Lent 4 C

Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

It was only when the younger son ‘came to himself,‘ that he turned toward home; toward the loving arms that he could fall back into.

• well-known Prodigal Son parable…also ‘Forgiving Father’…or maybe the ‘Offended Sibling?’
• all the characters grip us; challenge us…
• phrase, ‘came to himself’

Have you ever ‘come to yourself?’ Come to your senses, come to the realization that you needed to make a turn?

Probably numerous times, right?

How long does it take you to admit when you’re lost? How much time have you spent wandering because you didn’t want to admit to yourself or anyone else that you were lost? (Me: too much.)

• yes, the joke about men stopping to ask for directions…
• but also much more serious …

The younger son in the parable came to himself when he admitted he was dying.

But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!’

It wasn’t easy for him to admit: left to his own devices, on his own, he was dying.

Plan for life: failure. Entire belief system that held he was better off alone: wrong.

If you’ve had some kind of experience of ‘coming to yourself’, you’ll probably recognize it in the parable of the Prodigal Son. And you probably recognize it when others are going through it. Or, when they need to go through it.

I know that I can relate to the person who is struggling, fighting tooth and nail to ‘make it.’ Struggling to prove to God and everyone else, “I can do this.”

The alternative is admitting to failure and dying.

What do you say to a person who is coming to herself, to a person coming to his senses?

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We Lutherans and friends of Lutherans make good evangelists, but not in the way we normally think of that word. We don’t often find ourselves going door to door and asking people to make a decision for Christ. (Which I wouldn’t recommend doing, by the way.)

We make good evangelists because we know what Grace feels like, and that it’s too good not to share.

If you encounter someone who has hit rock bottom, who has come to their senses, I’ll bet you want to exclaim to them, ‘Come home. Come back to God’s Grace. God will meet you with open and loving arms…Come home!’

But here’s a problem…if you identify at all as a church person, and you are trying to invite a Prodigal Son to come home, do you know who they see you as? It’s not as an innocent bystander. Whether you like it or not, you will look to them like the elder son.

You will. As a Christian who isn’t currently going through a crises, you will look like the child who stayed. You will look like the ‘Good Daughter’ or the ‘Good Son.’ The judgmental one. The one who says, “I told you so.”

Predominately, people who have had no church experience or bad church experience see you and me as elder sons, elder daughters, eager to judge, eager to condemn.

There are lots of people who pass to the other side of the street when they see a religious person coming, because they just can’t bear to feel the judgmental eyes of another Christian.

You see, it’s easy to forget that we are all prodigal children.

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Why not use this time leading up to Easter to come to yourself once again? To come to your senses?

No, you may not be at rock bottom, wishing you could eat the pigs’ food. But it’s easy to get lost. Are you:

• single-handedly trying to hold your family together where there is division?
• holding yourself responsible for the actions of others?
• refusing anyone’s help because it means admitting you need it?
• killing yourself trying to live your life?

It’s time that you and I come to ourselves. Let’s come to our senses. We are dying. But for each of us, and every prodigal child around us, there is a home to come to. There is Grace to find us. There is God waiting for us with open arms.

In every moment as we live our lives, we don’t have to do it alone.

In everything that we do, we are found in God.