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Keeping Our Center ~ Day 114

(I’m pleased as punch to introduce you to my dear friend, Rev. Bill Grimbol, who has graciously written the next six days of reflections so that I can take a little vacation. Enjoy!)

 

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is my favorite story in all of Scripture. It is the one tale I never tire of teaching or preaching, as it is always revealing showing new insights and spiritual dimensions. I have never, even once, found it to taste like eating a stale Saltine in summer.

It is a simple story. It is all about mercy. It is all about extravagant Grace. It is all about the very fabric of our faith, the stuff we so of often claim, yet so seldom live. When it comes to this story, we talk a good game about the Prodigal Son, but we take the long journey home with a decided limp.

The story IS offensive – like most of Scripture, when truly studied. It begins with a son telling his father to drop dead, so he can collect inheritance, and go off to make a big name for himself in the big city.

It is about a young man’s compulsion to squander his fortune, and a father’s devotion which will keep him waiting at the window until his boy returns. It is about the absurdity of throwing a big party for the spoiled brat, while expecting the good brother to take on all the kid’s chores, and with no matching reward.

Like so many of Jesus’ best stories, it is about how Grace is never fair. It is about how Life is seldom either/or, but usually both/and – at least in terms of our values, morals, ethics. It is a story which infuriated the religious folks, and left the Moral Majority of that time shaking their heads. Religious folks always like black and white answers, but the parables are awash in greys. 

The Prodigal Son hits bottom when he is chowing down at a pig trough, a pretty powerful symbol nourishing a Jew. He has lost everything on loose living, and squandered not only his fortune, but his name, his reputation, and his self-respect.

Then, we are told, he comes to his senses. He stands up, and heads home. He has an epiphany, and inwardly knows that back at the farm he will have ample food, and a place where he belongs, and a family who cares about him.

So…he slogs on. After many miles, with the sun setting in a mist of high heat, he sees someone toddling toward him. It is his patient and persevering Papa, who embraces him with an open heart and mind and arms. He comes full circle. He come back to ordinary life on the farm. He chooses black and white Kansas over technicolor Oz.

He is also ignored by his older brother. He gets the evil eye from several neighbors. His mother, I suspect, is busy making up his room and his supper, and cannot talk, but only weeps. She is so proud of her husband. So relieved. So weary of the absence.

This is a time when America has also hit bottom. I believe this pandemic has forced us to really look at ourselves, as a people and as a culture. What do we stand for? Will wealth win out over health? Will money be the deciding factor in who lives or dies? Will we quickly go back to business as usual, or will we be deeply moved and touched and transformed? The choices are all ours.

We too need to come to our senses. We need to recognize that we can do better than a pig trough of greed and bigotry and mean-spirited divisiveness. We are so much better than all the lying and deceit and name calling. We are being shown the way to higher ground. It is a long hard climb, and best done together, holding hands with the rest of the world.

We need to come home. Home to the fact that we already have more than enough. Home to the spiritual reality that we are beloved, and belong to a Creator who has a dream for each of us. We must return to the Life we have been given, the treasure of our days, and to the task of building the Kingdom on this good earth in this time.

Bill Grimbol