Brief synopsis of the readings: The first reading is from Exodus and takes place shortly after the liberation from Egypt. While Moses is on Mt. Sinai, the newly formed community has regressed to pagan idols. God tells Moses He will destroy the Israelites and begin over again with a new nation. Moses talks God out of this and God does not destroy them. The Gospel reading contains the parable of the Prodigal Son (sometimes called the parable of the Loving Father). The younger of a man’s two sons asks for his inheritance immediately and squanders it on bad living. Now broke, he returns asking to be made a servant of his father. Instead, his father throws a party to welcome him back. The older son is angry that his younger brother appears to be rewarded for bad behavior while the father focuses on the fact that his younger son has returned.

In the context of our faith as Christians, how do we deal with the issue of ingratitude? We all live with the belief that we should be grateful for things done for us, and others should be grateful when we are generous. But what is our response if that doesn’t happen? The advice column industry thrives on letters from grandparents, aunts, neighbors, etc. who send gifts for weddings, graduations and birthdays, but never receive thank you notes. We are probably all a little put off if we do something nice that doesn’t get an acknowledgement in return.

But what if the ingratitude goes beyond that? What if we give something or do something incredibly generous and the recipient, instead of being grateful or even mildly impressed, betrays us? What do we do then? Are we supposed to forgive and forget? Or are we supposed to recognize the betrayal and move on, determined never again to help that person? Or are we justified in seeking revenge? That, I believe, is at the heart of these readings.

The first reading from Exodus needs a little context. I suspect we are all familiar with the events leading up to this reading. Anyone who hasn’t read this part of Scripture has at least seen the Charlton Heston movie The Ten Commandments. God’s chosen people are enslaved in Egypt and cry out to God. God hears their plea and chooses Moses lead them out of bondage to create a new nation, and Moses does that. While on the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land, Moses goes up Mt. Sinai and he and God work out the details of this new nation. Meanwhile, the rest of the flock, thinking perhaps Moses isn’t coming back, reverts back to pagan worship against the express demands of God.

A few weeks ago I spoke about a conversation between God and Abraham where it appears that Abraham is trying to talk God out of destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. Here the conversation with Moses is similar, only here Moses appears to win. Not to put too fine a point on this, but you can hardly blame God for His anger. He goes to all the trouble to liberate the people He has chosen and now they betray Him. This passage can almost be read as God saying to Moses: “Look, I’m going to destroy this group. Then you and I will find a new chosen people and start over.” I have to think that was tempting to Moses also. But instead Moses reminds God that the story didn’t begin in Egypt, but rather way back with Abraham. He is asking God not to judge His people on the basis of this one incident, but remind Him of the long relationship between God and His people. He is appealing to God’s mercy to look at the community not from this once incident but from years of faithfulness. Only in healing and moving on can there be a future for this new nation. It does strike me as odd that Moses is the one who is asking God to be more forgiving, but I suspect that like the God’s conversation with Abraham, this is a literary tool. Only by writing this as a conversation can we see the process of healing and moving on.

Certainly the Gospel parable continues this theme of our response to betrayal of our generosity, but here it takes on a much more human touch. This has been a reading that is troubling to many of us, myself included. In my work with hospice I have seen inheritance fights so bad they would cause you to doubt that there is any goodness in humanity. People in their 50s and 60s fighting over tool kits and TV sets, acting like 8 year olds fighting over who gets to swing on the swing. But this is even worse: the younger son knows he will inherit half of his father’s estate on his father’s death, but can’t be bothered with the years his father has left. He wants his share now.

We don’t know the father’s reaction to this, but we have to believe the father was at least hoping his son would care for the estate. He didn’t. He didn’t even neglect it. He sold it and hit the road. And then, and then, he blew it. All of it. Only when his back was against the wall did he decide to ask forgiveness. Here is the part that many of us find troubling: his father did indeed welcome him back and threw a party to celebrate. The older son, the one who did nothing wrong He has to be thinking that no good deed goes unpunished. He appears to be the chump here and he is angry about it.

For many years of reading this parable, so was I. The estate is now half the size it was before. What happens when the party is over? What happens next month when the younger son mentions that he is still entitled to half the now smaller estate? And…what happens when he announces to his father that he wants that half so he can do this all over again? Does the father spend the last years of his life watching his estate crumble again by half? Does the older son stand by while his future grows dimmer with each of his brother’s bad decisions? Where is the justice in that?

A few years ago I was reading this parable and saw something I hadn’t seen before. There is always that danger in reading Scripture. When the father was consoling his older son he said this: “My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours.” (emphasis mine) I hope I’m not reading too much into this, but it appears to say that while the younger son is welcomed back, he doesn’t get the chance to do it again. He is once again a welcome member of the family but he doesn’t get half of what remains. His half of the estate is gone.

Perhaps this is the point where it all hinges, where we finally see what we are to do with generosity betrayed. At the beginning of this sermon I asked if one response is to “forgive and forget.” Clearly, they are not the same thing, and I think sometimes we overuse that phrase without recognizing its impact. While we all agree on the divine nature of forgiving, and let’s face it, it’s the core of Jesus’ teaching, there is no virtue in forgetting. That is simply amnesia. And while the parable makes clear that the younger son is forgiven, he is not given the chance to do it again.

And as for the Israelites? It should come as no surprise, but the golden calf wasn’t their last betrayal. They ended up in the desert for 40 years before they crossed into the promised land. There is some dispute over the reason for this, but it may be that God didn’t allow them into the promised land, but only their descendants. They remained God’s chosen people but they didn’t profit from their sin.

Forgiveness means we are not defined by the stupidest or cruelest thing we’ve ever done. It means that with the new day we can find our way back to the person or community we hurt. But it does not mean that those around us pay the price for the damage we’ve caused. Ultimately we are responsible for that. There are times for all of us where we are the younger son, but there are also times where we are the older. And of course there are hopefully times where we are the forgiving father.