Judgment & Grace: The Shopping Cart Edition - Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

I do the grocery shopping for the week on Fridays, and every week I’m reminded that I would make a terrible grocery store employee. I like to think that I am a patient person, and that I take my ordination vow to love all kinds of people seriously. But when I go to return the cart in the corral every week, I feel highly judgmental.  As someone who stacks my cart in an orderly way, I cannot understand why people leave their carts in all sorts of random positions - mixing big carts with little carts, blocking orderly stacks with a perpendicular cart, or leaving flyers, hand wipes, receipts, or trash in the cart. Because I am not entirely hard hearted, I do make exceptions for people who park their carts badly if they are shopping with small children, or have mobility issues or other challenges. They get a pass from my quiet judgment. But if I had to collect the carts several times on a work shift, I think that my faith in humanity would waver. I don’t mean this to sound judgmental if any of you are reckless with your shopping carts. I mean to sound judgmental of myself, and particularly of my grumbling about other people and their shopping carts.

The parable of the prodigal son is one of the most beloved stories in the Bible, about a lost son who is welcomed home by his forgiving father. For anyone who has ever lost their way in life, which is all of us at one time or another, we know the power of this story about grace. But there’s another side to this story, and to all of Jesus’ stories about the grace of God. Stories about grace are also stories about judgment. And in each one, Jesus’ judgment is reserved for those who grumble about grace.

Luke tells us that the Pharisees and Scribes are offended by Jesus again. They are, in fact, grumbling. This time it’s about Jesus hanging out with the wrong people, sinners and tax collectors, and Jesus isn’t very tolerant of their intolerance. So he begins his remarkable story: “There was a man who had two sons.” The younger son asks his dad for his inheritance early, leaves the country, and squanders it in loose living. He ends up in poverty and shame, feeding pigs in order to get by. Meanwhile, the elder rule-following son lives responsibly, helps his dad with the chores, and obviously parks his shopping cart neatly.

As Jesus tells this story, it’s easy to imagine his listeners becoming more and more offended. Why is it that the prodigal son, who disgraced his father, has a homecoming fit for a king? The elder brother has to watch their father forgive his no-good brother – and of course he’s outraged. That kind of grace, that kind of love and forgiveness fly in the face of his careful system of playing by the rules as the basis for his goodness and worth. It flies in the face of our careful systems, too.

If you look closely, there’s an interesting omission in the story. We assume that when the prodigal son “comes to himself” among the pigs, he repents and feels bad about what he’s done. This makes him sympathetic to the listener. But the text never mentions repentance. He could be remorseful, but he could also be just be scheming. Maybe he thinks he can con his way back into his dad’s good graces and his cash. The father forgives him either way. We tend to think that if a person admits their mistakes and changes course, they become more worthy. That’s how any good redemption story works. Luke isn’t so clear. And there is grace either way.

Consciously or not, we assume that if we live our lives better, behave better, and get better at letting go of our vices, we will be more worthy, more deserving of God’s love and favor. And, of course, the love and favor of other people. But the moment we think that we can somehow earn God’s grace, or that someone else can or can’t, then we’re not talking about grace anymore. Jesus says it doesn’t work that way. Notice that when the father sees his lost son coming down the road, he runs out to greet him. The son has a whole speech planned. But the father’s love and forgiveness are offered before the son can get the words out. The parable is not really about the son’s wandering and coming back so much as it’s about the prodigality of the father, of God - and the lavish and extravagant love freely offered and most definitely unearned. The parable is not about the prodigal son’s redemption story, and it’s not about our redemption stories, either. It’s about a much bigger redemption story - God’s own - the grand redemption story of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ for us all. That’s the story that heals whatever we worry will separate us from the love of God.

As a gifted storyteller, Jesus often presents two kinds of people - the prodigal son and the older brother, the tax collector and the Pharisee, the wheat and the chaff, the sheep and the goats, the reckless shopping cart driver and the careful one. The truth is that we are both kinds of people with some regularity, and so are the people we judge. When we’ve screwed things up and wandered far from God, Jesus wants us to remember God’s mercy. And when we have our act a little more together, we need to extend that same mercy to those who don’t.

Finding our way back to God when we’ve wandered off, and being welcomed back like the prodigal son, is the introductory level course on grace. The advanced course on grace is when we find ourselves in the position of the older brother, full of judgment. While God is busy rejoicing and throwing a party for sinners who have found their way back, we can sit outside of the party and miss it altogether, too busy holding tightly to our rightness and nursing our judgment. The parable of the older brother is for anyone who has ever been betrayed, overlooked, or wronged, which is all of us at one time or another. It is all too tempting to stay outside of the party, where our judgments only hurt ourselves.

As I grumbled about the shopping carts on Friday, I recognized the older brother in myself. Maybe you have a version of him in you, too. Shopping carts are a light hearted way into something bigger, a window into the human heart and the scores we keep. The parable of the prodigal son and the older brother shows us that God isn’t interested in our scorekeeping. Jesus tells stories to save us from ourselves, and to help us see ourselves and other people as God sees. Whether you are lost and need to be found, or you find yourself grumbling about how God could love those other people so much, today’s parable of grace is for you, no matter how you park your shopping cart.