Come Home!

1. Lent — A Season of Homecoming

The parable of the lost son and Rembrandt’s painting tell a beautiful story. It tells God’s story, the story God wants to tell you, me, and the world. All of the gospel is here. The Father calls us home, calls us to step into the kingdom of God. Lent is about coming home. It is a very important season in our Christian year. It is a time for us to pause, come to our senses, and repent. It is a time to turn back and come home to our Father because all of us have left our Father’s home in some way during the past year. We all have experienced being the younger son. We all have experienced being the elder son. We all need to come home. Our Father is waiting to receive us with his loving and forgiving embrace. Lent is a time of homecoming; a homecoming made possible by the Father’s Son, Jesus Christ.

Throughout the year we are living our lives and making our way through this world. As followers of Jesus, we try to live the kingdom life within this tension of the already but not yet. God’s kingdom has already come but is not yet here fully. We already have the new life in Christ but the old life battles on in us. We have moments of elation and joy when, by the power of the Spirit and the grace of God, we win the battle, manage to live the kingdom life and experience God’s presence, his home, in and with us. Then we have moments of sadness and disappointment when we fail and disobey our Father, and so leave his home. We have moments of anger and despair when we encounter the evil, brokenness, and hurt of this world. We have moments of fear and anxiety when the world turns against us and we forget that suffering and persecution are part and parcel of our calling as Christ’s witnesses in the world.

And so, we become tired, anxious, lonely, restless, fearful, and angry. It becomes easy to surrender to the world, its temptations, and sin. We leave our Father’s home. We seek to fulfill our desires and dreams in earthly things. We look for God in other places. Along the way, we have become lost and have a hard time finding our way home. We want to go and be home. All of us want to be loved. We all have the desire to be forgiven. We all long for a safe place where we can rest and experience a sense of belonging. A place where we can feel at home and be at home. This is our deepest desire, the ongoing longing of the human spirit. This is a hunger and thirst that only the God of love can satisfy. Our Father’s home is that place. This is the purpose of Lent, to help us find our way back to his home. During Lent, we embark on this journey to go home. It is a journey to that inner place in our hearts, the inner sanctuary where God dwells as we abide in Christ, and Christ abides and dwells in us.

2. Where and Who Are We?

Before we dive deep into this parable I want us to take a step back, and look at this parable from a different perspective by asking ourselves, “Where are we and who are we in this parable?” Yes, we all are like the younger son as I explained last Sunday. We have all left our Father’s home, and we leave his home on a daily basis when we follow our own ways, do our own wills, and build our own kingdoms. In the next two sermons, we will explore in detail how we have experienced being the younger son. We all are like the elder son. We think we are home but we are not because our hearts, filled with spiritual pride and self-righteousness, keep us outside the home. We will spend two sermons looking at how we have experienced being the elder son. Then, in our last two sermons on Palm and Resurrection Sundays, we will look at the joy of coming home and being home with the Father, and as we are coming home, how we are called to become like the Father.

But for now, I want us to change our viewpoint and see ourselves as the observers or bystanders; as the outsiders looking in on the events of the story. Except for the servants, the parable does not mention any other bystanders but they are implied and we can imagine them. Most likely there was a mother, perhaps even a sister or two. There were friends, neighbors, and the community. They observed when the younger son left home. It impacted the community because it was a significant event. We can assume that much gossip, different thoughts, and various feelings went around. Condemnation and judgments — a horrible son, if he was a better father the son would not have left. All kinds of advice given from the sidelines; should have done this, done that. Anger — how could he! Jealousy — the courage to take the risk to go on a journey to foreign countries; wish I could do that. Perhaps some compassion and empathy for the family. Mostly, the bystanders kept their distance, remained uninvolved, and minded their own business.

Now, the son has returned. The father gave a big celebration to which the community was obviously invited. So, there were bystanders observing the younger son’s return and the father’s welcome. Rembrandt placed four bystanders in his painting. Two women standing behind the father at different distances. The seated man staring into space. The tall man, representing the elder son, stands erect and looks critically at what’s happening. They all represent different ways of not getting directly involved. There seems to be indifference, curiosity, daydreaming, and observation. They are staring, gazing, watching, and looking. They stand in the background, lean against the wall, sit with arms crossed, and stand with hands clasped together on a staff. We don’t know their thoughts or feelings except for the elder son who was angry. Are they anxious, curious, wondering, jealous, loving, or forgiving? Are they judging and critical of the father, the son, or both? They maintain their boundaries and keep their distance. They keep control of their lives. It is easier to stay in the safe position of a critical observer and to be looking in from the outside.

