https://app.dropwave.io/episode/ea0ef266-d957-4ab8-9c7c-591c8fc92c30/trinity-3-ad-2025.mp3

++ JESU JUVA ++

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

What fills God with joy? What pleases Him most of all? According to Jesus, the angels of God — and even heaven itself — rejoices when a sinner repents. This is what causes Jesus and His Father to rejoice: when Jesus receives sinners. His application of forgiveness brings Him joy! It is sweet delight for Him to comfort distressed sinners and relieve them of their burden. It delights Him to see a sinner approaching from afar.

So it was today that as Titus was being put in the car and driven here —. As he was dressed and prepared to come to church —. As the water for his Baptism was poured out, Jesus rejoiced! It is His great joy to take all the gifts He won on the cross, to combine them with this water, and to pour out this water on Titus’ head, making him God’s own son and heir. This little child has been forgiven all his sins, and God rejoices.

This Word and act of God does not only rejoice our Lord. The angels of God and all of heaven rejoices. And so do we. We rejoice and sing out in praise to God for His marvelous gifts. This child of God has been forgiven; all his sins have been removed.

But what about when a brother has sinned against us? When we hear those words, will you forgive me?, we often respond with hesitation and reluctance. We grant absolution begrudgingly and only reconcile under compulsion. We think it’d be better for the sinner to stew in his distress. We want him to feel — really feel — the pain his sin caused. So, no, I cannot forgive this right now. Return another time. Ask me again later. Prostrate yourself before me again and again; inquire with proper piety, and I may eventually grant a merciful judgment.

In today’s Gospel, Jesus receives sinners and eats with them, which causes the Pharisees and scribes to grumble. So Jesus tells a series of three parables about lost things. In each of the first two parables, Jesus demonstrates how He searches for the lost. He searches until He finds — as long as it takes. When the lost has been found, He calls for a feast of rejoicing. But the third parable pulls everything together, and that is where we’ll focus today.

There is a man with two sons. There is a family. Each of the two boys is not only a son, but also a brother. They each have a father to honor, and a brother to love. Both sons live within the order of the home. Each son has particular duties and attendant freedoms. They are not free to do entirely as they please. But within the bounds of the home, according to the Father’s order, they have great freedom.

All that belongs to the Father belongs to them. They have a home, a place to which they belong. They have a heritage, a long line of ancestors. They have a family name and reputation. They have family traditions and inside jokes. They have the father's love. They are to find their joy with him.

But they do not share in their Father’s joy. His joy is to have sons, to be at peace with them. But neither son is at peace with Dad — or with his brother. Neither son believes in the father’s mercy. Neither son cares for the other. Neither son desires to participate in the father’s joy. Both sons despise what they have been given. The younger son despises outwardly, the older son inwardly.

The younger son indulges in his fantasy. He presumes and abuses his father’s mercy, believing dad’s love is license to sin against his father and his father’s house. He doesn’t love his father. Hey Dad, let’s play a game of pretend. You pretend to die, and I’ll pretend to be sad. So you can hand over my inheritance now, because all you mean to me is the money you’ll leave me when you die. Let’s do the paperwork, and I’ll move away.

Already with his father, he is experimenting with disconnecting cause from effect, divorcing action from consequence. He wants pleasure without the cost. Freedom without responsibility. He thinks he can live in a disordered way and not suffer the consequences.

At first, it seems like he just wants Dad’s stuff. But he isn’t interested in being like his Dad or enjoying the things that Dad enjoyed. Nor does he want to have an inheritance to pass on to his own children. The first thing he does is sell everything off as quickly as possible. Dad’s tools are turned to cash — for pennies on the dollar. The family Bible goes to the garage sale. The family dog is sold. Unable to see these things as blessings of God, he despises his Father. He spits on the graves of his ancestors and relatives.

He will spend every last dollar on himself and for his own amusement. He goes away into a far country and does whatever young men who have too much money and too much time do. He doesn’t spend money recklessly on charity and giving to the needy. He acts in a disordered way because he is disordered.

According to the older son, the primary description of his little brother is ‘wasteful.’ The older brother isn’t wrong. The younger son was ungrateful to the one man upon earth to whom he must be grateful. And that’s true even if he had had a bad father. For the younger son still received life from his father. All that he had came from his Father’s hand.

And his disordered life will catch up to him.

Meanwhile, the older brother remains at home. He works, takes care of his responsibilities, and lives with his father. But the older brother is not content, either. But unlike the younger brother, he does not voice his discontentment. He bottles it up inside, waiting for the best time to release it when it will hurt Dad the most.

In the conversation at the end of the parable, the older son tells Dad he wants to rejoice with his friends. But I don’t think that’s what he really wants. If it was, I expect he would have asked for a goat. His Father said he would have granted it, and I think that’s probably true. So I conclude that he did not have because he did not ask. We read in James: You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. James 4:2

The older son refuses to receive his father’s generosity. He despises his father’s love. He believes his father is selfish, stingy. He thinks his father is like the rich man we heard about a couple weeks ago. Or perhaps he does not ask because he’s afraid of asking wrongly. Again from James: You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. James 4:3