Breath of Life

John 20:19-31    

Do you remember that ad campaign from about twenty years ago? Somebody started taking out billboard ads that were meant to look like messages from God. They were usually kind of funny. One of them said, “Well, you did ask for a sign.” Some were cute and encouraging, like “Come on over, and bring the kids.” Or “Let’s meet at my house Sunday, before the game.” Or “Loved the wedding; invite me to the marriage.”

Some were a little more ominous, although still funny, like, “You think it’s hot here?” “What part of ‘Thou shalt not’ didn’t you understand?” My favorite has always been, “Don’t make me come down there.”

I love that one because, well, it reminds me of my parents. And yes, I have probably said it, or something like it, myself at some point in all my years of parenting. I love it for those reasons, and also because God did come down. And he will come again. And, how do we feel about that?

With our text today, we have an opportunity to think about how the first disciples felt about it.

Last week we read the resurrection morning story as Luke tells it, in which the women who arrive at the tomb see that the stone is rolled away, the body of Jesus is missing, and two dazzling guys, probably angels, are waiting for them. They tell the women they are looking in the wrong place, because Jesus is not dead, he is risen. Then the women run off to tell the men all of this – which the men do not believe.

John’s telling of the story is a little bit different – which shouldn’t surprise anyone, because isn’t it perfectly natural that everyone has a slightly different version of how things happened? In John’s gospel, Mary Magdalene is alone that morning, and when she sees how everything has been overturned, she runs back to the men. A couple of the men run back to see for themselves, but they don’t understand so they just return home, John says, the place where they have been staying in Jerusalem.

Mary stays and sees the angels – but that’s not all. She has a face to face encounter with Jesus himself. Jesus tells her to go and share the good news with the disciples, which she does immediately. Unlike Luke, John doesn’t say that the men did not believe – but neither does he say they did.

All we know was that they remained behind locked doors. John tells us they were locked in because of their fear of the Jews, but I don’t believe they were really afraid of the Jews. After all, they were Jews – each and every one of them. It’s possible they were afraid of the Romans. Although, they were not afraid to run to the tomb that Sunday morning, so they might not have been afraid as they claimed.

Not of the Jews. Not of the Romans. It’s possible they were afraid of Jesus. Because he was back. And what would that mean.

They weren’t looking so great right now. They had saved themselves, but they couldn’t save Jesus. They would not stand with him through his ordeal of the week before. Peter, for all his bravado, would not declare his allegiance to Jesus. Instead, he lied three times and said he did not know him. None of these men had been able to accompany him to the cross. None of them had been willing to fight for his life.

And I’ll bet they were really miserable about that – not just Jesus’ death, but their own failures. Part of them had died when Jesus died. But that didn’t mean they were ready to welcome him back. What would he do? What would he say?

Such a concern would be legitimate. Jesus had a legitimate beef with these guys. Perhaps they were thinking of the law saying you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth and so on. Even though Jesus said something different, but they might not have remembered that. People rarely seem to remember that he had said to them, “You have heard it said, ‘eye for eye, tooth for tooth,’ but I say to you … if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.”

Our adherence to this lovely and gracious ideal is tested every day. Last Sunday we grieved the violent attacks against Christians during their Easter celebrations in Sri Lanka. These attacks were claimed to be payback for attacks against Muslims at worship in New Zealand last month. Those attacks were also religiously and racially motivated. It goes on and on.

And just Saturday we bore witness to another synagogue shooting, as people worshiped on the last day of Passover. Again, someone acting out their anger, feeling justified in doing so.

We are so used to seeing acts of violence born of vengeance and rage, because this is what people do. But Jesus taught his disciples, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”

Would someone who teaches this be someone they need to fear?

They stayed inside, behind a locked door. Maybe they though a locked door could keep him out.

When it was evening on that first day of the week, and the doors of the house where the disciples were staying were locked – locked for fear of something; maybe just for fear of coming face to face with themselves. Could they forgive themselves for failing Jesus like they did? They grieved his death, their failure, and this loss of hope.

Turn the bolt, lock the door on hope, on freedom, on life.

Then Jesus busts in.

The book of Revelation says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with them and them with me.” Many have interpreted this verse in art, and we get these paintings of Jesus standing in front of a door; knock, knock. He politely waits.

