Luke 15:1 - 32
This weekend we remember the terrible events of September 11, 2001, when almost three thousand people, including the hijackers, lost their lives. Three of the planes completed their planned mission, destroying the World Trade Center and part of the pentagon. The fourth, though, Flight 93, was a different story. Because the flight had left later than the others, some of the passengers had heard what had happened, and had been told by the pilot that they would return to New York. However, it became obvious that the plane wasn’t turning around, so a few of the passengers guessed the truth and decided to do something about it. Under the leadership of Thomas Burnett Jr., Todd Beamer, and flight attendant Sandy Bradshaw, apparently many of the passengers rushed to the front of the plane and using a fire extinguisher broke down the door to the cockpit. In the ensuing struggle, the plane, probably bound for the White House, crashed into a field in Pennsylvania where everyone died. Now the thing about this is that Thomas Burnett Jr. called his wife just before the events and said that he knew they were going to die.
Burnett was the vice president of a medical device company, married with four children, living a pretty ordinary life. But at a particular moment in his life, he threw everything aside, and carried out an act of heroism.
In today’s gospel we see a contrast. There is the prodigal son, about whom so much can be said. He was obviously self-centered, cared very little about his father or anyone else in the family, apparently. He asked for his inheritance, which would normally have come about after the father’s death. It’s interesting that in the text Jesus says that the father “divided his property between them” suggesting that at the same time the prodigal son got his share, the older brother got his. The prodigal son then goes off, spending lavishly, until his inheritance runs out. The older brother, as we can tell if we read between the lines, stayed with his father, working on the family farm, not really changing his life even though now he technically owned the property. He was cautious which is good; he was probably also scared of change, which is not so good.
I was the oldest in a family of three children. My parents, God bless them, did not have a wonderful marriage, but they stuck together and had good days and bad days. But the effect on the oldest was to implicitly push him to choose sides. The oldest also felt he had to be the stable one for his two sisters. And the oldest worried a lot about what would happen if his parents split up. All of this made the oldest super-cautious, a trait which persists even to this day. I always envied people who seemed to be more spontaneous, less self-conscious. But being super cautious is not the worst thing in the world.
The oldest son reacts angrily when he discovers that his father has pulled out all the stops for the big party. Killing a fatted calf is what people do when they were entertaining royalty. Putting a ring on his finger and dressing him in a fine robe likewise. The father didn’t just welcome the ungrateful, spontaneous, careless son back into the house, he treated him like a king. And the oldest son, the cautious one, is angry. It is at this point that he receives an invitation from the father: “All that I have is yours, but we must rejoice, because he who was dead is now alive!” And the story stops there.
Was the oldest son able to put the past behind him and rejoice with his father? Or did he continue to stay away from the rejoicing people, brooding in his resentment, unable to let go of his caution, of his sense of self-importance, in the face of what the father saw as truly a miracle: “The son of mine who was dead is now alive again!”..
I’m the older son. I like stability; I’m cautious. And if someone who doesn’t deserve it gets a sudden windfall, or escapes the consequences of his own actions, maybe I resent it a little bit. And when I look at all the gifts that I’ve received down through the years, I tend to think I deserved them because I’m careful and industrious and frugal. I forget that every good thing comes from the father, and he can do whatever he wants with his gifts.
And I wonder what I would do if I was sitting on that plane and Thomas Barnett, Jr, and Todd Beamer and Sandy Bradshaw planned to rush the cockpit and give up their lives so that others would live. Would I join them or would I sit in my seat hoping against hope that somehow I would survive? Caution and stability are good things, but there are times when they are not. Let us pray that we can recognize those times. Let us pray that we will go to the father’s party and welcome our younger brother home.
