United Methodist Church Hyde Park, NY

 
THE JOURNEY HOME
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
 
 
 
 
From time to time I see signs like this one around a neighborhood: “LOST DOG: 2-year-old mutt. Answers to name: Chloe. We love her and miss her. REWARD.”
 
These signs bring two images into my head: one is of the dog, Chloe, running around the neighborhood, afraid, in danger, looking in vain for her home. The other picture is of her humans, searching the streets, calling her name, looking under porches and in sheds and garages. These signs and images are heart-rending. But it’s not just that I feel for Chloe and her humans. I feel for all of us. For something about this predicament, the lost soul and the people frantically seeking her, is very familiar.
 
We love the story of the prodigal son so much because we know this story. There is something about the predicament of both sons in this story that is so familiar to us. We have all felt as exiled and lost as they did, far from God, our home, our true selves.
 
The story tells us of two ways this can happen. The younger took the path of self-destruction. He deliberately turned his back on his family and his home and left. Then he spent everything he had. Eventually, when he was starving, he found himself taking care of pigs for a Gentile – the ultimate shame for a Jew. He wound up as far from himself and his God as he could be. But the worst thing for him to contemplate, as he sat alone, hungry, not even knowing who he was anymore, is that he chose all of this. He did not have to leave his home, but he did.
 
The older son loses himself not by being self-destructive, but by trying to be perfect. He never disobeyed any commands; he has worked diligently for his father for years. Yet he feels like a slave. He is exiled without even leaving home. Worst of all, like his brother, he chose to live this way. His father was there all along, but he refused to receive anything from him.
 
There are many ways that we can bring ourselves to the place of exile that these two brothers reach. We fall into self-destructive patterns where we fail to care for ourselves. We compromise our values until we no longer know what we stand for. We try to be perfect, never realizing that we are okay just as we are. The worst thing about these patterns is that on some level we choose to live this way. We are responsible for the ways we destroy the selves that God has given us.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Yet this story is not only about being exiled from God and our selves; it is really about the journey home. It begins when the younger son is at his lowest point, and, inexplicably, he “comes to himself.” He returns to the self that he lost and almost destroyed. He hears God’s voice inside him, saying, “Come home.” Even more precious than this voice is what the younger son finds when he gets home. He assumes he will return to punishment. What meets him there is beyond what he could have imagined or deserved. The two sons’ predicaments are familiar to us; but the father’s behavior is unfamiliar, shocking, outrageous. Wouldn’t it be fair for him to punish the son, make him prove that he had reformed? But that’s not what happens. Instead, the father is so eager to welcome the son back that he makes a fool of himself. He runs to meet his son; he showers on him signs of favor; he uses up the best that he has.
 
Meanwhile, the older son feels betrayed. He has stayed at home and worked hard all his life. Now he is forced to attend a party honoring his worthless brother. He is furious and refuses to go in to the party. But he is no less in his father’s love, and the father is equally extravagant toward his older son. Just as he went down the road to meet the returning son, so he goes out to the corner of the building where the elder brother sulks. He leaves his own party to go find him and beg him to come in. He says to him, “Everything I have is yours.” This father is as prodigal as his younger son is – prodigal not in spending his money, but in spending his love. He is a fool for love.
 
We love this story not because of the grim picture it paints of human sin, but because of the beautiful picture of God’s love that it gives us. God comes out into the dark streets and looks under porches and anywhere God can think of to find us. God calls our name, deep inside of us, and begs us to come home. When we make the first gesture of returning, God runs out to us, and showers us with more love than we can imagine or deserve. God makes a fool of God’s self to get us back, and God will put up any reward for us, even to the point of giving God’s life for us. To come home is to return to this reality, that we are God’s beloved children. We don’t have to be perfect, and we don’t have to destroy ourselves. We can come home.
 
Sometimes it’s hard to find our way to that home we have with God. That’s why God puts up signs everywhere, saying, “I am looking for you. Come home.” Chloe’s humans put up signs that Chloe herself could not read, but I read of a woman who put up a sign that her dog could read. She had lost her dog on a mountain. After she had spent hours searching, a friend suggested that she put out an old shirt belonging to her. She laid the shirt out by the trailhead. The next morning she returned and sure enough, there was her dog curled up on the shirt.
 
God is so eager to find us and bring us home that God puts up signs, signs we can read, that tell us of God’s presence and love. God lays out the shirt, so that we know where to find God. The church is full of such signs: Scripture is a sign; this community is a sign. The feast we share around the Lord’s table is a sign. See if you can hear in it all God saying, “I have been looking for you everywhere. I love you and I miss you. Come home.”