Can you imagine that, really? The one who busted out of hell, busted out of the grave, right through that stone – is he going to stand outside and wait?

When it comes down to it, neither locked doors nor massive stones, not even death can keep him out. Jesus came in and stood among them and without waiting for a greeting or a response, he wished them peace. Peace. And this means I forgive you. I love you. We’re good, you and me.

He showed them his wounds. He breathed on them the breath of life, and he gave them a job: Go out, be my witnesses, and spread forgiveness.

And now they can, because once they have received forgiveness and the new life in the Spirit, they can share that forgiveness with everyone.

I wonder what this world would be like if everyone who professes to be Christian lived by these principles.

Do we welcome Jesus back? We sure do need him. There are too many messengers of hate and death. We need words of peace and forgiveness. We surely need his Spirit – the breath of life.

Photo: from https://godspeaks.com/

But …

Acts 10:34-43    

Luke24:1-12     

During this season of Lent I took on a daily discipline of writing. A group called Rethink Church, affiliated with the United Methodist Church, offered something they call the photo-a-day challenge for Lent. Each day they offered a word and invited people to share a photo on social media that expresses that word for them. I decided to also use words, to think through what the word prompt means to me and share that, along with a picture.

It’s been an interesting and challenging experience, the kind of exercise that helps me think deeply about what words mean to me. Something I think is worth doing, because words are important. Words provide much of the meaning in our lives. even little words like “but.”

You might have thought this a strange sermon title. “But” is not much of a word. It does not really stand alone, nor is it a proper way to begin a sentence, so we were taught in school. Yet, this is the word that begins the 24^th chapter of Luke’s gospel.

It’s a very strange way to begin something new, because the very nature of the word means you have to look back to see what happened before it. What happened before this chapter that is being rebutted? What happened before this chapter that has been disrupted? What happened just before this which makes the events of this chapter a surprise? We actually know the answer to that.

We know what happened before. Jesus was hung on a cross, the Roman instrument of torture and execution. He breathed his last breath. His friends stood by and bore witness to this. Then they went to get permission to take down his body. They took his body down and wrapped it in a linen cloth and laid it in a tomb.

Then they left, for it was the eve of the sabbath, a day that would require rest. “On the sabbath they rested according to the commandment,” Luke says at the end of chapter 23. Then we turn the page, and we find that word:

But, early in the morning of the first day of the week, the women went back to the tomb with the intent of tending to his corpse, the thing they were prevented from doing the Friday before. They were expecting to find a three-day-dead body to deal with, but –

They found the stone had been rolled away. They found no body in the tomb. Instead, they found two men in dazzling clothes standing beside them – angels, we might assume – who asked them why they were looking for the living among the dead. He is not here. He is risen.

And here, really, is where the story of the good news begins. If not for the but, there would be no gospel. If not for the but, nothing in Chapters 1 through 23 would have been written. If not for the but, we would not be here today.

“But” is the promise, the hope, the assurance of things not seen. It is a strong word of faith.

It’s not much of a word, I admit. But. It’s a little thing, overused and underappreciated. Nevertheless, it is the engine that turns the page.

It tells us something disruptive happened on that weekend 2,000 years ago. It tells us that God has broken in to disrupt the cycle of death. God has made a move to disturb the forces of evil in the world with good. God has interrupted our usual programming with breaking news! Some really good news.

When we hear “but,” we know that what the world had come to assume and expect, would no longer be the norm. God has intruded into our lives, intruded into the work, the domain of death, and restored life. Today we celebrate that God has done a new thing.

On Friday, he died. On Saturday, they rested. But – on Sunday, he is risen!

When the women stepped into the tomb Sunday morning and saw the dazzling men instead of the body of Jesus, they were flooded with feelings. Perplexed, disoriented, confused, anxious, terrified. In terror, they fell to the ground, hiding their faces. And they hear the dazzling men say to them, why do you look for the living among the dead? You thought he was here, but he is risen.

Well, that’s something we haven’t seen before, isn’t it? Okay, there was that one time when Jesus called Lazarus out of the grave. Lazarus was restored to life, but he was going to die again. This thing that happened with Jesus at the tomb was different. This is God reaching into our world and saying, death doesn’t mean a thing. The life I am offering you is bigger than that. I’m talking about a new kind of life.

