Sermon – Do You Understand Grace?
Psalm 32; Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
Farmville Presbyterian Church
3/30/25
The timing of today’s message and my thoughts might have something to do with the fact that my middle daughter celebrated her 24th birthday this last week. We got to go to Richmond for the evening and celebrate her, the child who probably single-handedly turned me most grey. This would be my sweet Grace. And as you might be guessing, no, we have not always understood her.
However (and far more importantly) for us today, she is not the grace that I am trying to unpack today. The grace driving this message is, of course, God’s grace. We are holding here probably the most important thing I have ever learned, the most important thing I know, and the most important thing I can share. Grace is how I experience the love of God. This is really why I love God. This has shaped and changed my life unlike anything else. Grace is most, most precious to me. When we named our daughter Grace, it was a quiet nod to my growing appreciation of what grace meant to me then. Yes, my motivation was connected for my love of God’s grace, but even then, I was only scratching the surface. Since then, I have been humbled again and again by what grace means, and I expect I have many lessons to go. If there is no other story in the Bible that can help us understand grace better, however, it is this one from Luke.
We have been in Luke for the last few weeks, but we have jumped ahead today to the famous “Lost and Found” chapter. This is the chapter about things that are lost and then found. We have the lost coin, the lost sheep, and now the lost son. I cannot tell you, friends, just how important this passage and the larger chapter is for us all. Well, I can tell you, but you will not believe me until you live it for yourself.
Jesus is answering those who were offended when they saw him accepting sinners and eating with them. They happen to be Pharisees here, but it could be any group that has rules or codes about who is acceptable and who is not, who is allowed and who is not, who is clean and who is not, who is legal and who is not, who is loveable and who is not, who is human and who is not, or who is normal and who is not. We all, every single one of us, have some idea, some line, some expectation about who is OK or appropriate among God’s children. We all have some group or some people, some kind of person, that we would not sit down to eat with, not if we had a choice. We love the idea of others proving their worth, also. So, while Jesus is specifically addressing those upset Pharisees here in Luke 15, you and I are Jesus’ real audience here. Luke thought it was important enough to make sure we all heard this passage. How many lives have been changed by this passage? Wherever you are in this story, we are all here to receive a lesson in grace. You and I are all here to receive God’s lesson.
Even though we have historically called this the Parable of the Prodigal Son, this is really the story of the father. It is actually all about the father. The sons help set the stage. They move the story. They present the crisis, but the real spotlight is on the father. And people would not have been able to take their attention off of the father. He was completely offensive. That’s right. This man who seems the best person in the story is completely offensive. This was a lesson no one then would ever forget.
First, a wretch of a disrespectful son asked for his inheritance IN ADVANCE. There was only one way you could get your inheritance back then, and that was for dad to die, so the son was telling his father to his face that as far as he was concerned, he was dead to him. The son was telling his father that he considered him dead. Now, that is seems like something you might hear in some family situations today, but in that day, the father could have (and society would have said SHOULD have) had that disrespectful son stoned to death. The son was threatening social order and God’s Law. The father’s job is to command respect and teach children to obey and honor their parents and traditions. Here, the son is doing none of that. It was as opposite as you could get.
But the father goes along with the hairbrained scheme. Again, this would have sent the crowds into painful confusion. The son gets the money and wastes it. By becoming someone who tends to pigs, we know the son is at rock bottom as the pig is the quintessential unclean animal, and he longs for what the pigs were eating. Finally, they thought, this is justice. There was nowhere to go from there until the son remembered that the hired hands back home were better off than he was. The son knows he can never be a son, again. He blew his chance, but even a servant there was better than a starving, pig person.
This is where the story gets even stranger. The father notices his son from far off. He is watching for his son to return. Envision the man scanning the horizon every day in hope. Before his son even reaches him, he races to his son. This was perhaps the most shameful act in the whole story. In order for the father to run to his son, he would have had to pick up his robe and expose his legs. This was an abject humiliation to the father. Running was something he should have never done. It was outrageous.
Then, before the son even gets his rehearsed speech completely out, the father makes him a full son, again. He is so overjoyed to have him home that without hesitation, without regret, without shame he re-establishes his son. This would reconnect the son to the inheritance, by the way. It completely wipes away all that had happened before. The son never asked for that. He did not even get to ask for forgiveness, but he admits he has sinned and deserves no kindness.
The father demands nothing of the son. How strange is that? The father is just so overjoyed to have the son home. This is the theme of this whole chapter in Luke. When things are lost and then found, there is great rejoicing. When people who were lost are found, heaven rejoices greatly. That is all that matters. They are welcomed, embraced, connected, restored – no questions asked, no proof demanded, no restitution needed. Heaven is just glad to have them home.
Every week, I am present here for the Narcotics Anonymous meeting that we host on Thursday evenings. I continue to believe that this is the most significant ministry we have as a church, and our part is simply giving this group space to meet. The group has become so large that it has needed to meet upstairs in the fellowship hall. Two other groups continue to meet downstairs – an NA meeting for women and an AA group, but the main NA group that meets upstairs has changed my life. I’ll just tell you that these meetings are always open if anyone wants to see it for themselves.
One of the things that gets me about the group, though, is that everyone is welcome. You do not have to prove that you are clean. You do not even have to say you are sober. Everyone is accepted and loved. All they need is the willingness to be there. Like the father to the son, all he wanted was the son there. That is where the father could show his love. That NA group is incredible for the support and care and concern and guidance that they offer everyone. You cannot leave without a hug. No one sugar coats anything. They have all done very difficult things. Some of them have been incarcerated. Some of them have lost jobs and family and health and opportunity and more. They have suffered and lost so much and live with that brokenness, but there they are accepted and loved as they are. It is the most honest and rewarding experience of grace I have ever known. In so many other places, these folk might NOT be shown that kind of kindness. In so many other settings, they might NOT know that kind of grace. Here, they know what it means to be loved. Lives are changed when they are given that kind of grace and are willing to live into it. It is messy and not always easy, but it is how people are valued.
My radical honesty tells me that I may never know grace as well as my NA sisters and brothers do. In some ways, I do not want to have to know grace that well. I would rather keep my secure and safe ways, my controlled life, and get through my days mostly unscathed, but that life is really a lie. Maybe you are not struggling with a life altering, life wrecking addiction at the moment. Maybe you have not suffered incredible loss or are going through the toughest time of your life. Maybe your life is on the whole pretty great, but we cannot get through life without measures of grace.
Actually, we have done nothing to deserve any of the goodness we know. Literally, all of this is grace. Each moment is a gift. Our relationships are a gift. Our experiences are a gift. Our connections are a gift. Our talents and abilities are a gift. Any wellbeing is a gift of grace. The things that excite us and give us joy are a gift. This very shared moment is a gift. It took me having my first child to recognize just how much God gives us – just because. I was not worthy or deserving of that brand new life entrusted to me. It was all grace.
Please, please do not let this moment go by without filling your heart for what God has done and for what God continues to do for us all. I believe our highest calling as God’s children is to work to be that gracious with each other, also. That is what it means to know the love of the Father. To God be the glory. Amen.