This is the perspective I want us to consider and reflect on. On our spiritual journeys, how are we like these observers? In living the Christian life, how are we like the outsiders who choose to stand at a distance looking in? In being church, the community of believers, how much are we like these bystanders? We mind our own spiritual lives and do our own thing. We easily gossip, judge, condemn, reject, envy, or become angry. Please, don’t ask me to become more involved, to receive and eat with sinners as Jesus did. Can we see past the sins of others? Can we see the lost son and other sinners through the eyes of God? See them as loved by God? Yes, they are wayward, lost children but still loved by the Father, who wants them, calls them, and waits for them to come home.

As bystanders, we don’t want to leave our comfort zones. We don’t want to become vulnerable. We want to have some sense of control over our lives and spiritual journeys. We have a hard time surrendering complete, total control to the Holy Spirit. Perhaps we are afraid of the possible outcomes. So, even though we have given over the steering wheels of our lives to the Spirit, we keep on hand on the wheel, and when the Spirit takes us into a way we don’t like, we make corrections to bring the journey back to our way.

As long as we remain observers and bystanders, as long as we cling to that control and don’t trust and surrender to the Holy Spirit, we will not find our way home. Like the elder son, we may be at home but we are not home. We are outside the home but not in the home yet. Lent is our time to say, “No!” to being just bystanders, no to being merely outsiders observing. It is the time for us to let go, relinquish the role of observer, give up control, and step into the Father’s arms.

3. Step into the Father's Arms

His arms, his home, are the place of light, love, and truth. It is the place of surrender and complete trust. We must move from being bystanders to participants; move from being judges to repentant sinners; move from being teachers about love to being loved and loving others. We must receive the Father’s love, forgiveness, and healing.

We should give up control. We must die to self. That is the first step on our journey home. We must die to the fear of not knowing where all this will lead us or what the outcomes will be because we know. We know who we are in Christ, God’s children. We know where we are going, to our Father’s home. We know that in this world, we are the Father’s home. In Christ, He makes his home with us and dwells in us. We know the final outcome, eternal life in the glorious presence of God. Therefore, we must surrender to the love that knows no limits, that is unconditional and everlasting. Only when we allow ourselves to be loved with the Father’s love can we live out the great commandment of love because his love will fill us, overflow in us, and pour out of us to love others and love God.

This is hard and difficult work but it is possible in Jesus Christ through whom we can do all things. He had already gone before us. He left the Father’s home, came to earth, died for us, was resurrected, ascended to the Father’s home, and so opened the way for us to come home. He did not leave us alone. He gave us the Holy Spirit. All we have to do is to come to our senses, die to self, turn back home, put our hands in his hand, walk in step with the Spirit, and begin the journey to come home.

During this Lent, let us take the first step, and then step by step, we walk home to the One who waits for us with open arms. Let us come home and kneel before the Father and put our ears against his chest and listen to God’s heartbeat. His home is the place where we are held safe in the embrace of the all-loving Father who calls us by name and says, “You are my beloved son/daughter.” This is our true home, our Father’s home, a place where we experience the unspeakable joy and incomprehensible peace that is not of this world.

And now that we are home, we are called to become like the Father. There against his chest and in his embrace, we begin to look at people and this world through the eyes of God. We are called to live out his divine love, compassion, and grace to others in our daily lives. We love, welcome, forgive, and care for others like the Father. From the Father’s home, we bring words and deeds of divine love and everlasting joy into the houses of this world, which are filled with sadness and fear, filled with the lost children of God.

Coming home and staying home, there where God dwells in our hearts through Christ — that is the journey we must make not only this Lent but every day. For indeed, we are the bystanders, we are the younger son, and we are the elder son. But we are coming home and are on our way to becoming like the Father. This will be our journey this Lent. May God help us by the power of his Spirit.