God reached into this world and changed things. God gave Jesus new life; and through the risen Christ, God is offering it to us too.

Easter, life eternal, is not a thing that only means something to us at the time of our death. It means something every day of our life.

He was in the grave, but now he is risen. He was dead, but now he is alive. We were filled with sadness, but now we are filled with joy. The power, the anticipation, the hope expressed in this word “but.” Everything turns on this word. “But” is the hinge that opens the door to new life.

Now that we know this, now that we stand in front of this open door, what do we do? How does this impact the way we live our lives today?

The truth is much of the time we still live our lives as though this had never happened. We live as though the most important things are the things that are perishable. We attach great value to things in the world that are as good as dead. We carry on with the old life, the one that God broke into the world to disrupt, the one where death still has the final word. We live this old life which is a zero-sum game, where in order for me to gain something someone else has to lose something. This is the way the world works. It offers a life where the things we fight for, obsess about, boast of, are things that will all perish anyway.

That is the old life that God broke into and offered something new. In this new life, everything is changed. We know that not only does death no longer have the final word, but also that there is greater life – deeper, joyful, and abundant life – when we stop trying to hold this perishable life with such a tight fist.

The dazzling men/angels said to the women, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? Don’t you remember all that he told you? That all these things would happen and on the third day he would rise up. Remember?”

And then they did remember, and they went back to find the men and tell them everything. But, the men did not believe them. These words seemed to them an idle tale.

Again, it turns on this hinge – the word “but.” This time, however, that little word turns them not toward life but away from life.

We all are given this opportunity. We have heard the story, probably many times over. We recite the lines in the Apostles’ Creed: Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried. He descended into hell; the third day he rose again. We say these words, but the real truth of the resurrection comes to us in the experience of our lives.

If we want to truly know the resurrection from the dead, we need to live this new life God offers us through Christ, walk through that door and live that life. We do that best when we do it for each other. When we help one another live a resurrected life, in the little ways we often do –

teaching a child how to worship, holding the hymnal with them, giving them their first communion bread;

sitting with one who is facing the really hard questions, the questions that can’t be answered to our satisfaction, the questions that test our faith;

being the help that someone needs, even when helping is hard;

being the cool glass of water for the one who is thirsty, the piece of bread that is broken off for the one who is hungry.

We do it best when we do it for each other.

The new life in Christ, the resurrected life, comes to us when we let go of the old life, because the old life weighs us down and fills us up with things that don’t matter ultimately, things that are perishable.  Open your hand, let them go, and receive the new life in Christ.

But I have some things I need to take care of first, you might say. Like some characters we meet in the gospels – the ones who said they wanted to follow Jesus, but they had some things they needed to do first.

The hinge turns both ways. We can hear and see and believe how God has broken into the world and rebutted the wisdom of the world. Or we can offer our own “but,” turning away from the life that is offered. It is our choice. We can walk through the open door, or we can shut the door. Our choice.

The stone is rolled away. The tomb is empty. Christ is risen and he has opened the door to life for you and me. Let us walk through that door together.

Photo credit: Leitzschederivative work: MagentaGreen [CC0]

What the Lord Needs

   
Luke 19:28-40

As Jesus and his disciples are getting ready to enter Jerusalem, they are taking care of some of the details – as anyone would do before a parade. They pause some distance before reaching Jerusalem, near Bethany and Bethphage. Here, Jesus turns to two of his disciples to give them instructions. “Go ahead into the village. You will find a colt tied up. Untie it and bring it here.”

And here you might be asking yourself: Is this really okay? That they should just go in and take a colt that clearly belongs to someone else? Might someone object to this?

Jesus seems to think so, for he also tells them, “If anyone asks you what you are doing just tell them this: ‘the Lord needs it.’”

So they went in and they found the colt. They untied it and someone asked them what they were doing. And they followed his instructions to the letter, saying, “The Lord needs it.”

They whole scene has an air of mystery to it. It is an intrigue where there are code words that need to be spoken. And I don’t know but that it had all been arranged ahead of time. In any case, they come back with the donkey and the procession into Jerusalem begins.

