So, I was checking out at the Hannaford over the Christmas holidays. It wasn't very busy at the time, and this usually means that the baggers and cashiers are chattier than usual with each other. And this bagger, a young guy, barely out of his teens, was talking about his sister and how she'd done him wrong. And how he could never forgive her for whatever it was she'd done. And the cashier, an older woman, was saying how life is too short and too hard to go it alone. And you better make amends because you never know when you're going to need a sister. And you don't know what was happening to that sister at the time to make her do what she did. And she's family. All that that you would expect someone with a little more wisdom would say.
I kept out of it, mostly just standing there uncomfortably, just wanting to pay and leave. And I really don't think anything was resolved. The bagger seemed pretty stuck in his position. And I think the cashier was just talking as much to hear herself talk as to really change his life. It was just a scene of humanity airing out its faults and foibles there in a grocery store check out lane.
And it all came back to me today because it reminds me of what is probably the world's most famous parable: the Prodigal Son. I could put every one of you on the spot and ask you to tell the story, and I bet everyone would tell it about 90% the same way.
A son goes to his father and, essentially, says, “Why aren't you dead yet? Give me my part of my inheritance now. Thanks. Good-bye.” And off he goes to the big city, where he lives it up and squanders his cash. And just then there's a famine, essentially tanking the market, and he lives on the streets, in pig styes, envying those pigs their slop. Finally he is so desperate that he screws up his courage and goes home, thinking that, at the least, he can be a hired hand on the ranch.
Later, the father looks up, sees his son, and is so happy that he runs out to meet him, shouting over his shoulder, “Call the caterers! Barbecue the briskets! Roll out the barrels! Party time!!!!” And there in the shadows in a disgruntled older brother.
And that where I kept stopping this time. The older brother.
Jesus could've stopped with the upcoming celebration, and we would've gotten the gist of the story. God is a forgiving God, and God's grace is literally priceless. But Jesus adds a twist. He adds a brother who does everything right in all the ways society says is right. And he's mad that this other dude, this person who makes other choices, chooses another life, and strikes out on his own, and disregards customs and traditions.
And I wonder why this is here. And I think maybe, this is a parable holding the Empire up to God and telling us to chose. See, the Romans were harsh masters, but they weren't stupid. They wanted peaceful provinces, but they also knew that if they could keep disgruntled people disgruntled at something else, then they would be to preoccupied to turn on the conquerors.
So, keep the Jews mad at each other, sect versus sect. And keep them mad at their brother Hebrews, the Samaritans. They are weird, they are foreign, they have different ideas of how to worship, they have different ideas of how to live. They dress differently. And worst of all, they come over here and take our jobs and influence our young and try to change our ways.
Essentially, I think Jesus is talking about a time in the world where the Romans, the masters of the empire are keeping the poor angry at the poorer so they won't see the rich robbing them blind. He is talking about a time when the masters of the empire are keeping the population angry over various culture wars, all the while diverting them from the war being waged against THEM over in the shadows, as more and more local wealth gets concentrated in the hands of the few in Rome.
So often, when we hear this story, we tell ourselves that we are the prodigal son, the one who went off and now comes home, all forgiven. OK. Fair enough. But we should not kid ourselves into thinking that we don't have a strong streak of the older brother in us. Our society loves to find fault in others. Our default position, lately, is to more and more punishment of those outside the mainstream, more and more alienation of those on the fringes, more and more blame, more and more fear. Especially that. Fear.
That fear has been brought closer to home last week. ICE agents have been hitting our area pretty hard this week. From Delaware County down here to Jefferson County up north, ICE has been raiding and taking people away with no notice as to where they will be detained or how to contact them. Regardless of whether they are documented. Regardless of whether they were mistakenly caught up. Just gone. Disappeared.
And Friday, Fr. Brooks got a message that the agents were headed to Hamilton to round up the Ukrainians. Now, several good things occurred here. First, it didn't happen...yet. Second, the villagers got to test run their plans as to how to react. Third, a Russian teacher at Colgate has worked with the family to rehearse what they should be saying – in English – when the inevitable happens. And fourth, the matriarch of the family, who has been resistant, thinking that these things don't happen in America, has now decided that she needs to plan for what to do next.
I want to reiterate here: these people were invited by our country. These people followed every law and rule, and they went above and beyond what was required. Because these people loved a nation that opened its arms to them and protected them, a nation that they still love and want to be a part of. A nation that is not only breaking its promises to them, but doesn't even have the decency to give them some time to make arrangements to return to war-torn Ukraine, but would rather just disappear them.
I am broken-hearted at what we are doing, what we are becoming and how much we are enjoying it. I wish we were in a time where I could deliver a great, funny sermon with a nice point at the end, but we are not there. And I am saddened. And I can imagine the sadness in the father's heart, in our parable, when the older son has nothing but contempt for his brother and wants to turn away from his plight.
Maybe it's just the times we're living through, but I see this parable differently now. I think Jesus is taking a dig at Rome. And contrasting the Empire to God. Because while the nation brings condemnation and injustice and prejudice and fear to those who get in its way, it is the Father – it is God – that runs out to meet those lost, scared people. It is God who loves them as they are. It is God who doesn't deny their existence, who celebrates their differences, who stands with them while so many of us stand against them.
I think that Jesus is asking me to consider my choice today: Either I stand aside and watch these things happen, content in the knowledge that my privileged circumstances easily let me stand on the side of the powerful, or I put on my running shoes and run along with God, opening my arms to those whom God has preferred since the dawn of time, the poor, the oppressed, those who are afraid, those who are lonely, those who are unloved, those who are different...
Those who are God's.