But most of the time we live apart from this reality. We get lost in our own concerns. We are like the Pharisees who are quite good at justifying ourselves before others. It’s the classic “older brother” part of today’s look at life from Jesus’ point of view. We know plenty of ways to say that we’ve been good; we’ve been helpful and present, not like the younger brother. “I didn’t miss a day of work. I made regular contributions to my IRA instead of depending on Daddy’s help. I stayed late. I fixed the broken plow. I have listened to all your advice and followed all the rules. So where’s my cookie?”

We want our reward for right behavior, and living where we live, and having what we have, there’s no reason to think that our reward is not forthcoming. The Pharisees were much the same. They weren’t necessarily the richest of the rich, but they were righteous to the hilt and always the preservers of the status quo. They were the ones who always thought they were in God’s pocket, and felt just like the elder brother did every time they heard Jesus speak – like the jilted forgotten son of a Father who no longer made sense.

So when they heard him speak, they thought the Jesus eye view was “out there.” It was out there then and it is out there now. We have to really pay attention to hear what Jesus is saying about what God is like and what the reign of God really means. The things we think are important are not only immaterial to God; they are in fact an abomination. We love the found more than the lost. We value the hard worker over the lazy slacker. We respect wealth and admire power. We have a hard time believing that the Kingdom of God could possibly reside in us or among us, and Jesus tells us it’s right in front of our eyes and we don’t see it.

But when we count ourselves instead among the tax collectors and sinners, our eyes adjust. We are no longer among the privileged class. We are no longer simply entitled to a celebration of our hard work and perseverance. We will no longer try to enter the kingdom of heaven by force. We realize that we can only enter by God’s grace.

How does this happen? Jesus gives us examples by telling us stories of the joy that comes when the lost are found. He reminds us that there is great joy in heaven over the one sinner who repents. God is impressed, overjoyed really with just one. To make his point crystal clear, Jesus says that God will be more impressed over the one sinner who turns back than over even 99 who always followed the rules. Where did this logic come from? Most of our Sunday school knowledge and parents’ prodding, and teachers’ insistence tells us quite the opposite – that goodness and joy comes from walking the straight and narrow. Why would God reach out more, be gladdened more by the one who has sown a few wild oats but is ready finally to love? I think it’s about taking risks. Jesus values time taken to seek and save the lost. He understands that God is not impressed all that much by our timidity. God’s a bit of a gambler that way. God likes the long shot. In fact, God bet it all on Jesus to tell the story as an ordinary human being who would suffer and die – not a hero’s death either, a criminal’s death was what he had coming.

As Luke tells the story, Jesus’ road to Jerusalem, the road we travel with him during Lent, is the road toward fulfillment of this vision that is consistently clear and promises God’s presence with us. It is during his traveling, teaching time that he tells so many stories to sinners, tax collectors, and Pharisees – a crowd that includes the whole lot of us as well. The story of the father and his two sons is one we’ve told over and over again to believers at all ages and stages, and yet there will likely be one time in the telling that we actually get it. It may be today, it may have been a long time ago, or it may be a story you’ll come to in the future, but it is nevertheless a life-changing parable when our ears finally open up to its message.

The truth of the passage tells us that there’s no place we can go that will put us out of God’s great love unless we get so cozy close that we can no longer see it. The father in the story is deeply grieved over his younger son’s choices, and yet his return requires not a scolding but a celebration. When we come to God lost and afraid, God will not be harsh with us. God will welcome us with an overpowering love that changes our whole existence. It is to our benefit to recognize just how far we have drifted from God, because it was the close one who could no longer see God’s ongoing presence.

Knowing this truth, having this Bible, one might think that churches would be places of great risk and squandering, that they would spend their resources for broke in the knowledge that if we mess up, God will give us another shot. The problem is that we too can be money-lovers like the Pharisees, the ones who hold on tight so that we never make a mistake. We keep the same things going. We don’t try anything too “out there.” We stick close to the plan and follow God around like an obedient puppy, when God would graciously give us the family inheritance.

However, it’s not exactly the point of the story to go out and spend all we have on lewd living in order to experience divine grace when the party’s over. God is not happy when we disregard the integrity of other people or injure others for the fun of it. But in this tale of two brothers, Jesus radically reorients our priorities and the ways we spend our time. This story emboldens us to a much more impulsive lifestyle than we’re used to. The warning for us is to recognize is that it can make us bitter to get stuck in our routines. At least with the younger brother, there was a sense of adventure and willingness to go out and engage the world. The older brother’s stick-in-the-mud attitude did not even soften at the touch of the Father’s great love.

When we begin to see things from the Jesus eye view, we will take greater and greater risks, as individuals and as a faith community. We will go out of our way looking for the one lost sheep, for the missing coin, or for the brother or sister who needs us the most. We will bet our inheritance on it. We can be secure in the knowledge that God will always welcome us home whether we’ve strayed far or stayed close. The elder brother was not denied the father’s love except what he could not bear in his own mind. His sense of entitlement was too great. The younger brother’s sincere remorse at following the wrong path brought him closer than ever. We will make mistakes like that, especially when we try to live fully. God knows our weaknesses and loves us anyway. It’s the calling toward a bit more foolishness – the kind of foolishness imagined in the monastic benediction that Eugenia Gamble has been spreading with her message of hope for the church. May you be blessed with just enough foolishness to really believe that you can make a difference in this old world so that you will do those things that others say cannot be done.

Amen.