Entering Jerusalem at this time is particularly dangerous for Jesus. Remember last week we talked about the fact that there was now a warrant out for his arrest. People were looking for him, and in Jerusalem they would surely find him.

It was dangerous for another reason, too. It was the time of the Passover – a time when Jews from all over the diaspora were making their pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The city would be packed and tensions would be high.

The Roman authorities would put in a special showing, too. As much as the Jews loved Passover, the Romans hated it. With so many people milling about, there was a high risk for some disturbance of the peace.  The Romans prized peace above all things.  But for Rome, peace meant something different than what it means to me and you.  For Rome, peace was their unquestioned, unchallenged authority.  For Rome, peace meant that there was no dissent, that there was total obedience and loyalty to the empire.  Rome prized their peace and was more than willing to use violence to keep this peace.   The irony of this should be self-evident. 

The Romans dreaded the Passover.  But this was not only because of the large crowds; it was also because of its meaning.  The Passover was, and is, Israel’s remembrance and celebration of their liberation story.  Many centuries ago, Israel remembers, God freed them from the bond of slavery in Egypt.  Many centuries ago, God chose Moses to lead them out of Egypt, through the wilderness, and to the promised land.  They remembered that God had given them freedom.  But how could they celebrate this freedom, while suffering under the oppressive foot of the Roman Empire, and not be inspired to resistance?  Rome dreaded the Passover, because they knew there was a heightened risk of uprising.

Everyone knew that this was a dangerous time in Jerusalem. Jesus, too, knew that this was a dangerous time in Jerusalem. Yet they enter the city gates, boldly, singing their praises to God and songs for peace.

Not the peace of Rome, either. These are the voices of resistance rising up.

The Pharisees lose their cool; this tension is becoming too much for them. Jesus shouldn’t be making such a big entrance. There are already reasons enough for the Roman authorities to be tightening the screws on the Jews, they don’t need another reason. The Pharisees order Jesus to shut his disciples up. But he says to them, it would make no difference.

It would make no difference, because the stones would shout out, all of God’s creation would shout praises to God, shout prayers for peace. This, too, is what the Lord needs.

This is a moment for what the Lord needs. And what we are seeing in this scene is a challenge to the oppressive powers of the world, in the name of the Lord – because the Lord needs it.

This text says to us the Lord does not need people to furtively creep about trying to keep a low profile. The Lord does not need people to practice appeasing the brutes of the world whose view of peace is having no one challenge their authority. The Lord does not need to have his people suffer deprivation. The Lord needs something very different.

But Jesus knows that getting to what the Lord needs is not a simple and easy thing. It is not as simple as saying the right words to get permission to take a colt. Getting what the Lord needs means standing against the powers of the world like Rome and any other authoritarian powers that would oppress people and ravage God’s good creation.

What the Lord needs is for us to ask for it in the Lord’s name.

It is what the disciples did when they fetched the colt. “The Lord needs it,” they said. What if we did too? When we ask people to donate to One Great Hour of Sharing, because the Lord needs it. When we protest the inhumane treatment of those who are weak – the immigrants, the poor – because the Lord needs it, because they are beloved children of God – as are you and I. When we fight to preserve a shrinking social safety net, for preserving human dignity should be our high priority because the Lord needs it.

What if we boldly asked for what the Lord needs?

What does the Lord need from you and me? I will tell you the answer that is written in the prophet Micah: The Lord needs us to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God.

On this day as we remember the sacred and loud and demanding procession into Jerusalem, let us each ask ourselves, what does the Lord need from me. As we stand on the threshold of Holy Week, knowing that as the week goes on the days get darker, let us meditate on the question: what does the Lord need from me?

Photo: Palm Sunday Cheering Crowds, from BBC Online Educational Materials

The Scent of Sacrifice

Philippians 3:4b-14    

John 12:1-8        

You may recall that this scene made it into the rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar. Judas, growing increasingly outraged at the direction things are going, just loses it here. He sings essentially the same words that are in the text. Meanwhile, Mary and a chorus of women are singing a soothing song to Jesus, urging him to relax: try not to get worried; don’t you know everything is alright now, everything’s fine. We want you to sleep well tonight. Let the world turn without you tonight.

