354 Shouting Rocks

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Shouting Rocks”, originally shared on April 9, 2025. It was the 354^th  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   What happens when an irresistible force meets an immoveable object? Today, we’re going to find out.

   We’ve been talking about how some people give up things for Lent, things that they like, in order to help them focus on self-sacrifice and discipleship, in the spirit of Lent.

   And how others add things for Lent, things like additional giving, service to others, and public witness that are also in the spirit of Lent.

   Sally and I added an every-Friday trip to McDonald’s for Filet-O-Fish. 😊 

   But this week, we added another wrinkle!

   This week, we used the McDonald’s app! It lets you customize your food, which is a hack to making sure it’s fresh if you’re willing to wait a little bit. It gives an even bigger discount on their Filet O Fish special, and free stuff, and inducements to buy even more food at McDonalds! It wants you to spend more money at McDonald’s. They’re good at that!

   But we’re pretty much sticking to our Friday Filet-O-Fish sandwiches.

   OK, it’s not a real sacrifice, but we want to support one of the few things in popular culture that is an accommodation to Christian behavior. BTW, did you know that McDonalds feeds 1% of the world’s population every day?! It’s pretty popular!

    Jesus was pretty popular too on the day that he rode into Jerusalem like a victorious military leader on what Christians around the world will be celebrating this coming Sunday as Palm Sunday.

   But, when church members asked me why we weren’t growing into megachurch status, my answer was that people do come to Christ at megachurches but, on the other hand, McDonald’s sells a lot of hamburgers. It’s very popular. That doesn’t mean that a steady diet of their food is good for you.

   In fact, Jesus’ popularity with the crowds on Palm Sunday did nothing for the Christian Church at all. Just days later, people in Jerusalem abandoned him and many were shouting “Crucify Him”, very possibly some of the same people who had shouted “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!“ just a few days earlier. And then they were fine with killing him.

   Have you ever seen a parade? Have you ever been in a parade? Have you ever seen a parade that started spontaneously because people were so excited that they just had to cheer? Today, you will.

   I love a parade! Especially one with marching bands. They are why I started playing drums.

   I remember watching the Memorial Day Parade in my hometown, Manitowoc, Wisconsin. I remember standing on the curb hearing the rumble of the percussion coming from a distance, my excitement building as it grew closer.

   I remember the thumps on my chest as the percussion section drew nearer and then passed by, the staccato pulse of the snare drums, the splash of the cymbals and the massive thud of the big bass drums.

   I wanted that! I wanted to do that!

   I tapped out rhythms on every surface I found in front of me for years. I made my own drums out of empty cardboard boxes, Quaker Oats containers, or whatever. I destroyed a child’s drum set that my parents bought me for Christmas when I was in 5^th Grade to “Rock Around the Clock”.

   I played a violin for a year because our school system started its orchestra program a year before its band program, and I thought it would help me learn to read music. When I couldn’t play drums because I didn’t own a concert snare drum, I played mellophone (a French horn with trumpet valves) for a summer until my dad talked with the band director, who sold him a surplus used drum from the high school band.

   I started practicing on a practice pad and played that snare drum, moving immediately into first chair and staying there for four years. I still have it.

   I became the guy who played the drums, marching down the street in the parade.

   I almost missed a parade when I chipped my left wrist vaulting over a “horse” in gym class, but I wore a groove into the cast and played in the parade anyway.

   I saved up and bought a Ludwig “Super Classic” drum set with the silver sparkle finish, just like Joe Morello’s, the drummer with The Dave Brubeck quartet.

   I took it to college and played in jazz bands through college and seminary and beyond.

   It all started with a parade.

   Parades bring people together, whether they are in the parade or watching it. They create a sense of focus and a common experience, sometimes even a common cause.

   Jesus entered Jerusalem, once, at the head of a parade. He would be dead in a few days, but for that shining moment, he brought people together, at least some of the people anyway. He knew he would die there, but he rode into town like a champ.

   Here’s what happened, in Luke 19:28-38,

²⁸ After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.

