Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Anyone who knows about family also knows about the fact that justice and fairness do not always prevail there. All we need are a few stories from you about your days growing up. Which sibling was loved the most? Which one was the hardest worker? Which one was always getting into trouble? Which one was crazy? Of course, only those of us from large families can ask that many questions.

In my family there are many types from which to choose. One brother was the steady-as-a rock, hard-worker. One was the affable, “let’s all get along together.” One was creative and loveable. One was trouble-on-wheels. One was the “no-nonsense, let’s get down to business type.

I grew up wanting to do the right thing. If my parents taught me what was the right thing to do in a situation, I learned it. I wanted to do the right thing. The worst thing you could say to me was that I had not done something properly. Mr. Appropriate! Well, there’s really nothing wrong with this—until it gets out of hand. It never occurred to me that I made relationships difficult by my overbearing need to do everything appropriately.

I don’t if you know what it is like to be trained as chaplain. Everyone who wants to be a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is required to take three months of chaplaincy training, usually in a hospital setting. There we work in groups trying to learn about our strengths, both how our strengths can help and how they can get in the way.

I took two years of chaplaincy training, one year at Hermann-Memorial and one year at St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital. My teachers and supervisors needed very little time to recognize my character and began to work with me so that I could gain insight into my own self and become a better pastor. They began to challenge my need for appropriateness in all situations. I just went on acting like they were the ones who did not understand.

One day I was called to intensive care where a woman was losing her fight to live. It was one of those “code blue” situations. I had visited her and her husband who had stayed close to her. The husband had been very angry about the situation. I had spent time trying to help him understand. As I look back, I realize I was helping him to understand that if he acted appropriately, things would go better.

As I approached the unit where the woman lay, the distraught husband looked up and pointed his finger at me saying, “If you come any closer, I will punch you out!” At that moment the only response I could come up with was, “Now that would not be appropriate.” Suddenly I came to myself while beating a retreat from that grieving man. I had nothing better to say to a man watching doctors, nurses and technicians working futilely to save his wife than, “That would not be appropriate.”

When I reported to my supervisor and my colleagues—almost verbatim—what had happened, my supervisor broke out into uncontrollable laughter. She was snorting so loud that she could not hold her hands over her mouth as she laughed at my response, “That would not be appropriate.” Even my colleagues were embarrassed for me that our supervisor would laugh at me—not with me—but at me for my inappropriate response to the chaos of intensive care and the heartache of a grieving man who was dying every bit as much as his wife of many years.

I think I died that day. My wonderful ability to be appropriate and do things properly was of no help. I was dead in the water. All that time I had believed that I would help people by helping them understand what is appropriate. Now I know that I carry only one thing as a Christian and a pastor. That one thing is the announcement that the God who raised Jesus from the dead is also raising us from death. This may or may not be appropriate, but that is what God does.

Why did it take me so long to learn what God is doing in God’s world? I was old enough to watch my siblings and my schoolmates go through life with its up and downs, failures and tragedies. Still I had failed to notice that often they were not left in shame or ruins. Through the fits and starts of life they had come to new life, the same kind of life of the resurrection that we know rises out of the ashes of mortality.

These lessons started early in life. I would work on the farm in the summers. I did my work appropriately. It was hard, 12 hour a day labor. My father said do it and I did. But my fourth brother, Paul, who we knew as the “rebel,” did not want to work one day. My dad insisted that he would. We started working down the half-mile rows of fresh sprouted cotton, cleaning out the small weeds that were also sprouting. We went a quarter mile down the row. When we looked up, we saw that Paul had hoed up everythin,g weeds and cotton alike. When my father saw it, he sent Paul straight home, which is what Paul wanted in the first place! To me neither Paul nor my father were appropriate.

I have shared with you the story of my brother who from his birth was of a different sexual orientation. I think we all knew it from the beginning, but in my home and my hometown one did not speak of such things. Gordon was the third son and he could do no wrong. He was creative, funny, good-looking and of mild disposition.

It became more and more evident that Gordon was different or inappropriate to use my favorite word. But it became tragically apparent when Gordon informed Kathy and me that he had contracted the AIDS virus. Now this was in the 80's when persons with AIDS were being shunned, isolated and condemned.

It was my parents’ response to Gordon’s illness that began to convince me that being appropriate is not all that it is “cooked up to be.” When my brother had called Kathy and me to inform us about his illness, we were devastated. I asked him what we could do. Gordon apologized for his request, but he wanted us to go to Mother and Daddy and tell them the truth about their son and to ask if he could come home to visit. I think he feared that they would not have been able to handle the fear of the dreaded disease or perhaps they would have been too ashamed. I was not sure how they would respond.

When my parents heard the news, they too were grieved. I told them that Gordon was not sure if he could come home for a visit. Mother and Daddy simply looked at me and said, “Tell him to come home.” Several years later Gordon died. We buried his ashes on the South Plains where my grandparents, uncles and aunts are buried. Only years later did I go back to the cemetery to find Gordon’s grave stone. Kathy found it and pointed to it. On the stone marker was written, “Gordon Neal Moore, Beloved Son.”

Dear brothers and sisters assembled here, we have heard the Gospel today in a story of a very inappropriate son and a very appropriate son. The appropriate son does not get it. The inappropriate son does. It’s not fair from our angle. It’s not just from our perspective, but the message is unmistakable. Everyone is invited to the party. Of the prodigal son the father says to his slaves,

'Quickly, bring out a robe — the best one — and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate. (Luke 15: 22-24)

To the upright, resentful older son the father says,

‘But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.' (Luke 15:32)

Today we baptized Gavin Alexander Wefel. Gavin Alexander begins his life as a beloved son, not only of his parents but of God. In baptism Gavin will begin the life and death journey of faith. Over time and with help from his family and the church, Gavin will learn that all the gifts of personhood are just that. They are gifts from God and are not to be used to earn one’s way with God.

The same God who called into being all that exists out of nothing is the same God who raised Jesus from the dead. Our hope is not in our efforts. Our trust is in the God who invites us to the waters of baptism where daily we are drowned to our own strengths and efforts and raised renewed to see where God is already at work.

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. (II Corinthians 5:17-19)

Amen.