Luke 15: 25-32

Theme: Reformation and Revival

You remember the movie Braveheart? It is the story of the Scotsman, William Wallace and his stand against the English king, Edward the Longshanks. Edward has been an oppressive king whose army had destroyed Scotland, robbing and killing as they pleased. The nobility refused to fight against the king of England because they were making deals for money and land. No one would stand up against England.

Wallace was the first to organize and fight. Wallace collected a band of blue-painted warriors and started a rebellion. While the Scottish noblemen were negotiating with Longshanks, Wallace rallied his warriors. He gave a speech that rallied his men. When he had finished, one of Wallace’s friends said, "Fine speech. Now what do we do?"

"Just be yourselves."

"Where are you going?

"I’m going to pick a fight."

When you read the second half of this parable, you need to understand that Jesus is picking a fight. We don’t often picture Jesus as a William Wallace type who picks fights. But It is not a bad model. Jesus was a contentious man. He often intentionally provoked his opponentswhen most of us would have walked away. Jesus was not a soft spoken, powder puff type of guy as he is often made out to be. I picture Jesus as a fearless, self confident man.

When Jesus told this story, if he had stopped at verse 24 it he would have been just another good story teller. We all like the story down to verse 24. Most sermons we preach end there. We can understand God as a Father who is extravagant in his love and waits for us. We can all agree that the man who went into the far country did wrong and did not deserve any grace but we rejoice that God is such a God of grace. If only Jesus had stopped there. But, Jesus wanted to pick a fight. It was a divine provocation. And you know what happens when God picks a fight, God is going to win, you are going to lose.

Jesus’ audience included many good church people. They attended the synagogue. Many were members of religious parties, Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, Herodians, etc. These are the ones, very much like us, who were dutiful and went to church. They took leadership roles, and they lived their beliefs in public. And these are the very people Jesus wanted to pick a fight with. Jesus wants to pick a fight with you!

It does not take a great leap of the imagination for us to identify with the older brother. He had seen his younger brother arrogantly ask for his inheritance and break his father's heart. He watched as his family fell apart. He saw how his father become an old man before his eyes. He would come in from the field and see his father standing on that little knoll in front of the house that over looks the road. He would be there praying, looking, hoping that low down, mangy, shred of human debris would suddenly come walking down the road.

One evening, after a particularly hard day of working, the older brother came home and he heard music and dancing up at the house. He looked in the pen down by the barn and the fatted calf was gone. There was a party going on. Servants were going in and out of the house. He called one over to him and asked what is going on.

"Why, your brother who has been gone has returned. Your father was so happy that he threw a big party in honor of his return. Your dad placed one of his best robes on him. He put shoes upon his feet and he placed a ring upon his finger. Even though your brother was grimy and filthy and it seemed to me, he smelled like a pig, you father fell upon his neck and kissed him."

At those words the older son became angry and he refused to go into the house. We can imagine his anger. Some of us can feel his anger, if not as brother to brother, maybe as church member to church member or friend to former friend. He became angry, his righteousness welled up inside of him and he became blindingly mad.

He would not enter the house so his father came out to him. Please note that the father went to both of them. The younger son was met by the father who ran to meet him. The father comes out to meet the older son who refuses to come in. The older son is now the outsider.

We can see the older son, standing side ways is if he were ready to throw a punch. His face is full of anger. He screams, LOOK! It was a demand to see things the "correct way." I have worked all of my life for you. I have worked like a slave, I gave up dates for you, parties for you, I worked even when the servants would not work. I have never neglected a command of yours, and I certainly did not run away and spend all of your wealth with harlots. Yet when this son of yours came home, you barbequed the fatted calf and threw a party for him. You never even gave me a kid to kill and have a party with my friends. Can't you hear the sobs of a hurt and jealous man who thinks his place in his father's heart and in his estate has been stolen?

But his very words tell us that all is not right with him. His attitude shows that his years of obedience and service had been grim duty, not an act of love. All those years he had been waiting to get what was his. He had lived like a slave thinking that his father would love him more, give him more. It was not fair.

The father addressed his older son, not in anger, but as my child. Both sons where his beloved children. You have always been with me and all that I have is yours. We had to be merry, we had to celebrate, for this brother of yours was dead, and has begun to live, he was lost but now he is found. We had to celebrate.

The story is left open, we don’t know how it ended. In a way, we do. Those righteous men who heard the story later conspired and crucified Jesus. They remained the older brother to the end.

Do you see why Jesus wants to pick a fight with us? All to often we think we are being faithful Christians. But, we turn grace into duty and live a loveless life. We often have absolutely no sympathy for the lost or the unchurched or the wayward sinner. We don’t want to get our hands dirty, to alter our lifestyle for anyone we look down on. So, sinners find that is far easier to confess their sin to God than to man. They find that God’s love is often not found in his church or among his people and that forgiven Christians don’t forgive others easily.

The problem is that we become selfish, self absorbed, heartless, faithless, running on auto pilot. We don’t want to be here. We arrive late and leave early as if Church was a hazardous waste dump. Lets not be here too long lest that holy hazardous stuff might get on us and burn us! We find very little to praise and a whole lot to criticize. There are more grief and conflict in Churches than in most quarters of the world. Why is it that we shoot our own wounded and never try to restore and heal? We rarely go after the wayward.

If we are to be a church where God blesses his work, where we are set on fire with the Holy Spirit, where sinners come to Christ, where hell is emptied of its citizens, then we must stop being the older brother. How can God use a church full of older brothers?

Do you see why Jesus wants to pick a fight with you? He wants you to lose. He wants you to lose your faithlessness, your self righteousness, your self centeredness, and your self absorbed, heartless lifestyle. He wants to do to you what he did to the younger brother, to embrace you, to cloth you in royal robes. He wants to set you free to be his sons and daughters so that you can pick the same fight with others, the fight of love and grace and mercy and restoration.