Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
Coming Home to the Father
Fourth Sunday in Lent C
March 6, 2015
There’s no denying. Our families shape us profoundly. The family is the primary place where life is lived, where we learn what it means to love and to be loved, of how we should treat others and what we should expect from others. There’s no greater joy, nor any deeper hurt, that what is experienced in our families. For good, bad, or somewhere in between, our families are part of who we are.
It is not surprising, then, that the Lord told a parable about a family in today’s Gospel lesson. It’s fitting that we hear of this parable again during the Lenten season in order to help us see more clearly who we are in relation to our Heavenly Father. For no matter how far we have run away from our identity as the beloved children of God, He desires to have His family whole. He runs to greet the repentant sinner and welcomes us back into the family.
Certainly no one in that time and place would have expected the father in the story to do anything like that. Even the prodigal son didn’t expect to be welcomed back in that way. He came back asking for a place as servant, not out of a false sense of humility, but because he knew he had no right nor did he deserve to be a son. He had squandered that relationship, that family, when he basically told his father that he meant nothing to him but a source of money. And since the old man would not hurry up and die, he wanted the money now. And he got what he wanted, with all the immorality and loss that came with it. No one treated him like a son, no one would welcome him to be part of their family, no more family dinners except out of the pig trough.
In all parts of our lives, Christ calls us to holy joy, not to self-indulgence that alienates us from Him and even from our true selves. That was what happened to the prodigal son. After abandoning his father and family for the love of money, he was so addicted to pleasure that he ended up literally in a pig sty with no human dignity at all. And since the Jews considered pigs to be unclean, the Lord makes clear that this fellow had truly hit rock bottom.
At that point, the young man came to himself and realized what he had done and how wretched he was. He knew he had rejected his family, that he had sinned against heaven and before his father. But maybe, just maybe, he could bargain with the old man and be welcomed back as a servant. And so he headed home.
While he was still far off, his father saw him coming. Notice, the father doesn’t stand and wait, but he runs to embrace his wayward son. He did not speak a critical word to the young man, but only showed him love and rejoices that a lost son had returned home, that one who was dead to him had been restored to life.
This familiar parable should make us uncomfortable, for it reveals truths that we would rather not acknowledge. Namely, we are all prodigal sons and daughters, having foolishly rejected our true identity as God’s beloved children. We have all placed pride and self-centered desire before preserving a proper relationship with our Father and our brothers and sisters. And as a result, we have all made ourselves and others miserable in ways large and small.
Perhaps we cannot imagine something like that happening to us, but we must be careful not to minimize or treat our sins lightly. We can ruin any human relationship through self-centeredness or thoughtlessness, no matter how ordinary our thoughts, words, and deeds may seem. Selfish desires, choosing our own comforts over the well being of others. Bothered the with the responsibilities of being a spouse, a parent, a Christian. In doing such things, we alienate ourselves even from God. No matter how big or small the sin, a sinful life, a life lived according to the flesh is nothing but living as though God were dead, as though He were no longer our Father and we were no longer His children. If we do not recognize ourselves in the prodigal son, then we really need to wake up and put ourselves in the place where we can begin the journey home to the Father. Otherwise, we will end up in a pig sty of one kind or another, enslaved to our sins and with no dignity, no joy, no place in the family of God. There is no place in the family of God for those who live in persistent, unrepentant sin. There is no “welcome home” sign for those who reject the Father and want to play by their own rules.
As we journey through Lent, we learn from this parable that our sin separates us from God and from one another. Yet, we also learn that there are no limits to our Lord’s mercy, no restrains on His compassion or forgiveness for those who humbly take the journey home. We must not avoid repentance out of fear that God will reject us, that we alone are somehow so wicked that He would never welcome us back. Your sin is not so great that God will not forgive. Remember that the Father is not a harsh, stern, hateful judge who is out to get us. Likewise, the Son did not come to condemn and punish but to save. In Christ, God welcomes all who believe in Him and approach in humble repentance.
St. Paul puts it this way in our Epistle for today, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the ministry of reconciliation.”
While we may be wandering sons and daughters, Christ is the perfect Son of God and for His sake we are reconciled to the Father. For while we deserve to live in the pig sty, Jesus was forsaken by the Father upon the cross that you and I might be welcomed home by Him through faith. While we are tempted to revel in our own debauchery and think that God would never welcome us, Christ died to forgive poor, miserable sinners.
We now have this message for the world – this good news of God’s reconciliation of the world to Himself by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. No matter the sin, no matter how far one has strayed, no matter how often and deeply rejecting God, when a repentant sinner turns from his sin and believes in Christ, the Father welcomes him with open arms for the sake of Christ. Come home to our Father through faith in Jesus Christ.