[Propertalk] Gospel tidbits - March 14 - Lent 4 - Part 2

[Joe Parrish]

This parable can be read from several different perspectives and it still has an important message. Last time I preached on it I took the prodigal son angle and very nearly lost my job as a result of how I treated it. So this morning I'm taking a different angle and I hope I don't arouse quite the same hostility.
<>
If you've never been a prodigal, you haven't missed much. Those who have can tell you that it can take a lot of years to repair the damage even after you get home. If you've always been the one faithfully working at home, then the message of this parable is appreciate the love and security you have and lighten up and have more parties.

http://www.laughingbird.net/ComingWeeks.html

(Sermon 1.)
Nathan Nettleton, 1995
- - - - -

I still believe grace precedes repentance. Jesus' parable of the father with the two sons underscores that normal progress. On the surface, I know, it appears that repentance comes first in this parable. The younger son, tired of his pig-sty diet, comes to himself and begins rehearsing his confession of sin...and he receives grace and forgiveness and welcome when he returns to speak that confession. But the movement of the story makes it clear that the grace of the father is pre-emptive...and not just toward the younger son.

http://day1.org/1759-which_comes_first_grace_or_repentance

Robert Dunham, 2010
- - - - -

Jesus, the teller of these stories says, "Excuse me, these are not stories about the way you behave. These are stories about the way God behaves. 

http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/willimon_5316.htm

William Willimon, 2010 
- - - - -

Almost every preacher makes this the boy's repentance. It's not his repentance. This is just one more dumb plan for his life. 

http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/Capon_4414.htm

Robert Farrar Capon
- - - - -

            All we can do is the same.  We can turn back to God and say, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your child; treat me like one of your hired hands."

            An amazing and wonderful gift is given to us now.  God forgives us.  God, because of God's own love for us, loved us in this way:  God sent his own son to take our place under God's judgment and condemnation.  God sent his son Jesus who suffered God's sentence of death against us.  For our sake, God's son died.  Jesus promised us that his death meant God would welcome us back, that God would have mercy on us, that God would not count against us our selfishness, our pride, our going against God's commandment.  No, for Jesus' sake, God would welcome us.

http://www.predigten.uni-goettingen.de/predigt.php?id=98

Timothy J Hoyer, 2007
- - - - -

There's not three different kinds of grace, there is one Grace that is understood by us in three different ways. 
T. S. Eliot put it like this: "The end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."

http://morrisokumc.blogspot.com/2007/03/march-18-sermon-arriving-where-we.html#2492489617316738328

Nathan Mattox, 2007
- - - - -

I think that part of what this is saying to us is that we will never really experience the joy of our faith until we realize that we are all outsiders who have been invited into the party of joy through no merit of our own. Some of us are like the younger brother, people who have wasted our lives, and some of us are like the older brother, people who have worked hard and who smolder with resentment because things are hard and responsibilities are heavy, and life is not fair. But the fact is, both are on the outside, both the younger son and the older son are on the outside, and it is God who invites us into the place of joy.

http://day1.org/471-is_there_joy_in_gods_house

Thomas G. Long, 2004
- - - - - 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://stsams.org/pipermail/propertalk_stsams.org/attachments/20100313/c8a8c236/attachment.htm>