In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
We just heard the “text book” Lenten story. It is a story that speaks to everyone who has ever felt broken or hurt or wounded. It is a story about love and a story about forgiveness. This is a story of owning up to who we really are and what we’ve done with our lives.
We know in the Gospels that events move along very quickly. They are often short on detail but the action is always urgent. The story we heard Ann read to us a few moments ago is no exception. This story is called “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” The story of the Prodigal Son is one of the most famous and loved of Jesus’ stories.
We’ve heard this story before but there is something about this story that grabs our attention each time it is re-told. It is the story of unconditional love in the face of rebellion. It is the story of forgiveness where forgiveness is needed.
Here is the story. A father had two sons. The younger of the sons lived in his father’s house, which had all the amenities of the time, but the young man didn’t appreciate all these blessings. Living in his father’s house seemed to him to be like a bird in a cage. One day, he opened the door of his “cage” and flew out, but outside his “cage” he encountered people who didn’t have his best interest at heart. Their ways were wicked and corrupt and they circled around him night and day to take advantage of his goodness.
The father didn’t want to keep his younger son home by force and so he let him go. The son left taking with him a large portion of the father’s wealth. He went to a distant land, associated with bad friends and amused himself with corrupt people. It didn’t take long for his money to vanish. His friends helped him spend it and he began to suffer.
In the land, in which he found himself, there was a great famine and in order to live, the Prodigal Son took whatever job he could find and he ended up feeding pigs at a local farm. His hunger was so great that he found himself grabbing the food of the pigs in order to eat. That hunger made him remember life in his father’s house and how great that was. He decided to go back to his father, repent of his wrongdoings and return home.
We’ve heard this story many times over the years. Today, let’s go beyond this parable to think about the part of the story we don’t hear about. The wasteful son realized his wrong. He returns home and is welcomed back by his father who throws a great feast in his honor because his lost son has returned and the story ends there.
Is that the real end of the story? Does life go back to normal as though nothing happened or does the son now have repair work to do with the other members of his family—even rebuilding trust with his father? He has damage to repair and amends to make. This is the part of the story we don’t hear about. These questions apply to our lives as well.
Suppose we slander a person’s reputation by spreading gossip about them? Then we feel sorry. Do we still have repair work to do to restore that person’s good name? Suppose we told a lie, big or small, that conveyed an untruth to someone. Then we felt truly sorry. Do we have an obligation to correct the record? Suppose we damage property. Then we become truly sorry. Do we have some repair work to do to fix the damage? Suppose we cheat someone in business or we cheat our family, then feel sorry, do we have an obligation to somehow make good?
So often it happens that people we know, dear people, omit the responsibility to repair the damage their actions have done. Their thinking is that if they are truly sorry for what they have done, then it ends there, but it doesn’t.
Part of our repentance and confession as Christians is to understand that we all have an obligation to repair the injustice, the wrong, the untruth we have introduced into the world. If we don’t, then the guilt will slowly eat away at our soul because confession and repentance wipes away our wrongdoings but they don’t remedy the damage that those wrongs have caused.
So on this Sunday of the Prodigal Son, we heard a story of how confessing our wrongs and receiving forgiveness is not the end. It is the beginning of a renewed life of repairing the damage our wrongs have done in this world.
So let’s ask ourselves:
• Where in your life do you need a fresh start to repair that, which is broken or hurt or wounded?
• Where might you need to do some repair work?
Something for all of us to think about as we walk through the 40 days of Lent.
Amen.