²⁹ When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, ³⁰ saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. ³¹ If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” ³² So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. ³³ As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” ³⁴ They said, “The Lord needs it.” ³⁵ Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. ³⁶ As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. ³⁷ As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, ³⁸ saying,

“Blessed is the king
    who comes in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven,
    and glory in the highest heaven!”

   I don’t know that there were any bands in that parade, but I imagine small children watching and running along with it on its sides, caught up in the excitement, finding branches to throw in his donkey’s path. Asking their parents if they could throw their outer clothing onto the path for Jesus’s donkey, like some of the adults were doing, and hearing a firm, “No”.

   I imagine that it was exciting, but that it was also kind of scary. Who were these people? Crowds can become mobs, and mobs and can spin out of control, they can get destructive.

   But here he came, Jesus. The Messiah, the Anointed One? The one they had been awaiting for 1,000 years? A deliverer, but from what? Many thought the Messiah would come as a king, like King David, and deliver them from the latest of many occupying empires: the Romans. (The crowds threw the palm branches that traditionally greeted successful military leaders.) Or, was he something else?

   Was the excitement contagious, or did many look on with horror, or indifference?

   How did Jesus feel, riding into Jerusalem like that? What did he think about the cheers of the crowds?

   I wonder if Jesus felt a momentary urge to just end the chain of events that he knew was coming, right there. To just stop with the cheers and spend the rest of his life as a popular rabbi, a miracle worker.

   But he didn’t.

   Why did he ride into town on a donkey? Was it a conscious reference to the Old Testament prophecy, as we read in Zechariah 9:9?,

⁹ Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!
    Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!
Lo, your king comes to you;
    triumphant and victorious is he,
humble and riding on a donkey,
    on a colt, the foal of a donkey.

   Or did Jesus choose to ride in, as some scholars have suggested, on a symbol of humble service because he resisted the temptation to take the easy way?

   He got that donkey when the disciples just went and untied it and, when the owners asked them to explain, they said “The Lord needs it”. And they said, “OK”! Either I’m missing something here, or it was another world back then.

   Or did they know about Jesus? Was he that respected, that popular?

   The Bible says that a “multitude” of his disciples began to loudly praise God. Right there. In broad daylight. In public.

   Yup. It’s easy to follow Jesus when he’s there at the head of the parade. Top of the charts.

   It’s harder when he’s headed to the top of the cross.

   That’s where Jesus was headed, and do you know how many of the “multitude” followed him all the way?

   Zero. The power of that parade, the one we celebrate on “Palm Sunday”, was very temporary. Jesus knew that.

   His humble service would change everything. But that’s a story for next week, a week of love and shame. Holy Week.

   But now, the story turns to stones.

   Do rocks have feelings? Do they have needs and aspirations? If they could talk, what would they say?

   People were going nuts for Jesus.

   The Bible, in Luke 19’s version of events, says that “the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen”. They celebrated, “the king who comes in the name of the Lord!”

   But not everyone was happy. The Pharisees, members of a religious party of highly observant laymen (only men could be Pharisees), were upset. Were their hearts hard, like stones?

   Maybe they thought that Jesus being called the Messiah was blasphemy. Or maybe they were worried that the Romans would hear the shouts of “Blessed is the king” as a signal for insurrection and would put it down in a crushing and indiscriminate fashion.

   Either way, we see their response, and Jesus’ answer, in Luke 19:39-40,

³⁹ Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” ⁴⁰ He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

   That’s an indication that something significant and unstoppable is happening!

   You may remember, or have heard about, a mid-1970’s fad where people bought a product called a “Pet Rock”. The joke was that, unlike other pets, the pet rock required no grooming, walking, special food or beverages, no Dr. visits, or housesitting when you are away. In fact, your pet rock didn’t do anything requiring maintenance at all, and it certainly didn’t shout out!

   What would it take for a rock to shout? I’d say that it would take an act of God.

   It would take something so positively life-changing that if people didn’t shout out about it, God would arrange things for the rocks to shout out.

   What do you think that a shouting rock would sound like? I’d guess that it would have a gravelly voice. 😊

   You’d want a pet rock then, wouldn’t you? If it was a shouting rock! 😊

   And what would it say? “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!”

   And what irresistible thing was happening that called for shouts of praise? Jesus was coming.