In the play, Jesus needs soothing because he has become overwhelmed by the masses coming to him for healing. But in the actual biblical text in John’s gospel, if he needs soothing, we can probably attribute that to what has happened just before this text.

In the previous chapter, Jesus has raised Lazarus from the dead. And for Lazarus and his family and a lot of others, this is cause for celebration. But, of course, not everyone is celebrating.

Lazarus and his sisters, Mary and Martha, they were good friends of Jesus, and had been for some time. Jesus stayed at their house when he traveled through town. Mary sat at his feet, drinking in his every word; Martha toiled away in the kitchen to prepare a feast worthy of their guest. Mary and Martha and Lazarus loved Jesus.

And Jesus loved them, too. But when he gets word that Lazarus is dying, he decides to wait before going to him. He said, It’s not the dying kind of sickness. But it was, and Jesus knew it. It seems like Jesus is setting up the situation where he will raise Lazarus from the dead.

When he finally does arrive in Bethany, Lazarus has been dead four days. His family and friends have already laid him in the tomb and sealed it. There is no question about this – Lazarus is most certainly dead when Jesus calls his name and Lazarus walks out of the tomb in his grave clothes.

All the people there knew they had witnessed something extraordinary. And, of course, word of this amazing sign gets to the religious authorities – the Pharisees and the Priests. Rather than rejoice at the power of God on display, they are worried about the potential for chaos breaking loose. And this is where Caiaphas, the Chief Priest says, “It is better to have one man die for the people than to have the whole nation destroyed.” Now plans are underway. Jesus will be sacrificed.

The clock is ticking now and he knows it.

Now, in this chapter, it is six days before the Passover, Jesus is again at the home of Lazarus, newly alive, and Martha and Mary. And Mary sits down at his feet and pours out a pound of perfume and anoints his feet, wipes them with her hair. The smell of the perfume fills the house.

I wonder what it smells like.

The text says it is made of nard; spikenard, which is a flowering plant known for the medicinal properties of its oil. The oil has a therapeutic aroma that helps relax the body and mind. In ancient times it was regarded as one of the most precious oils. It was quite expensive, this nard oil; it was quite extravagant, pouring out a full pound of it on Jesus’ feet.

What does it smell like, this nard oil? To Judas, it smells like waste.

The scent of the oil raises his ire, and he voices his righteous indignation. The money spent on this could have fed the poor. But John can’t help whispering to his audience: Judas didn’t give a fig about the poor. He was an embezzler, stealing from the treasury. Even so, does he have a point? Was it wasteful to pour out a pound of perfume on Jesus’ feet?

Meanwhile, Martha is still busy fixing food, and Lazarus sits at the table quietly. You could almost forget that Lazarus was only recently dead and in the grave. Literally. Here he is, sitting at the dinner table with his family and guests. He is alive and, I imagine, happy about that. He doesn’t yet know that as he sits there the Chief Priests are plotting to have him murdered. In their minds, Lazarus is the problem. If he weren’t walking around alive, people wouldn’t be able to talk about how amazing Jesus is. They think that if they can just get rid of Lazarus, people will stop following Jesus and everything can return to normal. Lazarus doesn’t know that he will be dead again soon.

For now, he sits among his guests enjoying the aroma of the nard oil perfume. What does it smell like to Lazarus? To him, it smells like life.

Mary, I have always assumed, doesn’t let Judas and his rantings disturb her. She continues rubbing that oil she has poured out on him, using her hair; her head is bent down, her face in the thick of the scent. She is enjoying the smell of it. To Mary it smells like gratitude.

She is grateful for the gift Jesus has given to her and her family. Lazarus was dead and there was no expectation that he would live again. Yes, the sisters understood that Lazarus would rise someday – on the Day of Resurrection, the Day of Judgment, the end of time as we know it. But Jesus says to them, I AM the resurrection. I AM the life. Mary and Martha knew that they would have life through Jesus, and they bore witness to this truth that day when he called Lazarus out from the tomb. To Mary, this perfume she is filling the air with is the scent of her gratitude.

While Judas is filling the air with his self-righteous rants, Jesus speaks up in defense of Mary. “Leave her alone. She needs this for my burial.”

Now, it is hard to know how to take this. Because, in fact, she is not using it for his burial, she is using it on his living body. If it was for his burial, then she has, indeed, wasted it. But with these words, what Jesus has done is brought death back into the room.

