Sermon Seeds: Squandered

Sunday, March 30, 2025
Fourth Sunday in Lent Sunday | Year C
(Liturgical Color: Violet)

Lectionary Citations
Joshua 5:9-12 • Psalm 32 • 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 • Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
https://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/texts/?z=l&d=28&y=384

Focus Scripture: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Focus Theme: Squandered
Series: Sound the Alarm: Toward Good Friday (Click here for the series overview.)

Reflection
By Cheryl A. Lindsay

As I have been researching gardening online, my social media feeds have become full of advertisements promoting various products that would either facilitate gardening or containers and storage for the bounty they assume I will produce. One such product that has been showing up lately is an electronic food recycler or composter. Some of them sit on the countertop while others resemble a typical kitchen trash can. The idea behind them is that one places food waste in the container, which processes it over a few hours or overnight and gives you almost instantaneous compost material that may be used in vegetable gardens or flower beds to add nutrients to the seeds and plants growing there. In normal composting setups, the process can take weeks or months for decomposition to be realized. These tools offer convenience and immediacy while also promising to radically eliminate waste.

The gospel reading features a character looking for expediency who finds themselves on a journey that places them in the midst of garbage. The parable of the prodigal or lost son is well known to us. Very few who read it struggle to find someone to identify with in the narrative. The younger son who wants his inheritance seems to be the main character for which the parable receives its name. He is lost, even before he leaves home, and does not find his way until he recognizes his actions have left him with only pigs as companions. The father who loves both his sons and responds to their actions embodies love, compassion, and reconciliation. The older son, who seemingly does everything asked of him, becomes shocked that his motivation and attitude are wanting even when his behavior has been commendable.

This parable is particularly complex as it builds upon the two preceding it:

In Luke 15, some Pharisees and scribes murmur against Jesus’ association with socially marginalized people. Jesus defends himself with three parables. The first puts his detractors in the shoes of a shepherd who rejoices over finding a lost sheep, makes divine rejoicing over one person who repents analogous, and thereby legitimates Jesus. The second makes a woman’s search for a lost coin analogous to Jesus’ mission and concludes, again, with divine joy over one person who repents. The first half of the third parable partially corresponds to the first two without an analogy to Jesus’ mission. A father rejoices extravagantly over finding his son. All three parables subvert expectations. The shepherd irrationally forsakes ninety-nine sheep in dedication to one. In a patriarchal culture, the second makes female characters analogous to Jesus’ mission and God’s joy. The third evokes pathos when the desperate son expects to return, but only as his father’s laborer. His father’s extravagant joy and his restoration to sonship beyond anything he asked or thought are astonishing. This story turns not on the son’s return, which fits a son who has learned his lesson, but on the father’s welcome. Perhaps this echoes Ps. 103:13: God’s love is like a father’s.
Robert L. Brawley

One might imagine that Jesus paints the older son in the likeness of the Pharisees, whose actions may be exemplary but whose motives become questionable. Not all Pharisees became hypocrites, as Jesus describes them in other instances. Yet, for many of them, the spiritual disciplines and practices in which they engaged became performative at best and tools for oppression at worst.

On three occasions since they last found fault with his penchant for sharing meals with “tax collectors and sinners” (5:27–32), Pharisees have been meal partners of Jesus and each time have sparred with him over their differing views of sin and restoration, status and fidelity to Torah (7:36–50; 11:37–54; 14:1–24). Now Pharisees join scribes in once more registering complaint about his intimate association with such persons. He counters with a vigorous defense of his practice in the form of a parable trilogy pressing the claim that a gracious God celebrates the restoration of the lost in Jesus’ ministry.
John T. Carroll

Motives matter, and attitudes that squander opportunity may be as destructive as actions that squander resources. What good is it to be zealous in worship while ignoring the circumstances of your community? What witness does our faith exhibit if our prayers are effusive but our ministry is miniscule?

A more accurate title for this parable would be two lost sons as neither was fully present for their father’s love. Only the one who physically removed himself realized it and had enough humility to do something about it.

The ratio of what is lost to the original unity is stepped up with each parable: one sheep of one hundred, one coin of ten, one son of two (Green 1997, 573, 576). Mark Allan Powell (265–87) designates the famine in 15:14 as a crucial detail that is generally disregarded in the prosperous Western world but would have been obvious in Luke’s world, where famine was a menacing threat, and often a reality, and the squandering son fails to safeguard against such a world. Nevertheless, in that uncertain world, he is welcomed and safe in his father’s house. In the imperial context, Rome’s tribute system moved enormous amounts of grain from the East to the capital, often leaving local populations unable to accumulate surpluses against famines, which were thereby exacerbated. Such a world is contrasted with the father’s house, a vivid analogy of the contrast between Rome’s empire and God’s commonwealth.
Robert L. Brawley
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Both sons act out of a scarcity mindset. For the younger son, it manifests in an impatient greed that seeks his inheritance–material wealth–over relationship with his family and community. In asking for his birthright, assuming that he is asking for what actually will belong to him, he treats his father as if he were already dead, and the only remaining concern is portioning of the estate. It is a repudiation of his father’s life, a rejection of his family, and a distinctly dishonorable request. For the elder son, scarcity manifests as jealousy over the resources used to celebrate the homecoming and reconciliation of his younger brother in the familial unit. They both falter when the assumption is that what they have been given is not enough and what someone else receives actually belongs to them.

