March 30, 2025; Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32; 4th Sunday of Lent
Today’s gospel of the Prodigal Son is one of the highlights of the New Testament. There are hundred of ways one could preach about it. But today I would like us to consider two details from this story. One applies to the prodigal son and the other to the father. You all know the arc of the story: A son asks for his inheritance, leaves his father behind, squanders his money on a sinful life, decides to return home, and is welcomed by his father with joy.
The first detail. Thew son did not decide to return home for the best of reasons. He did not decide to return home because he was sorry that he had hurt his father. He did not decide to return home because he had repented of his sinful life. He decided to return home because he was out of money and starving. So, his decision to come back to his father was not so much a spiritual awakening as a physical necessity.
The second detail. The father does not care why his son comes home. The father spends his life longing for his child’s return. The text says that while the returning son was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him. How do you catch sight of someone who is a long way off? Only by searching the road constantly for him. Only by looking out the window every time you pass to see if your child is approaching. So, this parable tells us that the father does not care why his son is coming home. He simply wants to have his son with him again.
Of course, this parable is meant to speak to our relationship with God. All of us have aspects of our lives that render us unworthy of God’s love. We should be less selfish, less judgmental. We should be more open to people who are different than us, more ready to forgive those who have hurt us. We should be more angry about the injustices that surround us, and more generous with those who are poor or in need. All of these faults and sins in our lives should change, but God will not reject us because of any of them.
God will not walk away from us, because God is like the father in the parable, constantly longing for the return of his child. God does not care why we return, only that we do. God watches every day as we walk away on roads that lead nowhere, as we make decisions that hurt both ourselves and others. God waits for the moment we turn around and claim God’s love again. And, when we do, we will not encounter a God of indifference or judgement. We will encounter a father who runs to us, embraces us, and who announces a feast to celebrate, because his beloved daughter or son who was lost has come home again.