Lent Landscapes - 4 - Forgiveness

Scripture: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Luke 15:1–3 NIV

1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 3 Then Jesus told them this parable:

Luke 15:11–32 NIV

11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. 13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. 17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. 21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. 25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ 28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ 31 “ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ”

3/30/2025

Order of Service:

Announcements

Opening Worship

Prayer Requests

Prayer Song

Pastoral Prayer

Kid’s Time

Offering (Doxology and Offering Prayer)

Scripture Reading

Sermon

Closing Song

Benediction

Special Notes:

Standard

Opening Prayer:

Eternal lover of our wayward race,

we praise you for your ever-open door.

You open your arms to accept us even before we turn to meet your welcome;

you invite us to forgiveness even before our hearts are softened to repentance.

Hold before us the image of our humanity made new, that we may live in Jesus Christ, the model and the pioneer of your new creation. Amen.

Forgiveness

Tragedies

Our most powerful stories are almost all tragedies. In the classical sense, comedies are stories that take us from rags to riches, with the good guys winning at the end and often closing with a wedding. Tragedies lean the other way, with the main characters being yanked out of a place of safety and happiness and losing everything throughout the story. Why do I say our most powerful stories are almost all tragedies? Because we typically learn more by losing and watching others lose than by watching them accidentally fall into great gain. And if someone works hard and receives what they have earned, there’s no story in there. That’s just another day of work.

Sometimes, those stories tell us about loss, even in the midst of victory. Marvel Studios underwent an enormous project 20 years ago, pulling together a series of movies to draw people into a single story that spans decades. We were introduced to heroes like Hulk, Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America, and then we watched them finally being brought together to defeat the alien monsters in New York and save the day. It was a wild ride, and they could’ve ended the story there at that moment of victory. However, the writers and directors wanted us to experience the story on more than just the surface level.

We are used to leaving the stadium after the final score is announced and our team wins. But these writers and directors immediately put out half a dozen TV series and follow up movies, built around the devastation and destruction that resulted from our heroes battling the monsters. They dared to ask the question, “Was it worth it?” Are those moments of incredible victory worth the mess that is left behind? We might say yes if we are the ones who like to party and run. But when we have stayed behind to clean up afterward, sometimes we wonder if it was all worth it.

Today’s scripture passage is about forgiveness. And it is also about satisfaction because those two things are intimately tied together. Deep in our hearts, we yearn for satisfaction. We understand it on a level that we can feel even when we cannot put it into words. We chase after it like our life depends upon it, like springs of freshwater that give us life. However, scripture teaches us that we will only find true satisfaction in God, and Jesus shows us that we cannot receive that satisfaction without forgiveness.

Fall

Our passage today is one of the most famous stories of all time. It’s been told and retold so many times that we often think of it as a generic story that could be about anyone. However, the opening verses of chapter 15 tell us that this story was told to make a point to two specific groups of listeners.

It was a weird fellowship dinner. Perhaps you’ve been to one like this. There were two very different groups of people who did not know each other and did not want to know each other. They sat on opposite ends of the rooms and talked among themselves while the disciples worked to make sure everyone had food to eat. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law moved into what they assumed were the seats of honor at the dinner table. On the opposite end of the table, crowded around the walls and camped up near the doors, were the tax collectors and those who were socially referred to as sinners. These were the sellouts, the untrustworthy, and the kind of people with problems. It was best to stay away from them. But Jesus didn’t get that message. He was visiting with, talking with, and sitting down and eating with these outcasts as much or more than he was with the Jewish leaders.

The tension in the room was painful. Suddenly, Jesus stopped everyone and told them a story about the way fellowship meals might look like in God‘s kingdom. Like every good tragedy, it starts with a mistake—a fall that happens when someone thinks an idea sounds good at the time.