Oppressive capitalistic systems thrive on scarcity frameworks. The attempt to erase acknowledgment and celebration of the diversity, equity, and inclusion in arguably the most diverse nation to ever exist rests on scarcity commitments and propaganda. The natural world testifies that diverse ecosystems are the strongest. Why would the strengths and contributions found in all the ways we have been created to be fearfully and wonderfully different lead to anything but strength and flourishing for all? Only through the demoralizing and demeaning attempts to stigmatize and divide, too often endorsed by those who claim to follow Christ, would this erasure be tolerated or encouraged.

If the older son was concerned about his father’s well-being and knew his father’s heart, he would have led the celebration of his sibling’s return. In the same way, Christians concern themselves with their citizenry in the kindom of God and know their Beloved Parent’s heart, they become ambassadors of Christ’s love and ministry in the world: embracing the poor, orphan, immigrant, and imprisoned. They eschew scarcity in recognition of God’s abundance and respond in generosity.

The last word belongs to the father’s affirmation of renewed life and the necessity of celebration, and therefore the open-endedness of the parable is deceptive. There is really only one possible response: come in and celebrate! (cf. B. Scott, Hear 103). Pharisee critic and Lukan reader alike are left with that claim, that unforgettable picture of divine grace. With this parable, especially its plot-complicating third act and concluding entreaty, Jesus images his own persistent quest to reach the righteous as well. Although he focuses his ministry on the lost, those who need help and healing, not on the well and righteous (cf. 5:31–32), he does not write off the Pharisees but continues trying to reach them too, to persuade them. In his ministry, Jesus shares with his Torah-observant critics a commitment to grace embodied in a reordered life (5:32; 15:7, 10; imaged also in the younger son’s return [15:17–20]), but—and here is the rub—the reordered life (repentance) that Pharisees also applaud may follow the offer of gracious acceptance rather than precede it. The parables of Luke 15 are a vigorous attempt at persuasion (deliberative rhetoric); the third parable leaves the outcome in the hands of the Pharisees: will they be able to move beyond offense at Jesus’ gracious hospitality toward the lost and join the party, symbol of the realm of God?
John T. Carroll

The truth is that the elder son was as lost as the younger and perhaps more dangerously so. In his comfort, he does not recognize the gap between where he is and where ought to be. As his father tells him, “You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” The elder son squandered the gift he was given. He would have been better off if he had lost all his money, his status, and his position so that he would have known he was lost and needed to be found. Yet, the story does not end until his parent found him and invited him back to himself and to the communal feast.

In a bit of a cliffhanger, the story ends without his response. We don’t know what he will do. The real question is what we will do. Will we accept the lie of scarcity or enjoy the fruit of abundance? It’s time to choose our story.

Squandered.

Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent
The 33rd General Synod adopted a Resolution to Recognize the United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024). As part of its implementation, Sermon and Weekly Seeds offers Reflection from Voices of People of African Descent related to the season or overall theme for additional consideration in sermon preparation and for individual and congregational study.
“Caged Bird”
By Maya Angelou

A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

For Further Reflection
“We all have a grain of god in us. We do get opportunities to realize it, when moments in life demand selfless deeds of compassion from us. But we often squander them.” ― Ashok Kallarakkal
“Your life is not a countdown to your death, but a stepping stone for the lives that will live after you. Squander today, and you will find yourself useless tomorrow.” ― A.J. Darkholme
““Busy with the ugliness of the expensive success
We forget the easiness of free beauty
Lying sad right around the corner,
Only an instant removed,
Unnoticed and squandered.” ― Dejan Stojanovic”

Works Cited
Brawley, Robert L. “Luke.” Gale A. Yee, Ed. Fortress Commentary on the Bible: Two Volume Set. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2014.
Carroll, John T. Luke. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012.

Suggested Congregational Response to the Reflection
During the season of Lent, let us take on practices that strengthen our communal capacities. Consider how the myth of scarcity impacts your faith community and how replacing that perspective with an abundance framework can strengthen the ministry of the church.

Worship Ways Liturgical Resources
https://www.ucc.org/worship-way/advent-4c-march-30/

The Rev. Dr. Cheryl A. Lindsay, Minister for Worship and Theology (lindsayc@ucc.org), also serves a local church pastor, public theologian, and worship scholar-practitioner with a particular interest in the proclamation of the word in gathered communities. You’re invited to share your reflections on this text in the comments on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/SermonSeeds.

A Bible study version of this reflection is at Weekly Seeds.