“Hurray for the Riff Raff”: A Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent

Preached at All Saints, Collinwood, and Good Shepherd, Stayner, Anglican Diocese of Toronto, 30 March, 2025

Readings for Lent4C:  Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11B-32

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." (Luke 15:1-2)

Imagine that Jesus has come to town for a visit.  He’s sitting at a big table somewhere, eating lunch, and the people sitting with him and listening intently are pretty sketchy.  There’s some bar flies from Moguls, sitting with a few property developers with sleazy reputations, alongside a disgraced former politician, a known drug dealer, and the minor hockey coach who was fired for, well, you know.   

The next table over has some downtown business leaders, a few local pastors and Probus types, someone with the Order of Collingwood and various other upstanding citizens.  They’re also listening to Jesus, but they all have sour faces and disapproving expressions.

In today’s parable Jesus is speaking to at least two audiences.  Jesus seems to be eating with “tax collectors (collaborators with Rome) and sinners”, so he is speaking to them.  Jesus is also aware that there are good religious people watching, “the Pharisees and the scribes”, who don’t approve of his choice of table companions.  So, when Luke says that Jesus “told them this parable”, the “them” is ambiguous but I think we can safely assume that Jesus is speaking both to the riffraff and to the pious folks.   

I said “at least audiences”.  Are there more?  Yes,  there’s a third audience, us, for the gospel always speaks to God’s people in the here and now.  What we hear today may depend on which character in the parable we identify with.   It’s often said that the genius of the Parable of the Prodigal Son is that, depending on our life experience, we might see ourselves in one or more of the three characters, the Father, the Younger Son, and the Elder Son.  

So let me ask you a related question:  if we go back to the start of the gospel reading, which audience do you identify with - the riffraff, or the respectable religious people?  Your answer to that probably depends on whether you see something of yourself in the Younger Son or the Elder Son.

How you answer that question of who you identify with is your own business, but in case you think it’s a trick question, let me help you by saying that there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be a good person.  Scripture encourages us to want to better.  Saint Paul, for example, tells us to “Pursue love and strive for the spiritual gifts” (1 Cor 1.14), the spiritual gifts being “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, ²³gentleness, and self-control” (Gal 5.22-23).  

What’s important to note however is that Paul isn’t talking about self improvement or self help.  A gift is something given to us by another, and spiritual gifts come from God our Father.  The trap of Christian respectability is that we can delude ourselves into thinking that we can impress God with our own efforts, which is exactly the trap that the Elder Son in the parable falls into.   The Elder Son is a perfect church person - pious, hardworking, and flawless - (what congregation wouldn’t want him as a warden?) - but because of his respectability he can’t allow himself to share his Father’s joy at the return of his brother, the Younger Son.  The love and gifts that his Father lavishes on his spendthrift brother scandalize and offend the Elder brother, who thinks he should be rewarded and his brother punished.   

Does the Elder Brother ever come around to forgiving and welcoming his Younger Brother?  Jesus doesn’t tell us.  We may hope so, but I think the point of the parable teaches us that there is a vast gulf between our ability to love and forgive and God’s desire to love and forgive.   In our bible study this week, we talked about how difficult it can be to love and forgive, especially when we have been greatly wronged.

 There may be people in our lives that are so toxic and so hostile that forgiveness and reconciliation are impossible.    In such situations, if we have been hurt or victimized, we may need to exclude someone from our lives in order to protect ourselves and those we love.  In such cases, we need to remember that love and forgiveness are spiritual gifts, and that God might find ways to heal and reconcile when we can’t, if not in this world, but the next.

So, have you figured out yet which audience in the parable you identify with?  Do you see yourself sitting with the upright and uptight, or do you see yourself sitting with the riffraff?   If the latter, no worries.  Someone once said that evangelism is just one hungry person telling another hungry person where they got free bread.   The Younger Son comes to himself when he realizes that he is starving.  He goes to his Father hoping for a little bread, a hired man’s wages.  Instead he gets a feast, because God’s always up for a good party.

Maybe the lesson for the Elder Brother, and for all of us church folk, is that we were hungry, and are fed abundantly, because God loves the riffraff.