Someone once said that If I could know only one thing about Jesus other than that his death on the cross was somehow for me, it would be a story he told one day about God and about the human condition and what God does about it. It’s called the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and he, the young son, gets all the press, but the subject is really the father. He is the real prodigal.
A “prodigal” is defined as one who “spends extravagantly.” While the son spent his inheritance; it was the father who was the most extravagant, both with his money and with his love.
For most of our history we have been thinking about sin: sin as disobedience, original sin, sexual sin, sin as pride, sin as willfulness, “total depravity,” our theological ancestors called it.
But the truth is we have more problems than sin. We get lost. We stray—from our best intentions, our promises, our loves, our commitments. We stray from our own better selves and from God, and we get lost.
The question is not ‘How am I to find God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be found by him?’
Not ‘How am I to know God?’ but “How am I to let myself be known?’ Not ‘How am I to love God?’ but ‘How am I to let myself be loved by God?’ God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, longing to bring me home. . . . Can I accept that I am worth looking for?” ( Henry Nouwen ,The Return of the Prodigal, pp. 100–101).
IJesus didn’t finish the story. The elder brother is still outside when the story concludes. And maybe it’s because he wants you and me to finish the story in our own lives (see Barbara Brown Taylor, The Preaching Life: The Prodigal Father)—to allow ourselves to be found and forgiven and loved by him, to walk into the banquet hall and take our seat at the table. God’s child, home and safe—forever.
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