Reading: Luke 15: 1-3 and 11b-32

Today’s parable is sometimes read as about being lost.  All people experience times when we would consider ourselves to be ‘lost’.  Maybe our time was short, like at college, or maybe it was a longer season in life.  Maybe we had an extended period in life when we lived a life we really do not want to recall.

The younger son in this parable certainly fits this description.  After a period of wild living he comes to place of remorse and returns home.  He know his choices have been wrong and he acknowledges that he has sinned again God and against his earthly father.  Both offer compassion, understanding, forgiveness, and accept him back without any conditions or stipulations.  They treat him like he has never been gone.  That is what is so amazing about grace.  It is a great example and reminder for us.  No matter what we have done and no matter what we have become, God eagerly awaits our return so that we can be reconciled to Him.

The older brother is certainly lost as well.  He may have never physically left the estate, but he seems lost to his father’s love as well.  He reminds me of one who comes to church out of a sense of obligation, just going through the motions and never really connecting to God or anybody.  There but always wanting to be someplace else.  The older son is showing up every day for work because he is supposed to, not because he loves the job or the boss.  We see this manifest itself in his reaction to how his brother is received back home.  Forgiveness is difficult in his hardened heart.  But it is possible.

The father demonstrates the same love for both sons – the physically lost and the spiritually lost.  He runs to both and offers love, compassion, understanding, forgiveness, and acceptance.  No matter what we have done and no matter how lost we are, God offers all of His children the same.