March 21, 2004

Fourth Sunday of Lent

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-39

 Where’s My Place?

      True story: A family in the first church I served fell on hard times and they were down to their last eight dollars.  So, they went to the grocery store with their eight dollars in hand.  Now, what do you think they purchased?  Milk?  Eggs?  Bread?  No…lottery tickets!  And wouldn’t you know it, out of those eight lottery tickets they had a fifty dollar winner.  Now, what do you think they bought with their newfound fifty dollars?  Meat?  Potatoes?  Right…fifty lottery tickets.  And out of those fifty tickets, there was a fifty thousand dollar winner!  Their prayers had been answered!  They started out the day like paupers but now they felt like kings…which is just the way they decided to live from that moment on.  They bought appliances and gadgets and made home improvements, but before they knew it, their fifty thousand was all gone.  They found themselves right back where the started – flat broke.

     We hear a story like this and we think to ourselves, “What fools!  I wouldn’t have wasted my good fortune like that!”  Really?  A few years ago a survey was taken of 400 of the biggest lottery winners in the country.  The vast majority of them were no better off than they were before they won and most wished they had never played the game. 

     Oh, if only we could have it all right now, then we could be really happy!  If we could just win that lottery or maybe if we could have the perfect mate or children.  If only we could have a really good career, a nicer house, a fancier car, better friends.  If only we could have it all and have it now, then we could really be happy.

     Sound familiar?  This is what a certain young man was thinking when he asked his father for an early inheritance.  A rather rude thing to do, to say the least, but who among us hasn’t dreamed of some long-lost rich uncle keeling over and leaving us his millions?  The young man wanted it all and he wanted it now.  He wanted to be happy and was sure this was the way.  Money in hand, he lived like a king for a while at least, but it didn’t last.  It all slipped through his fingers.  He was left poor and hungry, unhappier than he had ever been before.

     The young man was foolish, but he was not hopeless.  He took stock of his desperate situation and had a change of heart and mind.  When his get-rich-quick scheme fell through, he chose to at last let go of his pride and return home.  He knew his father’s servants were better off than he was.  He could ask for forgiveness and a job.  He knew he could do this because somewhere down deep inside, in spite of the grief he had caused his father, in spite of how foolish he had been, he knew he could go home.

     Finally, he had made the right choice.  It turned out to be a better choice than he could have imagined.  As he got close to home (probably rehearsing his apology over and over again), he got ready to beg for his father’s mercy.  But before he even had the chance to blurt out his plea, the old man ran out to him and embraced and kissed him – no apology needed;

“Bring the finest robe!  Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet!  Kill the fatted calf, make a banquet!  Let’s eat and celebrate!  My son was dead and is alive again, was lost but now is found!”

     There’s a pretty good chance the young man didn’t expect this…a big lecture maybe about how he had disgraced the family and about what a jerk he had been…not this!  But all his father cared about was that he was home again.

     Perhaps the greatest thing Jesus ever did for us was to reveal the true nature of God.  He showed us who God is.  With this story, Jesus tells us that God is like a father or a mother yearning for a lost child to come home.  God is the parent who throws open her arms with no questions asked.  God’s love is unconditional, beyond anything we can imagine.  God is the father at the gate, celebrating when we come home, even if all we have are pathetic excuses for squandering the life he has given to us.  

     God rejoices when we turn our hearts to him.  Why?  Because it’s like turning from death to life and God wants nothing less for us than for us to live fully.  God once told Moses and the people of Israel, “Today I set before you the ways of life and death.  Choose life.” 

     The story of the prodigal son is about misplaced hopes and ambitions.  It’s about having the freedom to mess things up.  It’s also about having a change of heart and mind and turning to God and becoming fully alive.  It’s a story about the good life, satisfaction…happiness at last.

     When the son came home flat broke, busted, ashamed and humiliated, he was finally able to appreciate what had been there for him all the time.  To allow ourselves to be loved and to selflessly give our love is the greatest joy on earth.  Real happiness can’t be purchased with a big inheritance or a lottery win.  It isn’t found in the right career or the right house or even the right mate.  All these things can be good, but ultimately, happiness is a matter of having our hearts in the right place, and that place is in God’s embrace.  There, humble and receptive, we find the very life-breath of the universe breathing words of love for us.  There, we find we are precious and cherished, accepted and celebrated.  Jesus showed that we are even worth dying for. That’s who God is, Jesus tells us – the father at the gate with tears of joy welling up in his eyes and rolling down his cheeks for us.

     We are loved beyond all reason, beyond our imagination.  And when our life begins here and flows from here, the joy we find in God, we find we can also give.  It is the greatest joy on earth.  We can give it now, beginning today.  We can open our arms and unconditionally love the people in our lives.  No matter what our state, we can do it now and find life and the happiness we seek.

     We are all, of course, still works in progress, but the Heavenly Father accepts all who turn to him, accepts us as we are…poor, rich, young, old, healthy, disabled, full of faith, full of doubts, no matter what our orientation to politics, sex, religion or anything else.  He loves us all, no questions asked.  His arms are open wide.  There’s nothing better than this and we are at our best when receive one another the same way.

     Was this understanding in our hearts when we drafted our Mission Statement about two years ago?  Together, we wrote down these words,

“At First Congregational Church we reach out as a family of faith to all people…”

     And something told us we should underline that word, “all”. 

     There is boundless joy in such love.  It is there for us, every last one of us,  to come home to now.  Come home to the Father and welcome others into your heart – O Happy Day!