   The pivotal event of human history was about to happen, and the people thought they knew what it might be, but they didn’t.

   All people were created for a living relationship with the one true living God. People rejected that relationship and brought evil into the world. Now God was going to die to restore that relationship as a gift, by grace, through faith. Not by human effort. That’s something to shout about!

   Jesus knows he’s going to die there, but he rides into town like a boss.  

   It seemed like a victory parade, and in a sense it was. But nobody knew it was also a funeral procession but Jesus, or if they had heard it from Jesus, they didn’t want to know.

   Now, the time was at hand. Jesus had come as the Messiah, the deliverer, to deliver people from sin, death, and the power of the devil and all the forces that defy God. That would be accomplished on the cross.

   Jesus enters Jerusalem at the head of the parade to become the head of the Church.

   He does so through his death, in humble service to humankind.

   That is the message of Palm Sunday. The triumph of obedience. The victory of God in flesh.

   That is Paul’s focus in his letter to the church at Philippi in Philippians 2:5-11,

⁵ Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
    did not regard equality with God
    as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
    taking the form of a slave,
    being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸     he humbled himself
    and became obedient to the point of death—
    even death on a cross.

⁹ Therefore God also highly exalted him
    and gave him the name
    that is above every name,
¹⁰ so that at the name of Jesus
    every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
¹¹ and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
    to the glory of God the Father.

   I mentioned earlier that I had played drums in jazz bands in college and in seminary and beyond. I wasn’t a great drummer, I admit. I didn’t want to be. I didn’t like to do solos. I was fine being the back beat, setting the mood, the tempo, and the feeling, with everyone else.

   My favorite quote on drumming came from Charlie Watts of “The Rolling Stones”, who died a few years ago, though I can’t find the attribution for the quote. He said, “I don’t want to be the world’s greatest drummer. I want to be the drummer in the world’s greatest band.”

   That’s us. We are not a collection of individuals. We are a community, the Body of Christ, with Jesus as the head and we as members of the body. Among other things, that means that as the head of the Church, Jesus is the face of the Church.

   Is he? Is Jesus what people think of when they think of our churches? Is it what we present to people? Is Jesus central to the message we present to the community?

   Palms were raised on that day of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem.

   Some of the palms we will raise this coming Sunday at our Palm Sunday services will be burned to make the ashes for Ash Wednesday next year. They will be used to make the sign of the cross on our foreheads, and we will hear the words, “Remember that you are dust. And to dust you shall return.”

   Those are some mighty scary words to most people. But to us, they are applied in the shape of the cross, the shape of victory. Jesus’ victory, which the crowds on Palm Sunday couldn’t see, past their belief in their own needs and desires. Do we see it?

   What happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object? On Palm Sunday, if the people hadn’t cried out in praise of Jesus, the rocks would have!

   I’ve heard it said that there is gold in the rocks in the foothills above where Sally and I live. When my sister’s children were young and she and her husband and the kids visited us from Minnesota, we took them up there to pan for it. Whatever shiny flecks we found weren’t very much, but everyone had fun.

   But what could rocks carry that is more precious than gold? A message?

   What if we’re not awake to what God is doing right now, what if we aren’t being the Body of Christ, embodying the face of Jesus to the world? What if we knew that we needed a Savior?

  They would say, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” 

353 Another Prodigal

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Another Prodigal”, originally shared on April 2, 2025. It was the 353^rd  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.) 

   We heard about two prodigals last week and today we’ll hear about another. The prodigal woman. Today, we’ll hear about what a weird story has to teach us about God.

   Some people give up things for Lent, things that they like, to help them focus on sacrifice discipleship, discipline, and living a life for others, the mood of Lent. They are sometimes extravagant in their self-denial.

   Others add things for Lent, things like additional giving, advocacy, transformation, and public evangelism, things that are also the mood of Lent. They are sometimes extravagant in their generosity.

   Sally and I added an every-Friday trip to McDonald’s for Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. 😊

   McDonald’s has been offering a discount on their only fish related menu option during Lent as a nod to those who are giving up meat for Lent, at least on Fridays, which some people do all year ‘round.

   OK, it’s not extravagant, but we want to support one of the few things in popular culture that is an accommodation to Christian behavior. And it was dinner.

