Luke 15. The parable of the Prodigal Son. This is Jesus’ idea of fatherhood – to create belonging and safety for those coming home to you, to practice outrageous (even scandalous) generosity toward your kids even in, especially in, their failures. The prodigal son, after messing up so badly, is prepared to relinquish his status as his father’s son. He believes the worst about himself. He works up a whole recital of his sins to offer his dad. But halfway through the recital, his dad cuts him off. He has no interest in hearing anything but the good news that his son is back home. The father calls for celebration. Even though the son has come to believe the worst about himself, the father sees in him the same thing he always saw – his beloved child who, both before and after this great failure, belongs at home. This is the elaborate portrait Jesus paints of what it looks like to be a father after God’s own heart. If Jesus is telling us what he thinks fatherhood looks like, shouldn’t we be paying attention?
This story, like most stories, has a turning point. It’s common for the conflict of a story to intensify so much that victory and resolution seem out of reach. And so it goes with the prodigal son. He venomously insults his father by asking for his inheritance (essentially saying he’d like to speed up the process of his dad dying so he can get his dad’s stuff). He travels far away and squanders all that money on shameful things. He hires himself out to working with pigs, having no meals available except what the pigs get to eat. His situation couldn’t be much more desperate. Victory and resolution seem out of reach. But now, the turn.
And this story turns on an act of memory. The story turns when the son remembers what never stopped being true, that he still belongs with his father.
This is the spiritual life we desire – not to find God, but to remember that we already belong with him. To remember that all of life flows from him and back to him. God is both the origin and fulfilment of that desire. God doesn’t give us the things we want because God is what we want. God is not the end of a lifelong journey or puzzle. God is the home we’re always coming back to. That’s what it means for the prodigal son to say “father.” And it’s what it means for us to call God Father.
There are some among us who have been let down by the men they grew up calling father. Some men fail to create the belonging, safety, and generosity that Jesus envisions in Luke 15. That takes its toll in a variety of ways, and those wounds don’t heal quickly. But Jesus is telling us who we really belong to, who our true Father is. Jesus is showing us the home we came from and never stopped belonging to. God is our home. We don’t have to learn that; we just have to remember it. The belonging, safety, and generosity we long for – it’s not hiding at the end of some journey. It was never lost to begin with, even if we ourselves were (or still are). Our life in God was never missing. It’s right where it always was, right here at home. Maybe we’ve run away and forgotten that. Or maybe we’ve stayed home in the same routines and beliefs as always and still forgotten that. Our life in God, our home with God our Father, it’s right here. Remember.
0 Comments