The Fourth Sunday of Lent All That I Have is Yours
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen! Today’s Gospel is a parable about a young son who came crawling back to his father after squandering his father’s property on “reckless living.” But there are two sons in this parable, and after the father lovingly restores the younger son he says with equal love to his elder son, “All that is mine is yours.” Dear Christian friends, For every Sunday in Lent, we pray in the Gradual of the Day—there between the Old Testament and the Epistle—“O come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” God help us! It requires great faith and self-sacrifice to fix our eyes on Jesus. • Fixing your eyes upon Jesus requires self-sacrifice because, in order for you to focus your attention upon Jesus, you must first stop focusing your attention upon yourself. That is a hard thing to do because we are each curved inward, born in a self-absorbed position. • Fixing your eyes upon Jesus is an act of great faith because it requires you to forget about and throw away all your actions—good actions and evil actions alike. Stated another way, nothing you do will ever change your heavenly Father’s love for you: no foolish or sinful action of yours will ruin your Father’s love for you; no holy work or good deed will ever increase your Father’s love for you. When you fix your eyes on Jesus, you actions lose all value—and that is a hard thing to believe you and I both are intimately aware of what we do. God gave you today’s Gospel to help you! Today’s Gospel is an especially good Gospel for helping you fix your eyes on Jesus because this Gospel warns you about the disaster that will strike when you fix your eyes too much upon yourself, rather than fixing your eyes on Jesus. The Younger Son Focused Upon His Own Actions What happened to that younger son in today’s Gospel? It was bad enough to “devour the property with prostitutes” and “squander it with reckless living.” But look at the much worse thing that happened when the younger son finally came to his senses: When he came to himself, he said, “How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.’” The real crime here is not the foolish living! The real crime is this young man’s egotistical idea that he could possibly make things right with dad if only he changed his life and acted a certain way. This young man was all about his behavior, boo-hooing over all that he had done wrong and scheming a way now to do right. He was self-absorbed. He was thinking about his actions as if those actions mattered! The Elder Son Focused Upon His Own Actions Then there is the elder brother. He might have been the real brat in this Gospel! He answered his father, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!” This elder brother was essentially saying, “I am not getting what I deserve, dad!” Like the younger man, this elder brother was egotistical and self-absorbed. This elder brother’s crime is his egotistical idea that his good behavior should be the thing that keeps him in good standing with his father. This elder brother was all about his behavior, boo-hooing over all that he had done right and well. “These many years I have served you.” Two Brothers, But One Point These two brothers in today’s Gospel seem to be direct opposites, but really they both are guilty of the same thing. They both focus their attention upon themselves, upon what they have done and upon what they might yet do. The only difference between these two sons is that one feels bad about all that he has done and the other feels proud of all that he has done. But what are despair and self-pride, if not two sides of the same, self-centered coin? That is why today’s Gospel is such a good Gospel for the season of Lent. All during Lent, the theme of worship is one and the same, summarized by the Gradual of the Day: “O come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith.” In today’s Gospel, Jesus warns you about the disaster that will strike when you fix your eyes too much upon yourself, rather than fixing your eyes on Jesus. When you fix your eyes upon yourself—upon your actions, upon your intentions, upon your worthiness—when you fix your eyes upon yourself, you will not fail to end up like one of these sons. Stated another way, ego and self-absorption will do one of two things to you. Ego and self-absorption will • lead you to feel despair, such as the younger son felt. The younger son was bowled over by his regrets and preoccupied by his desire to make things right that he could not see how his father’s love stood waiting for his return. • lead you to feel presumptuous and entitled, such as the elder son felt. The elder son’s neck was so stiffened by his own righteousness that he could not even see how much love his father showed him on a daily basis. Ego and self-absorption: these are harsh and uncomplimentary descriptions of these two men, made worse by the comparisons we can each make to ourselves. I know that good Christian people do not like to hear that they are egotistical and self-absorbed. If you should see me pointing at your ego, you should know that mine is bigger and more bloated than all yours put together. To self-absorbed people I speak as the King of Self-Absorption. Ego and self-absorption are all around, inside and out, as inescapable as death and as relentless as a shadow. “O Come, Let Us Fix Our Eyes on JESUS” That is why it requires great faith and self-sacrifice to fix our eyes on Jesus. • Fixing your eyes upon Jesus requires self-sacrifice because, in order for you to focus your attention upon Jesus, you must first stop focusing your attention upon yourself. • Fixing your eyes upon Jesus is an act of faith because it requires you to forget about and throw away all your actions—good actions and evil actions alike. Praise be to God! Nothing you do will ever change your heavenly Father’s love for you: no foolish or sinful action of arrogant youth will ruin your Father’s love for you; no holy work or good deed of age or wisdom will ever increase your Father’s love for you. If today’s Gospel is about anything, it is about your heavenly Father’s unwavering, unflinching, unstopping, undeterred, abiding love for you. In today’s Gospel, the Father’s message to his two sons is one and the same. • Concerning the one son, the father declares quick reconciliation and forgiveness: “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” • To the other son, the father declares abiding love and generosity: “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.” As the father in this parable dealt with his sons, so also does your Father in heaven likewise deal with you, no matter which direction your ego and self-absorption have taken you! In today’s Gospel, God your heavenly Father wants you to know that • instead of despair over all that you have done wrong, He has covered you with the best robe, namely the righteousness of your Christ. For God has promised you that “all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 2:27, NIV)—and there is no robe better than Christ! • instead of your sense of entitlement, or your sense of feeling cheated or short-changed when things do not go your way, your Father has promised always to be with you. God has given you His Son Jesus and Jesus is everything and God says to you concerning Jesus, “Everything I have is yours.” “O come, let us fix our eyes on Jesus,” dear saints! For If we do not fix our eyes upon Him, we shall be like the “brothers grim” in today’s Gospel, stuck looking at ourselves. _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