   But let’s consider the actual prodigal, or “excessive” action in the Gospel text that will be read this coming Sunday, John 12:1-8. It happened at a dinner party. And it was a pretty weird party. For starters, Jesus was the main guest.

   What would you do if Jesus came to your house for dinner? Kind of crazy, right? What if one of the guests was your sister, between you and whom Jesus had recently settled a work-related issue? What if another of the guests was your brother, who Jesus had recently raised from the dead?

   Doesn’t that strike you as weird?

   Would it occur to you to wash Jesus’ feet with $39,600.00 worth of perfume, and then dry them with your hair?

   Well, that’s exactly what happened. We see it in John 12:1-3,

12 Six days before the Passover Jesus came to Bethany, the home of Lazarus, whom he had raised from the dead. ² There they gave a dinner for him. Martha served, and Lazarus was one of those at the table with him. ³ Mary took a pound of costly perfume made of pure nard, anointed Jesus’ feet, and wiped them with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume.

   If you were at that party, at this point you might be asking “What is going on?”

   Jesus has come to Bethany, a little town just about 2 miles over the Mt. of Olives from Jerusalem. He’s with some of his best friends, siblings Mary and Martha and Lazarus.

   All four Gospel writers tell this story in slightly different ways. We’re looking at the one in John today.

   Mary and Martha you might remember from Luke 10:38-42 where Jesus and the 12 hungry disciples come by their and Lazarus’ home. Martha gets to work to feed them all. She complains to Jesus that Mary isn’t helping her but instead is sitting at Jesus’ feet, i.e., listening to and learning from him. The story concludes with Luke 10:41-42,

⁴¹ But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; ⁴² there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.”

   Lazarus you might remember from John 11:1-44. Jesus has mysteriously lingered during Lazarus’ illness and Lazarus has died. He’s been dead for three days when Jesus arrives at Bethany and Mary tells him that if he had been there Lazarus would not have died. Jesus weeps. He orders the stone to be rolled away from Lazarus’ tomb. Then, we read in John 11:43-44,

⁴³ When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴ The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

   Now, just a few days later, Jesus is with them in their home, at what appears to be Jesus’ favorite place on earth. These were his closest friends who were not among his close disciples. We have no record of him teaching publicly there. He just came there to relax and hang out with people who loved him and whom he loved.

   Mary and Martha and Lazarus appear to be having a celebratory meal with the 12 close disciples of Jesus, with what Leonard Sweet calls, “Food. Family. Friends. Fragrance.”

   Fragrance is associated with the sense of smell that can help us identify things, feel things, sharpen our concentration or dull it, heal us and produce desired outcomes. It can also be a time machine.

   When I smell raspberries, I’m back in my father’s parents’ garden. When I smell geraniums, I’m back in my mother’s parents’ back yard.

   Fragrance has also long been used in worship. We filled the church I served in San Dimas with incense on Wednesday nights. When it was first proposed and concerns were raised about people with allergies, a physician’s assistant in the congregation told us that incense was one of the treatments for certain kinds of allergies.

   Mary used a pound of a perfume that was extravagantly expensive and powerfully fragrant to anoint Jesus’ feet. Its fragrance didn’t just fill the room. It filled the house!

   Well, what would you have done in gratitude for the life of your brother? How grateful would you be?

   If your parents or some other loved ones have died, what would you give today in exchange for 15 more minutes with your parents, or a friend or a loved one?

   Seen in that context, it doesn’t seem so extravagant, does it?

   After she had used it to anoint Jesus’ feet, she dried them with her hair.

   Women didn’t let their hair down anywhere but in front of their husbands in those days. More extravagant, “prodigal”, behavior from Mary.

   Mary anoints the feet of Jesus as a sign of service and dries them with her hair as a sign of humility.

   She uses a perfume more properly called “spikenard”, which was native to North India and imported in sealed alabaster boxes. The perfume, we find out later, is worth 300 denarii.

   “Denarii” is the plural form of “denarius”. A denarius was the daily wage of an unskilled laborer. So, if we take today’s minimum hourly wage of $16.50 and multiply it by 8 hours for a day’s work, we get $132, or the near equivalent of one denarius. Multiply that by 300 and we get $39,600.00. That’s almost a year’s wages, as the 52 sabbath days would have been taken off!