Jesus said: A Landowner has two sons, and one day, the younger son gets tired of working for a system that will never be his. Because he was born second, he would live his life serving under his father and then his older brother. So, in a moment of ambition, he decides to quit while he’s ahead, take his money and run. He asks for his part of the inheritance while his father and brother still live. He showed by these words that he valued their wealth more than their company and fellowship. He wanted the gift, not the giver. And in an uncanny act of mercy, his father granted his desire, sold whatever was required to get the cash, and gave it to his younger son. That younger son left, turning his back on his home, intending never to return. He went off looking to find satisfaction somewhere in the great big world. It seemed like a great idea at the time.

It did not take long, though, for that one mistake to lead to another and another, cascading into a pit of sin and loss. The world was not as kind to the young man as his father had been. They took his money in exchange for pleasures that were not satisfying and did not last. When he had nothing left but his hunger and loneliness, he gave away the only thing he had left, selling himself into slavery in the hopes of getting something to eat.

Most Jews probably thought you would become unclean just being around pigs. This Jewish man had sunk so low that he wished to eat out of the trough with them. We sometimes talk about people hitting rock bottom before they change their lives. This man went through a couple of subbasement floors beneath rock bottom. Like those Jewish leaders, sometimes you and I don’t realize just how far down sin can drag us.

Return

The powerful moment in the middle of the story is when this man realizes how much better life was with his father. He recognized that even the servants were treated better than this at his father‘s house. So he decides to go home.

Repentance is the precursor to forgiveness. We talked about repentance last week. You won’t find forgiveness without it. We know our forgiveness and salvation cannot be earned, so we struggle to understand the role of repentance when receiving forgiveness. Sometimes, we make forgiveness all about a prayer. Sometimes, we make salvation all about a prayer that we keep praying over and over again. “

“Lord, I’m sorry for what I’ve done. Please forgive me. I’m a sinful person living in a sinful world. When I die, rescue me. Don’t let me stand and be judged for what I’ve done with my life.”

When that is our idea of salvation, we stop the story right there, with us, stuck in the pig pit. But Jesus does not stop the story there. That young man stood up, left the pigs, and started to walk home. In fact, he may have had to run to try to escape the people he was in debt with. Most of the time, we can try to get out of the pig pit on our own, but it has a way of following us. Either way, he had a part to play. He had to do more than make a decision and pray about it. He had to get up and move from one place to another. That is repentance. That is us proving with our actions that we want to help we are asking God for.

He made it home, and his father was outside, watching and waiting for him. In fact, he had been there the whole time his son was gone. The young man came and confessed the sin. He asked for forgiveness for the opportunity to live with his father as a servant. He knew even that was more than he deserved because he had proved how untrustworthy he was, how ungrateful he was, by his previous actions. But his father didn’t even let him finish his request. His father called the servants to bring him clean clothes and a ring, part of the family’s jewelry, to show everyone that he was again part of this family. And then he ordered them to prepare a great feast to celebrate that the lost son had returned home. All was forgiven.

Response

Sometimes, our understanding of forgiveness ends there. We stop when we feel like we have finally gotten right with God. Or rather, he has made us right with him. But sometimes we keep our dirty clothes and deny the ring. We avoid the party and tell ourselves we don’t deserve all that, so we will skip it and spend the rest of our lives working off our debt to our father as his servant, not his child. That was our plan anyway. But that is not God‘s plan. Yes, the father lost a lot of money in this story. But he lost something infinitely more valuable. He lost his child. And anyone who has lost a child knows that no amount of money can make that hurt go away.

We know forgiveness has happened when the right relationship is restored. And, when the son was humble enough to receive what he did not deserve, he was able to see his father and be grateful for all he had been given his entire life in a way that was far greater even than before he left home the first time. It may be that we only learn how to love God and be loved by God through repentance and forgiveness.

And that would be a great place to stop. But Jesus tells us there’s more to forgiveness than that. There was another son, an older son, who stayed home and worked for the father obediently. He probably took on the extra work the younger son had done. When his younger brother left, he, too, lost. He lost part of the property, which could’ve been a joint inheritance, or at least should’ve been held together until the father died. He lost the help taking care of that property. And he lost the relationship of having a brother.

