Two Prodigal Sons (Philippians 3:8-14)

(Delivered at Prince of Peace Church, Hopewell, PA on March 20-21, 2010)

I want to tell you about two prodigal sons. The first we heard in the gospel reading last week. Young man asks his father for his inheritance. Father says ok. Kid runs off to the Big Apple. Blows all the cash on women and booze. Ends up in a pig pen with the pigs. Realizes he's eating worse than the pigs. Scripture says, “He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.” But then he “came to his senses.” Decides to return to his father and repent, saying, “I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” So he made the long journey back to his father. It was like he was running a marathon, away from his old, worthless life and toward his new life with his Father. Then we read, that “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. The son repents to his father, and his father brings him the best robe, puts a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet. And they had a feast and celebrated.

In Paul's letter to the Philippians, Paul confesses to being the second prodigal son. You can find his story in Acts: Paul is traveling all over, persecuting Christians. Acts 9:1 says that he was “breathing murderous threats against the Lord's disciples.” He was on his way to Damascus to take Christians prisoner and bring them back to Jerusalem. He's what you'd call a “super villain.” He probably had a cat that he would constantly pet. And an evil laugh. Mwa ha ha ha. He was in his own pigpen, going in the wrong direction, away from his father in heaven, and wasting his talents on the wrong things. Then suddenly, on that road to Damascus, he meets Jesus in “a light from heaven that flashes all around him.” He goes blind, and when he is filled with the Holy Spirit later, scales fall from his eyes, and he could see again. He could actually see for the first time in his life, because he now belonged to God. He began preaching in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. He was running back to the father, and the father ran to him, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

In his letter to the Philippians, he testifies: “I consider everything as loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish.” Rubbish is a nice proper British word for “trash.” But Paul's Greek word is closer to what's in that pig pen. Think excrement. Think of of the worst substance you know about.

Think of your past life before finding Christ. Before Christ, we did all these things that we thought were important, but when we look back...waste. Maybe we wanted to be famous and wasted our time trying to “make it big.” We want to be a famous actor or a famous writer or a famous singer or just famous. Or we bought a lot of stuff that became obsolete real fast, and now we look around our basements and think to ourselves, how did I end up with all this useless stuff? Or we thought we were witty and funny and said something hurtful to someone. That happens to me. I'm so funny! Hey, why are you crying? Or maybe something happened to us that wasn't even our fault, but we have that guilt just hanging over our heads all these years. Once we find Christ, all of that becomes rubbish.

All this rubbish is really heavy to us. That's when we stop calling it rubbish and we start calling it what it really is—sin. And that sin is just weighing us down. We can't take it anymore, we're about to collapse. Then Jesus comes along and he says, put your sin up here, on my back. I can handle it. And we throw our sin on Jesus' back, but it doesn't feel like anything to him. It has no weight to him. That's good, because he's got the sins of the whole world on his back, too.

Paul says that when we give the garbage of our old lives over to Jesus, we gain Christ, and are found in him, gaining a righteousness that is through faith in Christ—a righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. This righteousness changes us. After gaining this righteousness, Paul says: “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” This is a description of our marathon journey from the pigpen to the embrace of the father.

Let's quickly break these three things down, so we know what this marathon race is like. First, to know Christ and the power of his resurrection. What does it mean to “know” Christ. We can find the answer in the first chapter of John: John 1:10 says, “He, Jesus, was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not know him.” Verse 12: “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” To know Christ is to receive him, to believe in him. And when we believe in Jesus, we are called to be children of God. I think of my own children. When I get home from the seminary, they all rush to meet me. Daddy's home! Daddy's home! Even the two year old will come over and hug my shins. The 7-month-old will start shaking with joy in her little bumbo seat. I didn't train them to do that. They know their father. If another guy came in the house and said he was me, they wouldn't buy it. They'd probably just stare at him. Juju would twirl her hair, looking concerned and then either hide or run back to mama. When we know God, when we receive him as our father, we know that we are his children.

The second part of Paul's description of the journey from the pigpen to the father is sharing, sharing in Christ's suffering and death. When we were living in the pigpen, these are the things that we avoided doing, because they were too uncomfortable. Oooh, I'd never start a conversation with a stranger! I'd never give up my cable and Internet, so I could tithe! I'd never volunteer to do that! I don't have the time. These are minor sufferings we take on, like Jesus did. Jesus was lonely. He said that he had nowhere to lay his head. He was surrounded by people! As the world gets more and more hostile to Christianity, we may be called to live lonelier and lonelier lives. But it's never lonely, because we have Jesus and the Christian community. We are like a salmon swimming upstream, against the tide of this culture and this world. And at any time we may be asked to die for the sake of Jesus. Sharing in his death.

Finally, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. Hope for heaven. A vivid image: being resurrected in Christ! This is an easy description, because we can just picture heaven in our minds at any time. Everything that is good, everything that is right. I think of all the people that I'm going to meet. Loved ones: family and friends. Famous people like the saints and Moses and Abraham. Not only them but Jesus—the center of it all. The life of the party.

So, Paul describes what this journey is like, from the pigpen to the father's embrace. As we pursue God, run back to the father, we are knowing Christ, sharing in his sufferings, and hoping for heaven. As we take this journey we experience these three things by reading our Bibles and praying. How do we know Jesus more? Read the Bible, pray to him, asking him to give you more knowledge of him. How do we share in his sufferings? Read our Bibles. Learn about Jesus' sufferings. Pray that God will put us in difficult situations, so that he can show his glory to the world. How do you hope for heaven? Read our Bibles. Learn about heaven and the resurrection. Pray that God will give us peace and hope about the world to come. It's tough. Even the most learned seminarian or pastor has difficulty reading his Bible each day, or getting on his knees and praying for a long stretch of time. But, like exercise, once we make it a habit, we find that we can do it more, and it's very rewarding.

One of the things that makes it hard is sin. Our sin keeps reminding us of the rubbish of our past lives. We keep turning back. We keep returning to the pig pen. Paul's final words in this passage are those of encouragement. “I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” The father. He's pressing on for that loving embrace of the father. And he then says, “I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” What happens when a marathon runner looks back? He slows down. He trips. He stumbles. He loses the race. The good marathon runner presses on toward the goal, forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead.

I won a marathon once. It was elementary school, and it was a couple of laps around a blacktop. Look at me. I'm not the fastest. I'm not the most limber. I don't have the best stamina. The other boys were much better runners. But I pressed on toward the goal, forgetting what was behind and straining toward what was ahead. At one point a big dog ran onto the blacktop and distracted all the other runners. They looked back. They forgot what was ahead. I pressed on, not being distracted by the dog, and I strained toward what was ahead. I won the race.

Now, think of what a finish line looks like. The crowds cheering. The judges. The banners. The water coolers. Now, think of what a Christian finish line looks like. While we're still a long way off, our father sees us and is filled with compassion for us; he runs to us, throws his arms around us and kisses us. Our father brings us the best robe, puts a ring on our finger, sandals on our feet. And we have a feast and celebrate. And all the angels in heaven rejoice.

Amen