Found Things Don't Have to Repent

Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Unless you are perfect, you have sinned. You have sinned against God and against other people.

We sin against God. Some people take this to mean that God is recording all our little mistakes (and big ones) in a large book (the one that St. Peter looks to at the pearly gates, I imagine). And that God is judging us daily, disapproving of things now and at the end of time.

There is another way to look at this, though. Another way to look at this is to say we have sinned against Good. Against the good. Not all our sins are against others directly. We do things we ought not to do. We cheat at something. We disdain others for no good reason. We think bad thoughts or act like idiots. We agree with plans we know to be evil. Or we make those plans. We keep more than we need. We lie to ourselves. We live high on the exploitation of others.

Or we do not do as we ought to do. We turn our backs on someone who asks for help. We are silent when a courageous voice is needed. We are timid because we are afraid.

We do things that are not good and do not do the things that are good. I don’t know if God is disappointed or chagrined or annoyed at us. We, in moments of reflection, certainly are.

There is no one to forgive us these sins of doing and not doing. When we pass by a sick man asking for help on the street because he makes us nervous or frightened, that is not good. But who can forgive us? The needy man is gone. We cannot apologize to him. (Except perhaps on judgment day, when we pray that all those we passed by and passed over will forgive us.) But now, we have no one to forgive our sins. Only God forgives us these sins against Good.

But just as often, we sin against others. The harm our sins cause is personal and obvious. Horrible sins that cause death or suffering. Or that cause others sorrow or loss. Angry, stupid sins and clever, intentional ones. For those sins, we ask particular forgiveness. We hope to make amends. If we are fortunate, we can seek reconciliation. We hope that we may be forgiven by the one whom we have harmed.

The younger son in today’s Gospel story sins against both the good and against others. “I have sinned against heaven and before you,” he says. He says it twice, once in planning his return and once when he sees his father. He has done what he knows he should not have done, and he has hurt his father and also his brother.

Regarding the sins against others—forgiveness is theirs to grant or deny. The younger son is forgiven by his father, but it seems not by his brother. That’s how it works with others. We can only offer. And wait. And sometimes remain unrequited.

But regarding the sins against God, we can be more hopeful. The Pharisees accuse Jesus of eating with sinners. Jesus says to them, “you bet I do.” The implication is that that is what God requires. The Good demands that not only are sinners tolerated but welcomed. And if to that we add Luther’s proclamation that all of us are saints and sinners, we get that God demands that we all welcome all people. That we are more than not mean to them but that we sit down with them and eat with them. That is, treat them like our friends and family. At least, that’s what Jesus does in Luke’s Gospel.

But in the parable that Jesus tells, the father goes further than that. Now only does he tolerate his younger son and welcome him, but he keeps an eye out for him (“while he was still far off, his father saw him,” it says. He was watching and waiting). And more, he ran to him to greet him and to invite him home.

Now, you can—and people do—see yourself as one of these characters. The profligate and dissolute younger son, or the betrayed older son, or the anxious and then enthusiastic father. I certainly have been all three, at one time or another. But this is a parable, not a moral tale. It tells us about God.

Some say, since this is a Lenten reading, that it is about repentance, and about how the younger man comes to his senses and turns into a better person. But first of all, the father watches for the son and seeks him and runs to him before the father has any idea of what the son intends. He does not know whether the son repents or just wants a few more bucks. And second of all, we don’t really know what happens after the story ends; all we know is that he came home this time. Who knows what happens next?

And third of all, this parable is the last of three in Luke about searching for something that is lost (the other two being lost sheep and lost coins). And lost things do not have to repent for us to want them back in our fold, or purses, or homes, or hearts. The finding of things lost has more to say about the finder than about the thing lost.

When we seek forgiveness from others, we seek them out in reconciliation. But when we seek forgiveness from God for sins against Good, it is God who does the seeking. It would be nice if we repented. Repentance makes God’s forgiveness understandable. It puts it in context of our sin and regret.

But in the story, the father has forgiven the son long before the son repents, before he returns home. The father has forgiven the son because he is his son.

We forgive others in time, or pray to. But God forgives from the start.