Last night at a church meeting (not with EMUC folk), we turned briefly to a discussion of the Bible. One member of the group complained that he was tired of hearing sermons preached on the same 'old' scripture passages. After all, he said, how can there be anything new to say about Jesus' parable of the prodigal son? Spoiler alert - the parable of the prodigal son is the designated gospel reading for this Sunday and my sermon will be based on it.
Is there anything new to be gained by reading and reflecting once again on this parable? Many of us could recite the story from memory just as we could recite from memory, similar stories that have played out in our own families - stories of betrayal and reconciliation, failure and forgiveness, sibling rivalry and parental disappointment.
I believe that in our faith tradition as well as in our own family traditions, that there are certain 'core' stories that we turn to again and again as we try to make meaning in life; as we try to sort out our values and priorities; as we seek to discover what it truly means to be human. The parable in Luke 15:11-32 is one of those core stories; a story, that if we let it, has the power to draw us into a life-changing conversations with God and one another.
I invite you to go to this link to listen to this parable as told by a member of an international association of Biblical Storytellers. Ron Coughlin, a retired United Church Minister living in Beaconsfield QC, is a member of this association which has recently taken hold here in Canada. According to Ron, 'A good storyteller infuses the story with life, sparking our imagination to see events as they unfold in a new way. Biblical storytelling is a spiritual discipline as the storyteller learns the story, researches the context, and finds meaning to words we may skip over. I have the experience quite often, when I listen, of hearing things in the story I had not noticed before.'
One of the themes that often arises from this parable is that of forgiveness. In The Book of Forgiving, coauthored by Desmond Tutu and his daughter, Mpho Tutu, they offer a four-fold path to guide us as we seek to practice forgiveness. Whether it is on a small family scale or on a larger community scale, 'It seems there is no end to the creative ways we human can find to hurt each other, and no end to the reasons we feel justified in doing so. There is also no end to the human capacity for healing. In each of us, there is an innate ability to create joy out of suffering, to find hope in the most hopeless of situations, and to heal any relationship in need of healing.' (p. 3 in The Book of Forgiving)
Fred Luskin, whom the Tutus reference in their book, is the director of the Stanford University Forgiveness Projects. He has completed extensive research on the impact of forgiveness on human health, conflict resolution and reconciliation. He has worked with men and women from both sides of the violence in Northern Ireland who have had family members killed.
I offer links to two short video clips where he talks about forgiveness. The first is entitled, 'What is Forgiveness?, and the second, 'Forgiveness is Trainable'.
In the second video, Luskin speaks about certain daily practices to strengthen skills in us to make us more able to forgive.
Luskin speaks about the ways these practices affect us biochemically and influence human behaviour; however, he does admit that we can't actually teach forgiveness. Although he follows no particular faith tradition, he acknowledges that there appears to be some kind of spiritual energy or power of grace beyond human skill that is required to give us the capacity to forgive.
Is it any wonder that when Jesus taught us to pray, he gave us these words to say, 'Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.'
Come to worship at EMUC this Sunday and we'll carry on this conversation.
