Oldest Sibling Syndrom

3-27-22 

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our savior Jesus the Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, Amen.

If I had to guess… there are probably far more “older siblings” present here with us today, both worshiping in person and online. I don’t mean Older Sibling by physical age in your family of origin, but more like sharing the characteristics of the older brother in this parable. To be involved with this congregation, volunteering faithfully despite the “family issues” that all churches have, rather than leaving to join another church, shows some of the common “Older Sibling" traits of faithfulness, steadfastness, and commitment.

But beware the shadow side of the Older Sibling. Here in this parable we witness his resentment, anger, and stubbornness, and rigidity. This is what keeps the older brother in this story on the outside of the party, and on the outside of the joy of his father, and estranged from reunion with his family. 

I myself am an actual older sibling, but moreover I am a lifelong Lutheran and a lifelong church-goer, so I “get” the older brother and the twinge of resentment he may feel. So often in the church world, pastors are asked our “call stories.” Now, I don’t have an “amazing” story to tell that gets me invited to be interviewed by Krista Tippet or invited to speak at the ELCA National Youth Gathering. But that’s ok. My story is my story, and the important thing is that I see where God has been present in it. 

However... at the moment, it feels as if a significant number of pastors who are also in their thirties are all publishing books.  Not everyone, but enough to notice. Like, it’s what all the “cool kids” are doing - if you aren’t having a baby, you’re getting a book deal.

But I’ve also noticed something about most of these books coming out … they are from perspectives that have traditionally been thrust to the margins, or at least, they are voices from the “outside.”

These authors have something in common – they have all experienced being on the outside or have felt lost within the church in some way. I wonder if any of them would trade their book deals to have the position of being on the “inside,” to have a story that is more like mine, one that seems boring, but less fraught and stressful in many ways.

One example of a book I read very recently is “All Who Are Weary, Easing the Burden on the Walk with Mental Illness,” the second book published by Pastor Emmy Kegler. You may recognize her name from another book  many of you read a few years ago, called “One Coin Found.” In that first book, she shares her perspective on being lost and found by the church, and by God, relying heavily on another of Jesus’ “lost” parables - the lost coin.

In her second book, “All Who Are Weary,” she examines how mental illness has been stigmatized and mishandled by Christians both in the past and in the present. In addition to being treated as an outsider because of her gender and sexual orientation, in this book Kegler dives deep into the ways that her experience with depression throughout her life has caused her to feel like an outsider too.  

Jesus did not name his parable “The prodigal son” or even “The lost son.” That came much later. Perhaps we could also call this parable “The TWO Lost Son.” Or even, “The Prodigal Father” – because of the prodigal, wasteful, and extravagant use of resources on BOTH of his lost sons. After all, the word prodigal just means “extravagantly wasteful” or “uses resources freely.” The father in the story IS very much like God – God loves us lavishly and extravagantly, throwing us the ultimate victory feast over death, every… single… Sunday… and then, coming outside, to where we are, to give us a personal invitation.

With Jesus, the “church insiders” find themselves on the outside, and the outsiders get first dibs. That is how Jesus operates…. And it's so maddening! Or at least, it can feel that way... to us “older siblings.” The truth is, though, that with Jesus, there is no inside OR outside. There cannot be anyone on the outside if all are truly embraced in the family of God. There is enough Jesus to go around. The love and grace of God is not going to run out.

The older son in this story forgot that. He forgot that he is the OLDEST son in the family and is therefore entitled to the lion’s share of his father’s inheritance already. But his father has to remind him – everything that belongs to the father also belongs to the son.

Jesus was speaking with the “Older Siblings” of his faith community when he told this story. The Pharisees and the scribes are often cast as “the bad guys,” when really they are trying their best to preserve some semblance of Jewish identity in a world that is very, very hostile to them. They might sound grumpy and judgy of Jesus for hanging out with the lost people on the margins, when from their perspective, Jesus looks as though he is diluting his faith. But these “older siblings” of their time forgot that rules and boundaries may have a place, but they never take the place of Jesus. 

We all belong to God, and our inheritance has always been evident in our baptisms: claimed as beloved children and given abundant life in Jesus’ victory over the grave. But sometimes we have our heads down, eyes to the plow, dedicated to the work - so much so that we completely miss the music and dancing and celebrating happening in God’s house. And God is at the doorstep, holding out a hand and an invitation to the party… into relationship with people that we might have judged wrongly in the past, or looked down on. This invitation summons us to a future that makes us realize that we have been unnecessarily spending our energy in unhelpful ways, and that is why we have missed out on this party all along… and makes our hard work feel like a waste. But hard work is never wasteful as long as we learn something along the way.

So, what are we going to do? We can stay outside the celebration and choose to remain just as lost as the younger brother was. After all, a sibling turning his back on another sibling is not all that different from a son that up and leaving his father with his half of the inheritance.

Our other choice is to take the hand of the prodigal father and go into the party, to take a risk that might make us feel uncomfortable or scare us a little bit. To welcome our siblings face to face, and to realize that you both have been lost, but now are found… you both were dead and now are come back to life, through the same love of Jesus Christ, and joined together in one family – older and younger, parent and child, dedicated and prodigal, you and them and me. Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Chicks of Mama Hen Jesus

 3-13-22

Grace and peace to you from God our creator and our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen.