To Jesus, this perfume is the smell of death. Because he knows that death is all around him and his own death is before him. The Passover is coming. He will travel on to Jerusalem for the festival, even though he knows there is a warrant out for him.

He knows that he must go on. He must walk into it. Because everything he has done has moved him in this direction, to this end. There is no turning back for him. The day of sacrifice is coming. As Caiaphas said, one man must die for the sake of many. It’s in the air.

It is the scent of sacrifice.

Strange, isn’t it? Thinking of all these things in terms of smell. The Apostle Paul used an unusual phrase in one of his letters, calling us “the aroma of Christ.” But it is a way of saying that we, as his followers bring him with us wherever we go – and not just in words. When we have Christ in us, we fill the air with him. Anyone will know the sincerity of our intentions because we carry the very aroma of Christ within us.

It is the scent of a lavish gift poured out to overflowing. It is the scent of his words and deeds, the scent of his crucifixion and resurrection. It is the scent of gratitude, the scent of sacrifice, the scent of death, and the scent of life.

In this reading from Philippians, Paul says there are so many things that used to be important to me but no longer matter. There are so many things I used to be concerned about but these things are now only rubbish. All that matters now is Christ crucified. Sacrificed. He said, all I want now is to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. Like Jesus did, on his way to Jerusalem, I press on, Paul says, straining forward to what lies ahead: the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.

As we move toward Holy Week, may you press on. May you breathe in the aroma of Christ, and may you fill the air with him.

Photo: a spikenard plant

Fathers and Sons

Luke 15:11-32      

There was a father who had two sons.  One son behaved respectfully, never disagreeing with his father, always deferential. When his father would say, “When you use the car, don’t leave an empty gas tank for the next person.  Fill it up, please,” this son would say, “Sure dad, I will.”  But he never did.  The other son was just plain rude.  He would say to his father, “That’s a stupid rule to have!  It’s a ridiculously petty thing to care about, and I don’t know why it matters to you.”  But he never left an empty tank.  He always filled it.  Which was the good son?  Which son was better?

There was a father who had two sons.  When they were grown, one son stayed at home with his father and cared for him in his old age, took care of the house so his father could remain there.  He possessed a sense of duty that served him and his father well.  But he never told his father he loved him - with words or any other way.  The other son left home and moved to another state where he started a career and a family.  He visited the father rarely and didn’t do the little odd jobs that needed doing when he did come back.  But he called his father every week and listened to his stories and at the end of every phone call he would say to his father “I love you.”  Which was the good son?  Which son was better?

There was a father with two sons.  One went to his father and made his demands.  He would say to his father, “You owe me.”  The other son never asked for a thing and never imagined that he was owed a thing in this life by his father. Or anyone. But he never gave him a thing either.  His philosophy of life was, “Everything I am I did myself.  Everything I have I got myself.  I look out for Number One, like everyone does, and I don’t owe anyone a single things.”  Which son was the good son?  Which son was better?

These are the kinds questions asked by such stories of fathers and sons.  They are either/or stories.  Which one is right, which one is wrong?  Who wins and who loses?  These are familiar questions, because we often do look at things in dichotomous terms:  either/or, wrong/right, in/out, black/white.  Many things in life are like that: you can either have this or that. You can do this or you can do that.  One is right and the other is wrong.  Make a choice, and wonder whether you chose well.  Sometimes you know right away, sometimes you never find out. 

I grew up in a family of four sisters and I can say I honestly never knew if either of my parents had a favorite.  I think my sisters would have to say the same.  But that never stopped us from thinking about it and making guesses.  There must have been one.  They must have had a favorite.

Kim and I have four children ourselves.  We don’t make a big deal about our wedding anniversary, but there was one year when three of the four of them gave us a card. The other one treated us to an anniversary dinner with champagne; and her friends said to her, “You are so favorite child right now.”

Scott Avett sings a beautiful song about family love,

I wonder which brother is better, which one our parents love the most.

I sure did get in lots of trouble; they seemed to let the other go.

A tear fell from my father’s eye; I wondered what my dad would say.

He said I love you and I’m proud of you both in so many different ways.