Where there is loss, there’s grief, and that grief can make us feel sad, numb, and angry, and we work to adjust our lives to get used to that new normal. We get used to being alone and unable to trust those who have hurt us. Jesus tells us that when the younger brother returned, his older brother wanted nothing to do with him. His older brother probably wouldn’t have trusted him to hire him on as a servant, and he certainly did not want him restored to the family. Why set themselves up to be hurt again by someone with a proven track record?

But the father saw things differently. The father recognized that our relationships and the forgiveness and grace we share are far more important than any of the things that provide for us in life. Land and livestock don’t mean much if you lose those you love and live alone.

So Jesus pointed out to those Jewish leaders at the dinner party they could not expect to be part of the family of God if they were ignoring those lost children, that God was forgiving, restoring, and bringing back into his family. And in their pride and judgment, they were only hurting themselves, cutting themselves off from God‘s presence, because they didn’t like the company he kept.

They would never be satisfied in God‘s kingdom. So Jesus told them this is a cautionary tale. If we want to find satisfaction in this life and the next, there is no other way but through repentance and forgiveness. We have to repent and follow Jesus where he leads us. And we have to receive that forgiveness like living water. It refreshes our souls. As we continue every day to let go of the sin in our lives and repent and follow where Jesus leads us, we find nourishment in the forgiveness and grace he gives us, and we find new strength as we see more and more of the love God has for us.

But that growth in that grace will stop if we try to keep it just between God and ourselves. God gives us those moments when we find that spring of water to refresh our souls after our long hikes through the hills and uses those places to draw us all together to understand not just what it means to be children of God but also the gift of being brothers and sisters together. It is at these springs of grace, where God brings his lost children home and begins that lifelong work, restoring them in his image, that we remember again that he is not done with us yet. And following his example, we learn how to adopt one another into our true family, the body of Christ.

Are you struggling to receive forgiveness today? Are you struggling to repent and even ask for it? If the Holy Spirit is nudging you to seek that forgiveness, then do it. If you want someone to pray with you or encourage you as you seek that forgiveness, ask, and we would be glad to do that.

If you’ve been hurt or are dealing with a broken relationship, you need to forgive them and let that go so that you can grow into the person God wants you to be. It doesn’t matter if they repent or ask for forgiveness themselves. We take our cues from our Heavenly Father, who stands ready to offer grace and forgiveness long before any of us come home.

And today, you may not feel a pressing need to seek forgiveness or offer it to someone who has sinned against you. And that’s OK. But I want to let you know that not all of those Jewish leaders hated Jesus. Not all of them were trying to tear him down. There were a lot of them that were just along for the ride. But you would find them sitting next to the people who tried to plug up those springs of grace, and they did nothing to stop them. They became guilty by association.

Easter is almost here, and we have a lot of really good opportunities to share that living water and forgiveness with people who don’t have it and can’t get to it themselves. When we gather together in fellowship, eating and celebrating with our guests, where will you sit? Will you fellowship like the Jewish leaders, or will you fellowship like Jesus? As we get excited about our holy week services, Palm, Sunday, Maundy Thursday Communion and Prayer, Good Friday services, and all of our Easter Sunday morning celebrations, who will you bring with you? The Holy Spirit may have already put someone on your mind and heart who needs to come home to Jesus, who needs a church family of brothers and sisters to support and encourage them as we walk together, following him. It may even be someone that you have a forgiveness issue with yourself. We have a few invitations you can take home to help you invite, encourage, and bring those people with you as we celebrate what Jesus does in our lives together, but the most important invitation they can receive is a relationship with you sharing Christ’s forgiveness with them.

We are desperately grateful for God’s forgiveness, which transforms our lives. The most important work we do in God‘s family is sharing that forgiveness with others.

Closing Prayer

Heavenly Father, we have wandered and strayed from your home and your love too many times. We have prayed for your forgiveness hundreds, thousands, perhaps millions of times. Help us to finally repent and come home to you. Help us to humbly receive that which we know we don’t deserve and could never earn. Help us to love each other the way you love us. And help us to turn our eyes away from ourselves and to see our lost brothers and sisters who are still out in the highways and byways, waiting for an invitation, waiting for us to welcome them back home. In Jesus’s name, amen.