-This is really a story about a father who lost two sons.  (More often we refer to it as the parable of the Prodigal Son)

- Prodigal means extravagant, absurd, wasteful, etc.  Father was an extravagant lover.  Older son was an extravagant do gooder. and younger son was an extravagant user of money. They all wasted themselves in good or bad ways. 

-This story tells us as much about God as it does about human nature. It serves as a preparation story for Easter.

-The Angry Elder Brother illustrates the ungracious attitude of the Pharisees and the scribes toward Jesus' relationships with the sinners and tax collectors.

- Sermon outline by Thomas Garlitz:    Three wanderers,  the Israelites (OT. reading),  the younger son (Luke reading)  and you and I. (2 Corinthians reading) All three readings contain the theme of wandering, entering and restoration.

- Luke talks about lost coin, lost sheep and lost son.  Also, The Laborers in the vineyard has similar message.

-  The older brother had earned it all.  None of it was by grace.  He is the picture of a moral, uptight, frigid church goer.  His religion had worn him down till he felt like a slave and was.

-Will the older son go in to the party, or not?  Will the Pharisees and scribes reach out to accept those they consider "sinners"?  Will we? Jesus didn't finish the story.  He's left that to us.

- No one even remembered to invite him, (elder brother)to the party

-  Resurrections necessitate celebration.

- Extravagant love of God both fulfills and  violates our sense of right and wrong. BB Taylor

- The younger brother lives entirely by grace.  The elder brother by obedience.  Which one is the slave?

--“Come on,” the father says to his elder son, “stand here on our side, on the side of human beings.” BBTaylor

-If the younger son is going to survive, he badly needs some of his older brother’s discipline and devotion. If the older son is going to survive, he badly needs some of his younger brother’s brokenness and humility.

- don’t know if you have ever noticed, but there is something about having only two choices that can absolutely paralyze you. Often, when a third choice materializes, it comes as a gift straight from God. The elder brother’s third choice is to redefine righteousness--to abandon the lower righteousness (of being right all alone in the yard) for the higher righteousness (of embracing the wrongdoer) 

-We are so afraid of letting people off the hook. We are so resentful of unearned love. Unless we happen to be the ones toward whom the father is running, with his arms wide open and tears wetting his beard. Amen.    Barbara Brown Tayor. 

- Could just as well been called the story of the prodigal father. (Extravagant, reckless)

-This story has often been called a mini gospel.

-The way the parable plays out, it is the righteous who are excluded, indeed who exclude themselves from God’s presence, since God welcomes the lost who are found. I wonder who God will find more joy in than me…?!  Dan Nelson

- Possible sermon themes:   Forgiveness,  unconditional love,  the law,  repentance

-   To God, the lost are as significant as the found.

-  A good time to talk about retributive justice. When are mercy, grace and compassion the fulfillment of justice and not the denial of justice?

- Two other prodigals: 1. Martin Luther whose father was overly strict caused Martin to spend years using all kinds of religious exercises to relieve his guilt.  Not till he discovered he was saved by grace not by works was he able to enjoy Christian life.  2. Paul, a staunch Pharisee strove to perfection under the law until he met Christ on road to Damascus and realized he was saved by grace.  Lindy

-A better title would be, The Father who lost two sons.  Robert Farrar Capon

-But nonetheless, the point is that you can never get away from the love that will not let you go and the elder brother standing there in the courtyard in his own hell is never going to get away from the Jesus who seeks him and wills to raise him from the dead.

-The three "lost and found" stories in Luke are saying the same thing:  God is concerned with our getting, not what we deserve, but what we need.  DeJong

- Sermon Great expectations.  Most of the bad things that happen to us are because our expectations are not reasonable--

   Both sons had great expectations that were blown to pieces. this parable is about all of us and our great expectations in marriage, child raising, job performance, and  life!  It's not the expectations that are wrong but where we expect to find them.  The two sons were looking for permanent joys in the wrong places. At Christmas time we look for permanent joys in the wrong places.  We should never lose our great expectations...they are not the problem...it is where we expect them to be fulfilled that  might be a problem.   Lindy

- The only grace we can have is the grace we can imagine. If we cannot see it, we will not have it. Toni Morrison, Beloved  

QUOTES

- There is nothing we can do to make God love us more.  There is nothing we can do to make God love us less. Thomas Fortenberry 

- Amazing Grace: I once was lost, but now am found was blind, but now I see. . John Newton 

- Home is the place where when you have to go there, they have to let you in.” Robert Frost  

- Love is self enlarging  M. Scott Peck 

- Love does not possess someone it frees someone.  Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee 

- Love is most powerful and most powerless  Buechner 

- Those who deserve love the least, need it the most. Cindy lederman 

- When you feel unloved, it’s not because you are not receiving love but because you are withholding it.  Kubler Ross.  

