Why this story, and why now? Did she really say we were going to hear about the Prodigals every week for four weeks? Won’t it get a little thin? If you were at the Ash Wednesday service, you heard me say Lent is about preparing for Easter. In Lent, we move toward the celebration we’ve waited for all year—the celebration of our redemption through the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. But we can’t get to the Easter party—at least not in a meaningful way—unless we prepare. That preparation requires self-examination and penitence, and it always helps me with self-examination if I do the compare and contrast thing with stories. How am I like or not like what is going on with the characters? This story isn’t so much about the prodigal son, as Bibles title it, or even the story of two brothers. The focus of the story is the father, and it’s about a family.

Deuteronomy today reminds us of the value of stories—both personal and communal—of retelling them and putting them in their proper context. The context, of course, is God’s action and our response. That makes the meaning of every story, “God acts to restore us to what we were created to be—the image of God.” Deuteronomy reminds us to tell these stories in community, not only because it passes on the memory to coming generations, but because it opens us up to receiving God’s action in the here and now. We do this as we tell the Springwater story when new people join the church. Colleen Roden’s Sunday School class did this when they heard Margaret Shearer tell her faith story a couple of weeks ago. The confirmands are doing this with their mentors. They hear a sacred, real life story of God acting to save, and one human’s response to God’s action. We need to hear this from each other—God is still acting to save. It reminds me of what my eighth grade history teacher said—“Those who can’t remember their past are doomed to repeat it.” When we tell each other our faith story, when we mentor young people, when we tell the community’s faith story, we are not only “learning from our past,” we are equipping ourselves to live into our future with faith.

So, yeah. We’ve got the Prodigal Family for four weeks. Why? Besides “because it’s Lent.” I want to use the Prodigals—younger son, older son, and father—to help us look at ourselves. As we do that, perhaps we can open ourselves to the loving embrace of God that we are dying for. And which we are so bad at receiving. Maybe, like the younger son, we can “come to ourselves” and see how we’ve wished our parent (God) dead, run away from God’s call on our lives, squandered the wealth of blessings we’ve been given. You know--relied on our self-sufficiency and ability to manage our own lives. Told God how to answer our prayers. Avoided service and volunteer opportunities. Resisted chances for Christian education and growth.

It’s a shocking story, this one about the Prodigals. It was shocking at the time, and it should still be shocking to us. Jesus told the story because he was criticized by the religious community for hanging around with tax collectors and sinners. Do you remember the term “quisling”? It refers to a family in Norway during World War 2 who collaborated with the Nazi occupiers. The tax collectors were quislings. They were Jews who didn’t just collaborate with the conquerors, they took advantage of their own countrymen—sucked the life out of them—for personal gain. They were wealthy when others barely subsisted. Sinners weren’t just “bad people,” they had done such truly bad things that the faith community had given up trying to help them. They had to be shunned because they were unrepentant. These were the drug pushers and sexual predators of their time. The Pharisees were protecting vulnerable people, keeping the pushers off the playgrounds. The Pharisees were trying to enforce their sexual misconduct prevention policy, and Jesus told stories about embracing dangerous people. It was like having a bake sale for their legal defense fund. The younger son of the story was one of these bad guys.

Perhaps, like my family, yours divided up the sibling roles. Sometimes the roles changed, but mostly we had the Good One, the Pretty One, the Smart One, the Naughty One, the Quiet One, the Lost One. The Prodigals had two sons, two roles—the Good One and the Bad One. In asking for his inheritance, the younger son said he could hardly wait for Dad to die. The Good One was really really good and invested his inheritance in the family business and stuck around. It was not fair that the functional equivalent of a murderer would get any of the family dough, let alone get to dispose of it however he wanted, which is what the younger one did by running away. Not just wishing Dad dead, the younger son wishes dead the whole family—family business, heritage, and values.

It’s a story about a father, though. “There was a man who had two sons.” A father. The father went out to each of the sons. One was on the road, coming home rehearsing his apology and plea for mercy, the other was in the yard, glowering with rage. The father is generous to both sons, dividing his property. God does not reject the faithful, observant ones, just because sinners are also accepted. God is both/and, not either/or. God loves us where we are at, not where we oughta be. The Sunday School teacher/elder/volunteer as well as the single parent on welfare telling tales to get help on the light bill. The person in the pew week after week as well as the guy wearing a garbage bag in the rain at the Fred Meyer entrance holding up a cardboard sign. The family gardening, canning, freezing all summer as well as the family running out of food stamps at the end of the month.

What I am inviting you to do over these Lenten weeks with the Prodigal family is to see yourself. Are you the Good One who never asks for anything for yourself? Competitive grocery shopping, making sure you have something for the Resource Center food bank. At committee meetings more than you’re at home. Sticking up for other people’s kids as a foster parent. Are you the Bad One who has gotta be me? Sticking to what’s comfortable. Helping out if people can see you, resenting when others get the credit. Always strong, always in control, because “I can take care of myself.” Are you the father called to love no matter what? There are those who read this story and see a progression, a growing into the parent role. What does it ask of the parent to love the child who will not forgive the parent for being generous? What is the cost to the parent, allowing a child to experience the consequences of his or her choices? Perhaps you are the younger child—the one dying for a homecoming, the one needing to be reassured of unconditional love. Perhaps you are the older child—always good, yet it feels like the worst people get off the lightest and nobody cuts you any slack. The problem with this story, when we really engage with it, is that there is no safe place to hide. The terrifying thing—the thing we are trying not to know—is that God is a “jealous lover.” That isn’t bad news. What it means is that God wants all of us all the time. All of you all the time.

Come home, friends. The embrace is waiting for you, whether you think you are the younger son or the older, whether you think you measure up or not. The One who embraces is dying to hold you, dying to say, “I thought you were dead. All is forgiven. I’m offering you life. I’m offering you myself. Come home.”