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Coming Home- Finding Love

“Coming Home:” Finding Love
Scripture: Luke 15: 11-32



Today we’re starting a series of teachings called “Coming Home.” In a way, this is very much like a homecoming for me. And I thought it’d be good to share some of my favorite Scriptures with you, so you can know my heart. But more importantly, the next several weeks will help us answer an important question: “What do we find when we come “home” to life with Jesus? Today we’re going to read an old story from the Gospel of Luke- one of the eyewitness accounts of Jesus’ activity and ministry, traditionally know as “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” We’ll be reading from Luke 15: 11-32. I invite you stand.


Chances are if I asked for a show of hands, many of you would indicate that you’ve heard this story before- or at least something like it. This story is known as a parable, which is simply a teaching mechanism Jesus uses to paint spiritual truths using common, everyday language and images. A man had two sons….that’s easy enough. We could place this story in 21st century Dubois and it would pack as much meaning for us as it did for those very first listening ears some 2,000 years ago. Additionally, parables commonly include characters who remain nameless, which I think is a way for us to not only read an ancient story, but to experience this story in a very personal way. And I want to share with you one way in which I’ve seen this story play out in my own experience. 


  I wasn’t a parent at the time (I was the older brother), but I can distinctly remember the hurricane of emotions that stormed my family one sunny, summer day in Ocean City, Maryland. My family took an annual trip to the beach, one of our favorite things to do, and each trip we created unforgettable memories. During this particular trip, when I was probably 8 or 9, my youngest brother, who had just recently learned to walk, disappeared.  And he was only gone for an hour, but you better believe that one, single hour felt like an eternity.  Ocean City Maryland is a overly-crowded beach (we don’t go there anymore!) and when the search parties began to scour the crowds for this little lost boy, we found it very difficult maintain hope. Every possibility for what happened crossed our minds, and you can imagine the possibilities that haunted our imaginations. After awhile, my parents sent me back to the house. And I went and cried and wondered and sat, scared and stiff.  And then after awhile my parents came through the door and with tears in their eyes said, “We found him.”  


I can’t read the Parable of the Prodigal Son without recalling this story from my childhood. If there was a simple way to summarize the parable, I think it would be the three words my parents spoke when they burst through the door that day: We found him. That’s what the father in this story so desperately wanted for his son-to come home again, to be “found” again, to be embraced. Some have suggested that the father was so yearning for his son’s return, that he would go out every morning and look at the horizon to see if his was returning home, but the son couldn’t know that, and this was a son who was pretty lost. 


Like many young people, including me, the younger son thought he had life all figured out. He was a man now, or at least in his mind, he was a man. And ready to conquer the world. So one day, he told his dad he was ready to move out on his own and requested that his dad advance the inheritance that he was due. He probably had no idea how much he hurt his father by this request (it was, in essence, a way of saying, “I don’t need you anymore”), but his father looks past the hurt and hands over the money. And the world the younger son stepped into proved to be a challenge for which he was not prepared. Before he knows it, his life is turned upside down. He’s wasted all his resources, the money drained by poor decisions. He’s hungry, broken and wondering how in the world he ended up here. If he could, he would eat some of the pig slop dumped out by the local farmer. And he feels so alone.  He has drifted so far from the person he thought he was and wanted to be. 


I have a feeling this story hits a little too close to home for many of us. Chances are we identify with the younger son, thinking we could do life on our own, and then we bottomed out.  We left home, drifted from our roots, drifted from our families, drifted from our faith and discovered an unforgiving world that left us battered and bruised, crying out for help. We know what it’s like to end up in places, in situations, in seasons that we never expected would happen to us. 


Inwardly, I imagine the younger son was smothered in a hodgepodge of emotions. With no resources, he was probably a little scared. Maybe he was angry with his poor decisions. I’m sure he experienced some shame and embarrassment over his immature decisions and wild living. His heart cried out for help, but no one seemed to bother, which left him feeling alone, worthless, like a royal screw-up. And then he remembered his dad.


I love this part of the story.  It’s a turning point, a glimpse of God’s love breaking into a broken life. Luke says the younger brother “came to himself.”  His memory was triggered, and the son recalls what it was like to be home again. He remembered his father’s character; he recalled the ways his dad treated his employees. They were never without the necessities. His dad always made sure they had everything they would ever need. Maybe, just maybe, if he would go home again, he could turn his life around. But the question that no doubt lurks in his mind, the question that I think lurks in all of our minds is this: What will I discover when I go home? 

I wonder how many of us have asked the same question in regards to our spiritual lives? Somewhere deep inside of us, we have this longing to be back “home with God,” this deep impression that something about life with God just makes sense- but we’re not sure what we’ll find when we get there. If I show up in church, will the roof cave in? If I go back, will people look at me and ask, “And where have YOU been?” Or the big one: After all I’ve done, after all this time, will God take me back? 


After all this time and after all his failures, the younger son isn’t quite so sure how to answer that question. So he braces himself and prepares his response ahead of time. “I’ll go to my dad and say ‘Father, I’ve sinned against you and against heaven. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Would you simply hire me as an employee? And so he sets out on the long journey home, with prepared speech in hand, hoping to get back in his dad’s good graces. But little does he know what awaits.


In the distance, the father could see a figure coming toward him. And that’s all he needed to see. He dropped his tools, he collected himself and then he ran to his son. Running might seem like a big deal to us, but in those days, running was an undignified action. But the father was so excited that he couldn’t help himself. And before this son could finish his prepared story, and without any questions asked, he found himself in the loving arms of a dad who never once quit loving him. He wasn’t rejected. Never had been. He was loved, embraced, rejoiced over and celebrated. That’s what he found when he went home. This story was never about how bad or lost the son was; it was always about the father who was ready to welcome him home with extravagant love.


It might be hard to believe, but I’m convinced this is exactly what God desires to give us today. I know how hard it is to believe that we are worthy of God’s love. We could spend time pondering “what if?” What if I had done this differently? What if I had never left home in the first place? What if I had listened when I was younger? What if I had never done this or that. But you know what?  God isn’t pondering those what-if’s. God is simply inviting us home, inviting us to leave behind who we’ve been, where we’ve gone and what we’ve done and to find life, love and forgiveness in Jesus.  Those are gifts God is prepared to lavish upon us. This is why we’re going to work so hard at Lakeside to reach people in different ways. To be able to celebrate with the Father when those were dead find life, and those who were lost get found. So let me be the first to say: “Welcome home.” This is where you belong, in the embrace of a God who so deeply loves you. Amen. 




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