually pours her love out on us without reservation because guess what?
There’s more where that came from! A feast is set before us! Come to MCC; eat,
drink, dance, and celebrate the wastefully extravagant Love that is ours today.
Amen.
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