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Luke 15:11-32
We are all prodigals until we come to God, our Father, and confess our sins to Him. God’s forgiving love is the only power that gives prodigals a new and real life. We become prodigals when we run away from God’s life plan for us and the love He has for us. In the scripture lesson for today we read about two sons and their father. Now the father had a deep love for his sons, but in fact, both sons became prodigals. The youngest son grew tired of farming. He grew tired of family and community. His family and community seemed so dull and uninteresting to him. One day the youngest son met some travelers and they told him about the great life on the road. On this road, the prodigal could get up when he wanted and stay out all night enjoying great parties. The travelers told him that in these parties he could drink anything he wanted. He could smoke pot, do drugs and have sex with a new person every night. The youngest son said to himself, “I like, I like. It sounds so good and it would get me away from the farm and my dull family and community.” The oldest son had also heard the story from these travelers. He thought, “I will stay home because with my brother gone, I will become my father’s favorite son. My father is rich and I will inherit all he has when he dies. Then I won’t need to work, for with my father’s money I can enjoy anything I desire and stay home even if it is a dull place to live.” The youngest son goes to his father and tells him, I want to travel and see the world and enjoy the bright lights of the city. Because of the love for his son, the father gave him his share of the family wealth. The son was now ready to enter a new way and age of living the good life — the easy life. In the community of faith, we might say that the son made, and is making, the wrong choice for his life. But let us look closer at our own lives and see what has, and is, influencing our own life choices.
When we begin to view the big picture of our lives, we see the influences that have shaped our lives and have kept us living the prodigal life. We know deep down that we are weary, sad and broken by our prodigal life. Let us look at the influences that keep us living as lost, lonely souls. The story of our lives in our world is shaped by those that write the television scripts. The television scripts may be shows, movies, sports, twenty-four–seven news or even the weather. The chief driving force in the scripts is to produce a godless way of life. The absence of God in our lives leaves us as lost and lonely prodigals. These influences have created the prodigal. What is missing in these influences is truth, honesty and concern for our lives. These things that have gone missing from our lives cover almost every aspect of life. It is true about advertisements. It is true about the newspaper reports, television news, political promises, products of business, and even the church when it claims to no longer be guided by the teachings of the Bible. It is no wonder that we prodigals are hurting, broken prodigals. The truth is that the dishonest things of the world do not care if you live or die. We as prodigals are a people that are lost because we have no father, family, or home. We will remain prodigals because we prodigals accept and live without honesty, truth, and care in our lives. Much of the philosophy of life can be summed up by these words for us: “What do you call it when someone hears the truth, sees the truth, but still believes the lies?” I don’t know the author of this quote, but it was true for the sons in the scripture lesson, and it is true for all prodigals today.
The God who made us and gave us life is the only source of honest truth and care that we have that opens the door of life to home. In C. S. Lewis’ book, “Need Love,” he writes about four loves. He said, “There is not a living person that has not felt it – the need of love.” Lewis would write that love has strange ways of expressing itself: “Empty as I am, I go to another emptier than myself expecting my bucket to be filled but the person answers, ‘I was expecting you to fill my bucket.’ We hold out our buckets to one another both saying that we are empty. Each waiting to be filled by the other.” We prodigals can’t fill another prodigal’s life with care. The source of real powerful love can be found only by faith in God our Father who revealed His love for each of us when he became one of us through the life of His son Jesus. It was, and is, the love that gives us prodigals a way home. It is the home of honesty, truth and care.
In the book written by Lucy Neely Adams, “52 Hymn Story Devotions,” she tells the story about the hymn, “Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling.” “The dynamic preaching of evangelist Dwight L. Moody was over; he lay on his deathbed. Composer Will Thompson sat by the bed for their final visit. Dr. Moody gestured to his friend. Thompson leaned close. ‘Will’, said Moody, ‘I had rather have written Softly and Tenderly than anything I have been able to do in my life.’ Although we do not know the exact circumstance of the song’s 1880 birth, the line ‘Ye who are weary, come home’ is for all prodigals. Jesus makes this same offer to us in Matthew 11:28: ‘Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.’”
We know from the scriptures that the youngest prodigal son came home to receive his father’s love. We do not know if the oldest son ever came home to receive the father’s love. If you are still a lost prodigal, the father’s love is calling you to come home to truth, honesty, and care. It is the way and power to a new life.