- If you are to love the flawed world which is all around you, you must first love your flawed self. Robert Clarke  

- We must be more than our brother's keepers...we must be our brother's brother. Rev. TuTu  

- Hate can blind as much as love

- Hope is always having an option

CHILDREN

1.   -There is an invisible thread which connects us to God.
-How long do you think it is. (very short...God is with in us)
-How strong? (unbreakable)
-What's it called (love)
-What happens when we do not acknowledge it? (nothing,  emptyness, God still loves us...)

 2.   (God in heaven holds each person on a string). When you sin, you cut the string  Then God ties it up again, making a knot...thereby bringing you a little closer to Him, etc.

HUMOR

- The great thing about this story is that we can identify with all three characters  (except the fatted calf)

- The prodigal pig

ILLUSTRATIONS

-Few are aware that The Prodigal Son has a Buddhist parallel in one of the major writings of Mahayana Buddhism. The Buddhist parable is part of the famous Saddharmapundarika Sutra (also called the Lotus Sutra, composed at the end of the second century AD)  [it's very long!]

PRAYER PHRASES

- ...open us that we might hear some new word from this very familiar story. May we discover ourselves and our place at the party thrown by the father. 

REPENTANCE  Literally the word means “Turn around!” 

-Illustration  Sin is like mud on a window. God's love and mercy is like the sun trying to shine through to us to light our way, cheer us and give us life. But the mud keeps the sun from shining through the window. The mud stops the rays from reaching us. It doesn't stop God from trying to shine on us but it stops us from being able to receive the light of the world. With the tears of repentance we ask forgiveness and the mud is washed away. So the reason repenting is so important is because without it we have obstacles between us and God's grace. Rev. Elizabeth Lee Sel

-It isn't our job to judge others. But it is our responsibility to call others to repent, the judgment is between them and God

-The ground for repentance must include soil for acting out the new identity.

-We shall have to repent, not so much for the evil deeds of the wicked people, but for the appalling silence of the good

   people.  M. L. King Jr.     

-If we put off repentance another day, we have a day more to repent of, and a day less to repent in. 

-  It is much easier to repent of sins that we have committed than to repent of those we intend to commit. Josh Billings

- Does repentance precede grace or vs.vs.?

-Not expressing or repressing but confessing.

-You’ve got to get them lost before you can get them saved.

- Wow! it's now already.  Buechner

- Repentance is not about the past but about the future!!

- The best we can become is redeemed sinners

-Repent brings the past into the present.

- Repent equals opportunity.

- Christians are like manure....they tend to stink when all piled together.  They fertilize when spread around properly

LENT

- If something is worth giving up, it should be for more than just the few weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter.

- Lent and Advent are both preparation times before a big event

- Lent = "Lencten" meaning spring time (Old English)

- If sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end. (Buechner)  

- Buechner suggests that during lent we ask these questions:

     a. When you look in the mirror what do you see you most like...you most want to deplore

     b. What last message would you give to a handful of people most dear to you. (25 words or less)

     c. Which thing you have  done would you most like to undo?

     d. What person, or cause would  you  die for?

     e. If this were the last day of your life, what would you do?

   Ansering these help  us to  see who we are and what we are becoming.

- Fill communion cups with water so we can so we can taste the “almost nothing” that is living.

-  Illustration Pretzel -- an ancient bakery item.  Used to be eaten only during lent.  Goes back to 5th century.  Shape is made in the form of two arms crossed in prayer.

-  Ash Wednesday is a kind of baptismal branding.

- Lenten penance may be more effective if we fail in our resolutions than if we succeed for its purpose is not to confirm us  but to bring home to us our need for salvation.

 "Let's Eliminate Negative Thinking."  Robert Schuller's acronym for lent. L.E.N.T. 

LENT

-. If something is worth giving up, it should be for more than just the few weeks between Ash Wednesday and Easter.

- Lent and Advent are both preparation times before a big event

- Think of Lent as an Outward Bound for the soul. No one has to sign up for it, but if you do then you give up the illusion that you are in control of your life. B.B.Taylor

-. Lent = "Lencten" meaning spring time (Old English)

-. If sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end. (Buechner)  

-. Buechner suggests that during lent we ask these questions:

     a. When you look in the mirror what do you see you most like...you most want to deplore

     b. What last message would you give to a handful of people most dear to you. (25 words or less)

     c. Which thing you have  done would you most like to undo?

     d. What person, or cause would  you  die for?

     e. If this were the last day of your life, what would you do?

   Ansering these help  us to  see who we are and what we are becoming.

-Fill communiion cups with water so we can so we can taste the “almost nothing” that is living.

- Illustration Pretzel -- an ancient bakery item.  Used to be eaten only during lent.  Goes back to 5th century.  Shape is made in the form of two arms crossed in prayer.

- Ash Wednesday is a kind of baptismal branding.

-. Lenten penance may be more effective if we fail in our resolutions than if we succeed for its purpose is not to confirm us  but to bring home to us our need for salvation.

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