We must remember the cross bridges divides

Larry Isbell

Love’s the only house big enough for all the pain in the world.”

— Martina McBride

“Love Can Build A Bridge”

— The Judds

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

— Robert Frost

One of our Bible readings during worship is Luke, chapter 15. That chapter contains several “Lost and Found” stories. Jesus tells three such stories in rapid succession.

The first one is about a “lost sheep.” The second is about “a lost coin.” The third, and longest, is about “a lost son.” In each of these stories, there is great worry over that which is lost and there is great energy put into finding the lost. The longest of the three stories is the third one. It is commonly known as “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.”

The word “prodigal” means wasteful. The story tells us about a youngest son in the family who wants to sow his wild oats. A youngest son was entitled to one-third of his father’s estate. In this story, the youngest boy asks for an “advance” on his inheritance. It was a very rude and heartless thing to do.

“Hey, dad! Give me my inheritance ahead of time! I want to get out of here!”

In that culture, such a request meant you were treating your father as “dead.”

So the young man goes off and sows his wild oats. He apparently went to the cupboard, in the middle of a morning hangover, and found the oatmeal container was empty. He seems to have spent everything on “wine, women and song.”

If he was going to eat, he would have to swallow his pride and borrow some sausage from his new neighbors. He learns, a little late in life, that “there’s no free lunch.” But the gentile neighbor hires him to work on the pig farm.

It was a particular insult to a Jewish man that he ended up feeding pigs for a living. Jews were similar to Muslims in that they would celebrate a “fig farmer” but would never tolerate a “pig farmer.” Swine and the meat of swine are against proper, kosher law. I am told that a rabbinic commentary gave this rather strong hint: “Cursed is he who feeds swine.”

One day, while slopping some gentile hogs, the young man decides to try what we could call “a jailhouse confession.” He doesn’t really mean it, but he knows it’s a formula that might convince his father to let him come home. So he crafts a manipulative prayer-like formula that will get him within a fork and spoon’s distance from grits and scrambled eggs.

“Hey dad! I remember how Max and Ted used to work for you and the minimum wage they earned got them fed on decent kosher food. I am willing to come back as a hired hand. By the way, I have sinned in your sight and in the sight of heaven.” Reminding the father that you know the meaning of the word “sin” can never hurt.

If you have heard the story in Luke 15: 11-32, you know that the young truant heads for home. He never gets to finish his rehearsed repentance speech, because his father sees him in the distance and runs to him.

Before the kid can even utter his paint-by-numbers confession, the father kisses him, showers him with gifts, and brings out the best food for a “welcome home” party. The wasteful son’s version of “The Sinner’s Prayer” was not necessary. Grace had already built a bridge over the gap created by sin. In our stories, this would be the happy ending.

But there is more to the story.

There is an elder brother in the story. This older brother has always played by the rules. He always goes to work an hour early and stays after 5 every night. He always avoided the bad sites on the internet and he never hid bottles of beer in his hunting boots in the closet when he was 14.

The younger brother was the one who “went to work late and quit early to make up for it.” The younger brother had bad magazines and booze hidden under his bed. He specialized in leaning on his shovel.

And so the elder brother, rightly, complains to the father. He has just come in from picking rocks out of the plow in the family fields. He has barked his shins and bruised his knuckles in the stony, thick soil. He hears the music of “Mumford and Sons” and old Elvis records coming from his father’s house. He quickly learns the reason for the music. There is a party in the honor of his lazy, self-entitled, younger brother.

We do not like this older brother. We have met him before. He’s the one always on time. He’s good at every sport and carries a 4.0 average in all his classes. He always takes home the trophy that he has well earned.

But this time? This time his younger brother got a trophy. The bad boy got a trophy that he never earned or deserved. The bad boy got unconditional love from their father.

This older brother is not self-entitled; but he is self-righteous. He is a truly good man but he also knows it.

There’s something odd about being truly good or extremely good looking. Neither goodness nor good looks are bad. But, somehow, when the person bearing those gifts shows that he knows — there is something annoying about it. Mark Twain once referred to this older brother as “a good man in the worst sense of the word.”

What does the father do? This father is the real key to the story. Having loved his younger, truant son, he now shows love to his older, responsible son.

Just as the younger son has received forgiveness the older son is reminded that he too is already loved and forgiven. “Everything I have is yours!” the father reminds his self-righteous son.

A bit of history helps here. An older brother was entitled to two-thirds of the father’s estate. But this father gives the older son “everything.” He doesn’t just give the older boy his rightful two-thirds in the face of his criticisms.

No. He says “Everything I have is yours.” Grace knows no bounds.

The father is an example of limitless love, endless grace. He is also an example that God’s love is better at building bridges than building walls. Everybody else in the story builds a wall of separation.

The young boy put a wall between himself and his father’s house. The older boy was building the same wall for different reasons. But a wall is a wall. And, as Robert Frost once wrote: “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.”

Of course, the father in the story is God. And Jesus telling of the story shows Jesus’ image of God. It is the image of God as unconditional lover and builder of bridges between polarized, separated people.

We just celebrated Good Friday — and it’s still a good time to remind ourselves what the basic image of the cross looks like. At the top, the arms of Jesus Christ are stretched out in two directions. It’s as if Jesus is reaching out to different “sides” that are separated by the gaps and walls that we have made out of our self-righteous fears.

You could say that a Roman cross was a “wall” where a person’s life came to a bitter end. But God took this Roman wall and turned it into a bridge that connects the separated sides of humanity.

The cross is the power that overcomes polarization.The cross of Christ reminds me more of a bridge than a wall. How about you?

I think can hear the voice of Jesus telling his modern disciples: “Take up your bridges and follow me!”

The Rev. Larry Isbell is pastor of First Lutheran Church in Columbus. He can reached at [email protected].