Love is Not a Pie
Luke 15:11-32
I have a male friend who grew up with three brothers, no sisters. I grew up with only one sister, no brothers. Many of the experiences he described growing up with brothers were just foreign to me. One of the things that just blew me away was how the brothers interacted around food, especially when they were teens and tweens. Everything had to be divided exactly in fourths. If it was a half-dozen cinnamon rolls, each brother would get one and a half. And if someone took more than that fourth…whew boy! It was war. He recalls one brother stabbing another with a fork because someone ate some of his cinnamon rolls. Now not all food conflicts ended in such a dramatic fashion, but there was yelling.
One of the reasons that these food fights happened was scarcity. I can’t imagine how much it must cost to feed four tween and teen boys. The dad had a good job, and the mom had her own business, but family life is expensive, as many of us know. The boys fought because there were limited amounts of food. They each wanted to make sure they got what was coming to them. They wanted their fair share of the pie, so to speak.
I’ve seen people talk about rights as not being a pie. The argument says that rights are not like a pie. Just because someone else gets more, it doesn’t mean that there is less for you. It’s not a finite resource. Yet there are many people who see many things as finite when they are infinite.
The older brother has been portrayed as being angry and self-righteous. Most of the time, sermons don’t portray him in a particularly positive light. And yet, so many of us can relate to him. So even if we say that he is selfish, unforgiving, and self-righteous, many of us quietly think he is right. There are two issues with portraying him in this way.
First, it seems that his reaction to the little brother’s party is one of hurt, not anger. And we know that so many times when we feel hurt, it comes out as anger. Two, it makes his lostness seem to be only about a grudge that he holds towards his little brother. No doubt, he has big feelings about his brother’s return, and it seems that maybe he believes that joy and his father’s love are a pie. The brother is in a scarcity mentality.
But love is not a pie. Specifically, God’s love and ability to forgive is not a pie. That’s what Jesus was trying to say to the grumbling pharisees that complained about his eating with sinners. They didn’t see that God is big enough to say “well done good and faithful servant” to the ones who have never strayed AND to say “welcome home” to those who went far afield. God’s love isn’t a pie. God’s forgiveness isn’t a pie. There is enough to go around.
Prayer
Forgiving God, whose grace and mercy know no limits, thank you for loving us home. Soften our hearts so that we may rejoice in our own homecoming and the homecoming of those who have wandered far afield. Amen.
Rev. Dana Ezell