   The thing is that we will all be united someday. And it didn’t cost $39,600.00 a pound to get that. It cost something way much more precious.

   It cost the blood of Jesus, poured out for the sake of the world on the cross!

   How do we show our gratitude, not only for our lives but for our eternal lives? Jesus says this about life lived in response to the love of God poured out for us on the cross, in Mark 8:34-37,

³⁴ He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. ³⁵ For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. ³⁶ For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? ³⁷ Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? 

   Nothing. There is nothing we can give in return for our lives, nothing we can do to earn our salvation. It is purely a gift from God.

   How can we then live in response to that gift?

   First, by recognizing that we are in the world, but we are not of the world. We’re going to seem weird to the world.

   Second, by listening to the presence of the Holy Spirit within us, in whom no weird thing is weird.

   Third, by knowing that God, and only God, decides what is weird and what is not weird, that God is reality revealed to us by the Holy Spirit to experience life-transformation, and to live abundant lives by God’s direction, by God’s grace.

   Do you feel weird being a Christian? Do you feel that you stand out among your peers? God shows us how to respond in today’s Gospel reading.

   That is, when the going gets weird in life, the weird get going by God’s grace. And God shows his grace by receiving this extravagant gift from another prodigal, Mary the sister of Martha and Lazarus.

   Then things got even weirder. Here’s the rest of the story in John 12:4-6.

 ⁴ But Judas Iscariot, one of his disciples (the one who was about to betray him), said, ⁵ “Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?” ⁶ (He said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse and used to steal what was put into it.) 

   Yup. You think that this story can’t get any weirder, and then we learn that Judas Iscariot, one of Jesus’ inner circle, one of the 12 disciples, was a thief. An embezzler.

   Oh, and John incidentally also mentions that he was “the one who was about to betray him”.

   Judas was upset that Mary had poured out so much expensive perfume on Jesus’ feet, when it could have been sold for 300 denarii, $39,600.00 in today’s money, and the money given to the poor.

   Except Judas didn’t care about the poor. He wanted that money in the common purse so that he could steal some of it.

   Judas raises his objection on good grounds, as would many today. How many people could be helped with $39,600.00? That much money could be life-changing, not just for one or two, but for many people. Though he was a thief, some of it, presumably, would have gone to help people.

   He didn’t get that money, though. But he would soon sell Jesus out for 30 pieces of silver, in exchange for identifying Jesus at night when the authorities came to arrest him, try him in a kangaroo court, and kill him.

   Jesus’ death would be the pivotal event in world history. It was coming, and it wouldn’t be long in coming. It was time to prepare.

   Mary poured out the nard/perfume to prepare Jesus’ body for burial. She was showing gratitude and honoring Jesus by humbly anointing his feet.

   Maybe she saw that things were not working out so well for Jesus.

   Or maybe she wanted him to smell the flowers while he was still alive.

   But how does Jesus respond?    

   With what seems to be a callous remark. It seems dismissive of the genuine needs of the poor.   

   We see it in the conclusion to today’s reading, in John 12:7-8,

⁷ Jesus said, “Leave her alone. She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. ⁸ You always have the poor with you, but you do not always have me.”

   Jesus reflects on Deuteronomy 15:11,

¹¹ Since there will never cease to be some in need on the earth, I therefore command you, “Open your hand to the poor and needy neighbor in your land.”

   But I think of Jesus’s statement as being a response along the same lines as what some say about corporations or high-profile rich people who announce that they will provide matching funds for giving to some good cause. “XYZ has announced that they will match every dollar given to the ABC cause for the next 3 days!”

   Why doesn’t XYZ just donate the money? They’ve already budgeted it.

   It doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game. This money spent to honor Jesus doesn’t have to mean less money spent to support the poor.

   In a similar vein, I would ask, “How do our churches present themselves to the world”? What do we do with the resources that God has placed in our hands?

   I remember a two-panel cartoon I saw when I was in seminary of a guy who was praying in the first panel out on his front porch, “God there’s so much homelessness and need in the world. Why don’t you do something about it?”

