BCP: The Ninth Sunday after Trinity

And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit, amen.

On the Cross and in the resurrection, Jesus does something that rids us of any stain of guilt and shame. Western tradition has tended to focus on the guilt element - that Jesus does something to show us that God really does desire our good and not our punishment - but often doesn’t know what to do with the shame element. What is shame?

Because we no longer live in a shame and honour culture, it is difficult for us to understand what shame is and in what sense we might think of Jesus taking our shame. But in a shame and honour culture, like the middle-east, shame is a symptom of identity. If one does something shameful, one brings shame not only on oneself but on one’s family, one’s source of identity.

In a shame and honour culture there are norms which if not kept to can be symbols of shame. In the middle-east, exposing your feet or your legs is a shameful act, for example. You wash your feet as your come into someones house or into the temple as, particularly in a dusty, sandy region, one’s feet bring dirt into someone’s home. Into a clean space that is set apart for communion. Not following this norm is shameful act which dirties not only the home but one’s identity and family reputation.

Having these symbols of shame means that, especially in antiquity, it would have been uncommon for a man to run outside as if he did, he would need to lift up the hem of his robe, exposing his legs and bringing shame on himself.

In this parable in Luke, the younger son has wasted his father’s inheritence before his father has even died, and has found himself eating the food of pigs. Eating pork would be an act of shame in a Jewish culture but the younger son isn’t even doing that, he’s eating the food of the pigs. He is in the lowest place he could be. He is living as if his father is dead and eating the food of pigs as if he himself has become a pig. He has nothing left of his identity.

But when he returns home, not only does his father forgive him without requiring payment but his father runs to him. In running, the father meets the son in his shame. The father exposes his legs and says I will put my reputation on the line for my son, even the son who wished I was dead. All this is even before the son has said sorry.

In the Cross, Jesus meets the world in its shame, in its struggle for identity. What does this mean for us? What does it mean for how we might act to those who have brought shame on themselves? What does it mean for who God is and what God is doing in the eucharist?

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.