On Tables & Reconciliation

  

What's the Parable of the Prodigal Son really about? Surprisingly, it's about tables... and reconciliation!

 

Joshua 5:9-12

Psalm 32

2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

 

The Rev. Seth Olson © 2025

 

Holy One, you prepare a table in the wilderness and set it before saints and sinners alike. Let your Word meet us in this moment. Let us receive your invitation with open hearts and open minds. Amen.

There’s something sacred about a shared table.

 

Maybe it’s the table in your kitchen, cluttered with mail and homework and a stray crayon or two, but still the place your family returns to, night after night. 

 

Maybe it’s a holiday table, bursting with joy, delicious dishes, and awkward conversation. 

 

Or maybe it’s this table—the altar—where bread and wine become more than bread and wine. Where we meet the mystery of grace. Where heaven and earth kiss one another. Where we take part in a feast, which has been on-going for 2,000 years and will continue on into eternity.

 

In today’s Gospel, we hear one of Jesus’ most famous parables. But before we get to the story itself though, it’s helpful to notice what triggered it—a table. “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling, saying this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

 

Jesus was welcoming the wrong people to the table. The Pharisees—religious leaders not unlike you or I—and scribes—the lawyers of the day—began to mutter their disapproval. And so, Jesus told them this parable—not to shame them, but to show them what the kingdom of God looks like.

You know this story. Even if this morning was the very first time you ever heard it, the Parable of the Prodigal Son is our story—a tale about the human condition and God’s epic love for us. To recap it in brief, a son squandered his inheritance in a far-off land, wound up feeding pigs (not a great look for an Israelite forbidden from even touching swine), and eventually stumbled home with a well-rehearsed apology. His father saw him, ran to him, embraced him before a word was spoken. There was a feast—a raucous party. And then the elder brother, angry and excluded, was invited to the table, too. Did he go in? It’s a cliff-hanger meant for Pharisees, scribes, and us to figure out!

 

But, before you go picking on one son or the other, here’s the truth: both sons were lost. One was lost in rebellion—the other in resentment. One wandered far from home—the other far from grace.

 

And yet—this is what hits me every time—the father went out to meet both sons. The father ran to the younger and pleaded with the elder. No shame. No punishment. Only this: “Come inside. Rejoice. You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”

 

A First-Century patriarch would NEVER do this. And, I repeat, never! He would not run out to meet a son who essentially wished him dead in requesting his inheritance early. Nor would he leave a party that he was hosting. But, this is not a story meant to share the exemplary behavior of a father. No, this is a story about what the Kingdom of God looks like, who Our Father in Heaven is, and at least to me, it looks a lot like a family built not on getting it all right, but on having the grace to reconcile when we don’t get it all right.

Saint Paul knew this. Perhaps that is why in his letters to the Church in Corinth which we heard today, he wrote: “God has given us the ministry of reconciliation.” When heard alongside today’s Gospel lesson, we might just realize the Parable of the Prodigal Son isn’t just about God’s mercy—it’s about our call to join in the reconciling work of Christ. To be people who meet one another with grace. To refuse the false binary of “good son” vs. “bad son.” To say, “Come to the table. There's room for you. No matter where you’re from, what you’ve done, or what you have messed up… No matter what, there’s room for you.”

 

That’s especially important right now, in our church and our country—where it’s easy to define ourselves by who we’re not—not like those people, not like that party, not like them. And yes, it is meet and right, and our bounden duty (to borrow words from the Rite I Eucharistic Prayer) to live lives where we uphold Gospel values—to be people committed to unconditional love, service, stewardship, humility, grace, and prayer. But, anytime we put up a barrier separating us from them Christ tears down that dividing wall. Christ continually makes all things new, and we are invited to take part in that. To have the vision of Christ and to see that they are us and we are them. All of us are one.

 

At Holy Apostles, we strive to be a community that lives this out—not just in word but in action. A community where you can come back after you’ve made a mess of things. A community where resentment doesn’t harden into exile. A community where we feast on grace.

 

But, sometimes we don’t even get that right. Sometimes we hold grudges. We experience real hurt and it’s hard then to make amends. When this happens to me, sometimes I dig my feet into stubbornness. If I don’t forgive someone else, I think, I maintain power over them. However, Anne Lamott, the Christian author and pastor, described withholding forgiveness as us drinking rat poison and expecting the rat to die. It’s only hurting us. And, it is not taking seriously who God is calling this community to be. 

 

We can hear echoes of who God yearns for us to be in words we heard from Joshua. God says, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” In this story, the people eat the first Passover in the Promised Land—they take part in a new beginning, a new table in a new place. It echoes the Gospel’s table of return and reconciliation. It foreshadows the Eucharistic table we approach week after week—our own table of new beginnings.

 

In truth, the parable we heard today from Luke isn’t just a story Jesus told. This is a narrative Jesus lived. He was accused of eating with the wrong people. He was betrayed at a table. He gave himself at a table. And he invites us still to join him at table.