By now in Jesus’ ministry, Jesus has gone through “one town and village after another, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem” (Luke 13: 22) causing all kinds of “trouble.” He’s been healing on the Sabbath. He’s been casting out demons. He has fed the hungry. He has been spending time with all the wrong people, teaching radical ideas like “the first shall be last and the last shall be first” … all the while boldly making his way closer and closer to Jerusalem, into the very den of the foxes like Herod and the religious authorities. No “circling around the city tooting his own horn” for Jesus…. He has the guts to dive right in, head first, clearly not afraid of what Herod might have planned for him. 

Too often we vilify the Pharisees as the enemies of Jesus , but really it’s Herod and what he represents - the puppet king of the powerful Roman Empire. And Herod now has it out for Jesus, just as he did for John the Baptist. Remember John’s head on a platter? That’s what John got for speaking up fearlessly against Herod, and he paid for it with his life. And, like John, this Jesus too is ruffling too many feathers. 

Here in this text, and out there in the world, we seem to be caught between the fox and the hen. If you listen to the wily and manipulating foxes - the Herods of the world - you might believe that only certain types of people have value, and some have more worth than others, based on skin color, physical and mental capabilities, age, gender identity, who they love, where they live, and how they present themselves to the world.

But Jesus the Mama hen tells us that a different world is possible. After all, a hen is a mom who would lay down her life for her chicks. And if you haven’t noticed, Moms can be fierce. And when they get together in the name of God and children and justice, they beat the fox at his own game.

I want to tell you about an amazing Lutheran by the name of Leymah Gbowee (No relation to singer David Bowie, hers is spelled with a G) She is a single mom who won the Nobel Peace Prize just over 10 year ago and spoke at the 2012 ELCA youth gathering in New Orleans (see more about her documentary HERE). She is a Liberian citizen who almost single-handedly brought an end to fourteen years of civil war in Liberia. Though she had a LOT of help - she gathered together both Christian and Muslim women to protest for peace along the commute of Liberia’s president. She did that every day. FOR YEARS, rain OR shine.

 When peace talks finally started between opposition leaders, they soon stalled when the men got distracted enjoying the fancy hotel rather than negotiating peace.  Gbowee and a few hundred women marched into the hotel and actually trapped the men inside the peace talks conference room – literally laying down their own bodies to barricade them in, blocking the door and sitting in the hallways. The women stayed there for days, singing  and praying and demanding that the peace talks resume. 

Because of their efforts, the war ended a few weeks later. All this came about because one woman loved her three children too much to give them a future filled with violence and death. So, she put her body on the line in order to fight for a better future, for herself and for them. She and her fierce “mom posse” got it done.

We don’t hear as much about the Love of God being like a mothers love as often we should, and it’s a real shame. In the Old Testament, God’s love is in some places compared to a nursing mother for her baby, a mother bear protecting her cubs at all costs, a mother hen extending her wings of safety over her wayward young chicks, as Jesus chooses to describe himself and his love for his people.  

We are under the mothering and comforting protection of Jesus, who, through the giving up and laying down of HIS body, we are saved, healed, and given a future with hope. The foxes of the world make a serious miscalculation when they choose to mess with God’s children. The fox Herod did not know the lengths to which our mother hen would go to get us back – all the way to death, even death on a cross. 

When Jesus is talking about “you will not see me until the time comes when you say ‘blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’,” he’s talking about when he will ride into Jerusalem on a humble donkey at the end of Lent, on Palm Sunday, the beginning of Holy Week. That is where Jesus is headed – to put himself on the line for his beloved children, even if it leads to death on a cross later in that week. But that’s not where that week will end. Holy Week doesn’t end in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday. Holy Week will end in Easter. Holy Week will end in Resurrection and an empty grave. 

In our own journeys through the season of Lent, we remember that we too are on our way to die –  to die to the ways of the Fox and all the lies that he tells us. But because we follow the crucified and risen Jesus, we can find hope in the face of Jesus’s suffering; we see life in a tool used for death. And we can fight with the same fierceness and loyalty as Mama Hen Jesus for ALL her beloved children. 

We’re seeing it all over the world - parents fleeing from Ukraine with their young children to keep them safe. Parents and allies gathering in state capitals to protest against legislation that harms children by making it illegal to acknowledge their belovedness or give them the medical interventions to help them become who they were born to be. 

Places like the Lamb Center are gearing up to be the protective wings over an expected influx of people in need, as the federal government ends emergency housing programs for the unhoused and the annual Hypothermia season comes to an end. A lot of “God’s beloved chicks” are going to need some protective wings in the coming days and weeks and months. 

And so, as followers of Jesus we too are called to protect the vulnerable, because we are lost chicks ourselves too. We are called to put our bodies on the line for the sake of others. It may not feel like we have skin in the game, but we all do. We are all children of God - when one of us chicks suffers, we all do. And everything we do for these “chicks of God” we do under the protective wings of our mothering God, lead on by the fierce love of Mama Jesus. Thanks be to God. Amen.