It’s not easy, though, to convince your children that your love for each of them is equally strong; that you love each of them with as much love as you have; that each one of your children gets all of your love.  Because how is that even possible?  How can you give everything away more than once?

There was a father with two sons.  One son fell in with a bad crowd and walked through life under a black cloud.  He abused alcohol and drugs, and when he hit the bottom, his father gathered him in and sent him to the best rehab he could afford.  And when he was strong again, his father helped him get back on his feet.  The other son sailed through the days steadily moving toward his goals with barely a hitch.  The father did very little for him other than to proudly watch him grow into a man.  Which son did the father love the most? 

That’s not the kind of question that can be answered, is it? 

There was a father who had two sons.  One day the younger son dropped the plow and walked in from the field.  He said to his father, “I can’t stay here on the farm, and I can’t wait until you die to get what’s coming to me.  Give me my inheritance now, old man, so I can go out and live my life.”  The father divided his estate, then, according to the custom, and gave this son one third of his wealth, and watched him walk away with it.

The older son also received his share of the estate; a double share, as was the custom.  And he said nothing.  He watched his younger brother walk away.  And he watched his father watch; he watched his father’s enormous grief.  And the following day, and the day after that, he worked.  And he said nothing. 

Time went by and life went on.  The younger son went out and had a ball.  He threw lots of parties and gathered around him a new group of super cool friends...until the money ran out.  Then no more parties and no more friends.  He found himself homeless and hungry and desperate.  The only work he could find was the most degrading kind of work imaginable.  This son had hit rock bottom.

When times are good we don’t think much about the ones who can help us, but when times are bad we do.  While he had probably not given him a thought all the while he was flying high, now this son thought about his father … and he missed him.  He wanted nothing more than to go home where he might be safe and provided for.  It was different now than it was before, of course.  He didn’t think about being owed anything from his father.  But he did think about - and hope for – a second chance.

So he went home with a prepared speech to make the best possible impression on his father and hopefully convince him that he would be worth offering a second chance. 

But his father saw him coming and ambushed him with love before he even had a chance to give his practiced speech.  His father called out to the servants:  bring the finest robe that we might clothe him in it; bring the signet ring that he might wear it on his finger, showing all the world who he is, where he belongs.  Make a feast, let’s celebrate for we have so much to be joyful about.

And now, at last, we hear from the older son, the one who had kept his nose to the grindstone and eyes to the ground.  “What’s this about a party?  Is there something we are celebrating?  Is there something I should be happy about?”  When he hears that it’s about the return of his long-lost brother – the one who took the money and ran – this older brother finally had an emotion. 

You know, during this season of penitence and preparation, did you ever have the thought: Maybe I could give up resentment for Lent.  I would really like to, but I’m not sure how one would go about doing that.  It’s not quite like giving up coffee or chocolate.  It’s a bit trickier, because it’s a feeling that surges up in you from out of nowhere, seemingly, and it overwhelms you.  It invades all your thoughts and colors all your feelings and probably your actions too.  Resentment can eat you up.  It’s like poison.

Resentment was the poison in this older brother’s heart that day when his younger brother returned.  But, even worse, it was probably a poison that had been harboring there for years, largely unnoticed.  He had always done what he was supposed to do, while this younger son had abandoned his responsibilities and walked away.  Who was the better son?  He had never crossed his father or even asked for a single thing, while this younger son had demanded the father give away all that he had to his sons.  Day in and day out he had watched his father missing that younger son, feeling the empty place left by this younger son - all the while he was still there, working his fields, sharing his table.  Who was the better son?

What kind of a man was this father of his, anyway?  How stupid was he?  It’s not rocket science:  one son was good; one son was bad.  Why couldn’t his father see that?

Why couldn’t he see that?

This father, like many fathers, hopes that someday his children can understand that the parent’s love is not a win-lose, either-or commodity.  There is enough and still more.  You can give it all away - every bit of it - again and again and again. 

This father might say:  I can love you with my whole heart and I can also love you with my whole heart - this is not a mathematical problem.  Love is not like that.

Maybe, someday, all of this father’s children - every one of us - will get it.  God’s love is abundant and free.  Let it wash away the poisons that corrode your heart.  Abide in God’s love.  It’s where you belong.

Photo: By Gugatchitchinadze - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49878879