   And in the second panel a cartoon balloon comes out of the sky with the words in it, “That’s funny. I was about to ask you the same thing.”

   In an increasingly secular world, what does the world know about us, or think that it knows about us? How would it hear the truth?

   And, what answers do we give to the world when the world isn’t even asking?

   Certainly, the negative impressions dominate in the popular media. But what positive things are we known for?

   Back to McDonald’s!

   I remember when I turned 55. I qualified for Senior discounts! We were on a family vacation and so I walked into a local MacDonald’s and asked for a “Senior” coffee and reached for my identification. You can get coffee at a discount if you’re a “Senior” at MacDonald’s. The young guy behind the counter sold it to me at the “Senior” rate without any question. He didn’t want to see my ID. He didn’t question the fact that I was a senior, and that kind of bothered me. Do I look like a “Senior”, I thought?

   What answers do we give to the world when the world isn’t even asking?

   It appears to me that the only things that we want the world to know about us these days is what side of the political divide we stand on, and what our positions on social issues are. What social services we provide, and that we are friendly without being weird. And we answer them the way people want us to answer them. We want to be liked and accepted.

   But the more secular our culture becomes, the weirder the expressions of our true character will be. This isn’t anything new. Paul wrote to the Corinthian church in 1 Corinthians 1:18,

⁸ For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

   We are weird in the eyes of a secular culture.

   However, standing true to who we are presents a positive, peculiar alternative to the world which sin has made. In some ways, people are looking for churches that are hard to join and easy to leave. They want their Christianity to mean something, to bring new life!

   If we do not make a clear proclamation of “why” we do what we do, we make the “what” we do no different than that of a secular organization using religious language.

   The life transformation that Jesus won for all who believe is what we proclaim during Lent especially.

   We heard about two prodigals last Sunday, two men, and this coming Sunday we’ll hear about another one. A woman.

   They all point to our prodigal, excessively generous God.

   Male or female, Jesus poured out his blood for our salvation, life for all who believe and are baptized. And it would not be long now before Jesus would be washing the feet of his disciples as a servant. And the feet that Mary washed would be driven through with nails. Let that expensive, extravagant gift be our message, the thing that we are known for.

   It may be weirder than the world’s message, but it’s true and it leads to new and eternal life.

352 Prodigal

   (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Prodigal”, originally shared on March 26^th, 2025. It was the 352^nd  video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   What has three main characters, two Prodigals, and is found in only one Gospel? And is about you? Today, we’re going to find out.

   The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of the best-known stories in the Bible. It’s very often studied by people who are not really interested in the authority of the Bible but just want to study it as literature.

   It kind of sounds like it belongs in the Old Testament, it contains such sweeping themes and starchy drama, but it is a parable told by Jesus and is only found in the gospel of Luke.

   It’s called the Parable of the “Prodigal” Son because of the son’s excesses. “Prodigal” means excessive, wastefully extravagant, spending money recklessly, lavish. It has the same root word as “prodigious”, as in “rotund President Taft had a prodigious waistline”. A “prodigy is someone who is exceptionally talented.

   Here’s the setting, in Luke 15:1-3,

15 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:

   A parable is “an earthly story, with a single heavenly meaning”, as my Confirmation pastor told me. Note that is has “a heavenly meaning”. It’s not an allegory; it isn’t full of symbols that all stand for something. It usually has just one meaning.

   Now we jump from verse 3 to verse 11. Wait, what? Why?

   Because there are two other parables stuck in-between: The Parable of the Lost Sheep and The Parable of the Lost Coin. Spoiler alert! All three are about what the Pharisees (and a key person in the parable) see as God’s prodigal generosity.

   Jesus says that in a parable about something else that’s precious and that can be lost, in Luke 15:11b-20a. We’ll start with the opening verses, in Luke 15:11b-12,

 “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. 

   Did you hear that. The younger of two sons goes to his father and says in effect, “Dad, I can’t wait for you to die. I’m young. I want to enjoy the money you’re going to leave me while I can. I want to live large. I want to have fun. I want the money now.” (Arrrgh!)

   And his father says, “Yes”!