 

So, wherever you are today—whether you feel like the younger son, broken and unsure if you belong, or the elder son, righteous and quietly bitter—the invitation is the same:

 

Come to the table.

 

Not because you deserve it. Not because you’ve got it all figured out. But because this is what grace looks like. A father running. A feast beginning. And, a love that refuses to let anyone stay lost. 

 

Amen.

Life's Not Fair

“Life’s not fair.” Has anyone ever said that to you? I know I have heard it a few times throughout life and I bet you have too. Perhaps it was as a child when you got in trouble for doing something that your sibling had just done without punishment… “No one said life is fair.” Or, maybe it happened in school when your 10^th grade English teacher marked obviously correct grammar with red ink… “You know life is not always fair.” Then again, it could have been recently when the officer pick you out, even though everyone around you was speeding… “Life’s just not fair.”

In today’s Gospel lesson we hear a tiny sliver of one of my favorite passages in Holy Scripture that reminds me that life is not always fair. Often we hear the rest of this passage at funeral services. Jesus said to his disciples, “Do not be troubled.” Even though it was the night before he would die, Jesus spoke peacefully about the place where he was going, that he was preparing a place for them, and that there were many dwelling places there. At that moment Thomas blurts out a logical concern. When I hear about “Doubting Thomas” I think, “Sometimes life’s not fair.” For he was one who simply wanted a little bit more evidence, a little more from Jesus, and yet the Church has dubbed him the wayward cynic. Thomas spoke, “Lord we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus’ response has encouraged and perplexed the Church in the subsequent ages, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

The Church picks on Thomas because in the cold black ink of Holy Scripture we can so easily scoff at his honest wonderings. Remarkably though one of the saints whom we celebrate today deserves a grander nickname of skepticism. Philip said to Jesus, “Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied.” Elsewhere in John he doubted that nine months wages would be enough to feed a swarming crowd. Life’s just not fair to Thomas, he lived a curious life and he became the doubtful one.

Returning to today’s Gospel lesson, Philip had been with Jesus all along–even calling his friend Nathanael to follow Jesus—and yet he missed the signs that pointed to Jesus’ complete connection with the Father. Maybe we can start a movement to call him Skeptical Philip or Oblivious Philip. And yet, something marvelous emerges in this interaction between Jesus and Philip, for I believe we discover that there’s another way of understanding “life’s not fair.”

Paul in his second letter to the Corinthians wrote, “Since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we do not lose heart.” I recently had the pleasure of hearing the author Anne Lamott speak about mercy. She said that when she hears the word mercy something in her changes. She feels a sense of release such that she no longer holds something against herself or someone. Just hearing the word mercy or merciful is enough to wake her up. When Skeptical Philip made his request to see the Father right after Doubting Thomas had wondered about the way Jesus was going, our Savior could have flown off the handle. He could have said, “Look you nitwits, I’ve said it before I’m too tired to say it now. Why don’t you get it already?! You’re all gonna abandon me anyway. What am I doing this for?!” Thankfully he did not! Instead, he responded with mercy.

As I look around here this evening and see friends from Good Shepherd, St. Timothy’s, St. Barnabas, and St. John’s I am encouraged because I know that like what Paul wrote, we are engaged in God’s ministry together. I also know that in each of our cities and communities we are experiencing divisive times, as we live with deep chasms in our nation. We may want to shut people out with whom we disagree and when asked why we aren’t acting with kindness say, “Well, life’s just not fair.” However, this will only worsen our collective wounds. Instead, what if we were to look through the lens of Christ? For Christ Jesus also believed that life was not fair, except he meant that in a merciful way.

He did not punish as evildoers deserved. He did not smack Skeptical Philip and Doubting Thomas on the backs of their heads. He did not send bolts of lightning upon his torturers. Instead, he was the way, the truth, and the life. You may ask, “So what does this mean?” I think it means that we too believe life is not fair.

Life’s not fair, but through the lens of Christ that means something different. In the “fair world” we rip out an eye for an eye, take a tooth for a tooth, and take a life for a life. We disrespect that other party because they disrespected us. And yet, life’s not fair. So, we wield the weapon of forgiveness instead of the venom of vengeance. We seek to serve Christ in all as we respect the dignity of all others including that one person we think we hate that we are thinking of at this second. Life’s not fair means that when faced with the corrupted and fallen powers of this world we act with the self-emptying love that Jesus showed on the cross.

So this is the ministry we’re called to engage in together. Paul described the difficulty of it when he told of the gods of this world distracting many such that they cannot see, hear, or experience this good news. Many remain captivated by the law of an eye for an eye, the law of a fair world. And yet, this is not good news, nor is it the way, the truth, and the life. In our ministry let us band together in mercy, so that we do not lose heart. Let us go forth from here and sharing the Good News of Christ who responds to us mercifully and who show us that life is indeed not fair.