Forgiveness - Luke 15: 11-32

I enjoy movies. It doesn’t matter if it is at the movie theater or watching at home, there is something about the storytelling in movies when it is done well that can capture the heart and the imagination, drawing you in. 

In 2009 the movie Invictus came out. I saw it about a year later, and again this past year as part of a class that I was taking. It tells the story of Nelson Mandela as he came to lead a deeply divided South Africa, uniting the country through the sport of rugby. 

Mandela had spent 27 years in jail. Four years after his release he was elected president of South Africa. There were racial tensions. But what struck me both in the movie, and what I later learned about the life of Nelson Mandela, is that he strove to live with forgiveness in his heart. In one scene in the movie, all the people from the previous administration are packing up their boxes, assuming that they are going to get fired, only to have Mandela call them all together and say as long as they were working to bring the country together they could stay. 

Time and time again, it came out that this was who Mandela was - someone who strove to bring people together even if it meant having to forgive people. Even those who imprisioned him. 

For the next several weeks as we journey through the season of Lent together we are going to be focusing on what it means to be a people who are both forgiven and who are forgiving. Archbishop Desmond Tutu once wrote a book entitled “No Future without Forgiveness”, which in and of itself is a profoundly true statement. But there is also no Christianity, my friends, without the forgiveness of Christ. 

We often think about the season of Lent as a time to give something up or start a new spiritual practice so we can draw closer to our Lord, but at its heart, as we move towards the cross, is not the story of Lent also one of forgiveness? For the life, death, and resurrection of Christ all point out that we are broken people in need of forgiveness, forgiveness that can only be offered by a Savior. 

In the Gospel of Luke we find this story, that we often describe as the parable of the Prodigal Son. It starts out in a way that would have absolutely shocked its first listeners - with a son demanding his share of the inheritance from his father. In other words, the son is standing there telling his father, in not so many words, that he would be better off if his father would just die, so he could get what’s coming to him. Why? Because he feels that it belongs to him.

This would be akin to spitting in his father’s face - a sign of profound disrespect. A son who disowned his own father before heading out and spending all that he had, all of his inheritance, on foolish things. Only he didn’t think long term and not too soon afterwards a famine came, meaning that he had nothing. No food. No place to live. No job. No money. And in his mind, no family. 

Then he did something that shocked the original Jewish audience even more - he took the only job he could find, as a pig farmer. Now pigs were considered to be unclean animals, and anyone who worked with them would have been ceremonially unclean. So here is this son who had engaged in inexcusable behavior, dishonoring himself and his family by what he said and defiling himself by his job. He had hit rock bottom. This young man would have been considered one who had sinned more than anyone could have ever imagined. 

In all stories there is a moment that changes things. For Nelson Mandela it was when he was released from prison and again when he heard that people were trying to organize around rugby in a way that would tear the country apart instead of bringing it together. That moment for the Prodigal Son can when he realized that life is not meant to be lived in this way, yearning to eat the scraps of pigs, and decides to go back home, back to the place where he left, and beg for forgiveness. He is so ashamed of his behavior that he doesn’t even plan on begging his father to take him back as a son, rather he wants to be taken in simply as a servant. Perhaps some of the hardest words we ever have to say in life are those when we admit that we have screwed up. Admit that we have hurt someone we love. Admit that we did not make the right choice. Admit that we sinned against God.

So he walks the long road home, all the while rehearsing what he is going to say to his father in hopes of begging for forgiveness. Only the unexpected happens. For while the son is still a long way off, the father sees him and starts to prepare for a celebration. This is perhaps my favorite part of the Parable of the Prodigal son - the celebration. I truly believe that the Kingdom of God rejoices whenever a lost child returns from the world of sin. And the father embrace his son, welcoming him home, for he once was lost, but now was found. 

This is where we often end the story, the younger son was in need of forgiveness and then was offered it by his father, but the story continues as the elder son, the faithful son, the one who thought that he always did everything right and never broke a rule, came home in the midst of this celebration and he is so mad at what is taking place that he refused to celebrate. Pointing out how he has done everything right, but had never received a reward, yet here is one who has done everything wrong and was getting a fattened calf killed in his honor. To which the father replies, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 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 truth is friends, that both the younger and the older son were in need of forgiveness. It’s easy to point out the sin of the younger son, and perhaps that is why the parable often refers to him by name in the title. But the older son also needs forgiven, for he was a hard heart. 

We, too, are in need of forgiveness. There are so many ways that we alienate ourselves from God and from each other. And the first step, which the younger son did and the older son did not, is realizing that we are in need of forgiveness. For the younger son that came when he found himself with no money, no place to call home, and working a job he never imagined himself doing. For each of us, rock bottom, or recognizing our deep need for God will be different. But when we do have that realization it can lead us to the foot of the cross, where we can admit that we cannot deal with our own sin, and we hand our lives over to Jesus Christ.

The starting point of all forgiveness isn’t us - it’s God. The father in this parable. We were once far from our Heavenly Father, separated by sin. But now we are welcomed into the Kingdom in loving arms. This is the Father we pray to. The one who loves us unconditional, with an eternal forgiveness. The one who reminds us that while we may want to stop being God’s child, disowning Him, he will never stop being our Father.

And it is this forgiveness, that originates from God, that Jesus lived into on the cross. That is what we are journey towards, brothers and sisters. Jesus even forgave those who crucified him, telling the father that they do not know what they are doing. 

What are you in need of forgiveness for this day? Take it to the foot of the cross? What is weighing as a burden on your heart? Hand it to Jesus. Knowing that our loving God is waiting to embrace us with open arms when we humble ourselves enough to ask for forgiveness. Amen.