   What would you have done if you had been this father? This is the first taste we get of the father’s prodigal generosity.

   We speculate that my great-grandfather, Terje Berkedal, came to this country because Norway practiced primogeniture during the time in Norway called “the hundred-year hunger”. Primogeniture meant that all the parents’ property, the inheritance, was left to the oldest son, who would then take care of the rest of the family. That kept the farms from being divided into properties too small to support anyone.

   But it assumed that families all got along, and that older brothers would be benevolent and competent managers. That may not have been the case for my great-grandfather, because he left Norway for the United States and never looked back. He never wrote back, either. He cut-off all ties and our family in the United States didn’t know who our family was in Norway until the Internet Age.

   When I and my family went back, we were the first people with the family name to visit Norway in about 120 years. Our family in Norway hadn’t known that we existed!

   Our relatives showed us the book of our family history, and next to our common relative’s entry it said in Norwegian, “We think he died.” It’s regrettable but understandable that he left for greater opportunities, as many people from Norway and from other countries have done over time.

   This parable, however, tells about a young man who didn’t want opportunities or even to support himself. He wanted to indulge himself with his father’s money. And he did.

   The parable continues with verse 13,

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.

   His older brother would later accuse him of spending his money on prostitutes. Maybe he did. Wine women and song. He was living in prodigal excess. He got wasted. Literally.

   The movie “Anora” won the Oscar for “Best Picture” this year. It’s about what the director euphemistically called “a sex worker” but who most of the world would call a “prostitute”, which is a person who “prostitutes” themselves, or makes of themselves a commodity, and sells themselves for money.

   Jesus was often criticized for hanging out with prostitutes and tax collectors, and what today’s text calls simply “sinners”. Jesus said in Luke 5:32,

³² I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

   Who else would he hang out with?

   The young man hung out with prostitutes also, but not, apparently, to seek their wellbeing.

   And then the party ended. He hadn’t made good in a distant country. He was played-out. We see the consequences, starting in verse 14,

 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. 

   Didn’t he have any friends? You mean all the people he partied with were nowhere to be found once his money ran out? I’m shocked! Shocked!

   So, he gets a job with someone who owes him nothing, with whom he has no kinship ties, and he becomes a caregiver to pigs, about the lowest job a child of Israel could imagine. And the pigs eat better than he does! What kind of job doesn’t pay enough to buy pig food to eat? Sounds like he’s back in slavery in Egypt. He was living in prodigious humiliation.

   But…then, he sees the solution in verses 17-20a,

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. 

   How many of our children, or the children of people we know, have found themselves in that same far country. Have cut all ties for a life of drugs, alcohol, unfettered sex, sex for money, even crime, and what the parable describes as dissolute living, life without morals or restraint, who think they have found “friends” who care for them? And then they didn’t?

   How many people have finally hit the bottom and remembered that there is a way back? That they still have someone who really loves them.

   Parents long for that. So does God. And we, the Church, see not only individual sons and daughters going down the wrong path, but whole cultures.

   Could we not describe our culture as one that has squandered its inheritance in order to seek temporary personal pleasure, be consumed with toys and tied to materialism, power, and outward appearances? One that has lost its way in the distant country of absence from God?

   Do we not work and long for its return to God, the One who loves them?

   There is a line in the Robert Frost poem, “Death of A Hired Man” that goes, “Home is the place that, when you have to go there, they have to let you in.” 😊

   That’s the place that the prodigal son came to. That’s all he believed he could expect.

   His father’s hired hands were treated well. He could repent. Maybe his father would give him a job, and he could at least live, not as a son but as an employee.

   “He came to himself.” Isn’t that a beautiful and poetic way to put it? He remembered who he was. He remembered who he had been created to be. There was a core there that his poor choices hadn’t worn away. He came to remember who loved him. He came to himself.

   The son was prodigal in his excessive and destructive living, but he was still a son. He would now throw himself on the defining mercy of his father.

   If you were the father, what would you do?

   Would you have good news or bad news for the son

   There is always a way back to God. That is the Good News. So far, we’ve learned how. Now, we are going to find out why.

   The parable continues with Luke 15:20b,

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. 

   Here’s the second sign of the father’s prodigal generosity. Grown up men don’t run in most cultures, unless they’re playing soccer or something. It’s undignified.

   I studied in Rome, briefly, on the way back from a semester in Israel when I was in college. Jogging, or running, outside of a track was just starting to be popular in the United States. Some of the guys in our student group and I would run outdoors when we had some free time, and people would look with astonishment that someone who was not a child was running outside and wearing running shorts in public. Little kids would point and laugh as we ran by. We looked ridiculous to them.

   The father forgot all of that. He laid aside his dignity and composure to run to his son when he saw him return. He was not filled with disappointment or bitterness; he was filled with compassion. He put his arms around him. And he kissed him, a common form of greeting among close friends and relatives.

   The son tries to get out the speech he had prepared, but he doesn’t get very far, starting with verse 21,

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.

   I played drums in jazz bands in college and seminary, mostly. One of the tunes we played was a standard, “The Return of The Prodigal Son” by tenor saxophonist Stanley Turrentine. I guess you could say that it’s a medium tempo mix of blues and joy, the sorrow of the son and the joy of the father. But it sounds like a strut. That always bothered me because that’s not how the prodigal son returned. He returned with his life in tatters and his head hanging low.

   But he couldn’t finish his repentance speech before his father was organizing the “welcome home” party, making the son the honored guest, presenting him with the symbols of his status as a son. And they began to celebrate!

   But not everyone was happy. The parable continues with verse 25,

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!’

   The older brother was angry. His father was throwing a huge party to celebrate the prodigal son’s return. The older son wouldn’t have it. He’d been the rock steady one. He’d done everything that was asked of him, and he never got even a little shindig, much less a big celebration. He doesn’t even refer to the prodigal son as his brother. He only refers to him as “this son of yours”, who had devoured the father’s property with prostitutes.

   The fatted calf was reserved for major events, like an honored guest, a wedding, or the birth of a child. The fatted calf was the best of the best the father had to offer. It was an extremely generous gift. It was an expression of excessive love from the prodigal father.

   The older brother refused to join the celebration.

   His father didn’t begin to ask him to come in. He began to plead with him to come in. More prodigal generosity from the father.

   Cultural behaviors change all the time, and it’s likely that there will be another great awakening and a return to the Christian faith in our country at some point. I wonder where people like me will be when that happens. Will we rejoice with God that the prodigals have come home, or will we be resentful of God’s celebration like the older brother?

   The father in the parable loved the older brother, too, and wanted him to know that the relationship with the family that the father had given him was still valued. And notice that the younger brother’s actions are not without consequences. We see it in the conclusion of this parable, starting with verse 31,

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.’”

   The father tells the older son that all that is the father’s is the older son’s. It’s not going to be divided again with the little brother.

   But something precious has been restored. A relationship. The older brother refers to the prodigal son as, “this son of yours”. The father refers to him as “this brother of yours” and the father gives the reason for the rejoicing: “this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”

   The relationship with the father has never changed for either son; he loved them. The prodigal son could live like it didn’t matter, but the reality of it was still his, because it wasn’t his to deny.

   We are created for a living relationship with the one true living God. We may reject that relationship and go to the far country of self-indulgence, personal pleasure, indifference, and the acceptance of the world. But God never gives up on us. There is a way back. God has made a way in Jesus Christ at the cross.

   What far country are you in today? What far country is someone you know and love in today? What far country is our culture in today?

   Many liturgical churches have sung a Gospel Acclamation during this season of Lent that is different than the one that is sung during the rest of the year. It comes from the middle part of Joel 2:13, and it goes,

Return to the Lord, your God,
    for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
   Who do you identify with in this parable. I think that Jesus wants us to identify with the prodigal son, to know that we need a savior, and that God, in Christ, gave His life on the cross to be our Savior.

   God, the prodigal father, continues to love us excessively and has shown us God’s grace by paying the ultimate price on the cross. He welcomes repentant sinners, our debt is marked paid in full! We live our lives in response to that love, freely given.

   The story of the prodigal son is our story. The story of the prodigal father is God’s story.

   Open the door to your heart and receive the excessive love of the prodigal God, given for you and for all people, and share the good news!