Sermon for Lent 4C
March 14, 2010
Texts:  Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

A couple of weeks before my daughter headed off to college at UNH
We attended worship at our home church
Where the theme of the sermon
Was home is where they always have to take you back.

I have long since forgotten which text this sermon was based on,
But I don’t think it was this morning’s Gospel,
Because it would have been the wrong season
In the church year.

After church, I remember having a discussion with my daughter
Reminding her that home truly was
Where they had to take you back.
I wanted her to know that she could come home
Even if things didn’t work out the way she wanted them to.

When we had the discussion,
I was hoping we would not have to exercise this option.

But a lot of Kristin’s teen and young adult years
Were spent pushing boundaries and limits.

So true to form at the end of the first semester,
She told me she didn’t belong in college
And wanted to come home.

Fair enough.  We took her back.
She got a job at a hotel relatively near by our New Jersey home,
And we settled into the tenuous state
Of parents cohabitating with a semi-independent young adult.

This state of affairs lasted for about six months,
Until wanderlust set in.
One day after work,
Kristin came home and announced that she was moving to California
With a friend—a male friend at that. 

She had located a job in San Diego,
And had researched apartments.
It didn’t look like a good financial move to me,
Or a good lifestyle move, but she was convinced.

If you are a parent, you can imagine our dismay.
Nineteen years old,
Dropped out of college
And now wanting to move to the other side of the country.

We put a few barriers in place,
Like taking away her cell phone,
And canceling joint credit cards,
But we were really not in a position
To prohibit her from going.

She had saved a small nest egg from her job,
And had enough money to get out there and get started. 

If we had outright forbidden her to do it,
She would have found some other way to go
And probably would have made us miserable in the process.

So one steamy morning in early August,
We said good by to her as she pulled out of our driveway
In her 8 year old Toyota Celica which was loaded to the gills.

We had even arranged to ship some boxes UPS
To a close friend of ours who had just been transferred to San Diego
Not too far from where Kristin had found a job.

Most of our friends looked on in horror,
Wondering how we could let her move.
I felt a little like the father in this morning’s Gospel.
I didn’t think that I really had any options to stop Kristin,
But it didn’t mean that I was happy that she left.

I only thanked God
That by some miracle,
This good friend of ours
Had just been transferred to San Diego,
So there would be some place she could turn in an emergency.

Kristin seemed to get off to a good start.
She had a job, she found an apartment. 

But one detail you have to know
Is that she moved to California in August 2001.
Her job was with a hotel in San Diego.

You remember what happened in September 2001.
Following the events of 9/11,
The travel industry imploded.
A recently hired 19 year old
Was not a good candidate for keeping a hotel job
In collapsing economy.

She and her friend both lost jobs.
She found some other line of work,
Whose nature I don’t fully know,
But it was work on commission.

Her income was not matching her outgo
And her nest egg was dwindling.

Still she hung on.
We received an occasional collect phone call,
But we didn’t really know what was happening.
You can imagine how worried and upset we were.

We celebrated our first Christmas
With an empty chair at the table.

Our friends in San Diego had Kristin for Christmas dinner.
She called us from their house.
When they got on the phone,
They told us that they had had a heart to heart talk with her.

But, as was our tradition, even though one of us was missing,
We headed to Camp Calumet for the Christmas vacation week.

I was seeking solace and spiritual renewal
After what had been a very difficult Christmas.

I can still remember, I was up on the second floor of the winter retreat lodge at Calumet,
When my cell phone went rang. 
Thinking it was probably someone from work,
With some kind of telecomm emergency, I rushed to the phone.

Kristin was calling, saying for the second time since we had had that talk,
That she wanted to come home.
But she only wanted to come for a short time,
Because she wanted to start college again at UNH in time for the spring semester.

She had already called UNH and had arranged to be re-admitted.
She was calling to ask us if we would help her come home,
As she had no money and had maxed out her credit card. 
Although we could have said,
You got yourself into this,
Now get yourself out.

Our attitude was our daughter
Who could have been dead, was alive,
She who was lost, had been found.

It didn’t take us long to say yes,
We would certainly help her come home.
She made the arrangements,
We helped her financially,
And she headed for home.

On a cold January night,
After having received a phone call
From the PA turnpike,
We waited at the door with open arms
As her aging Celica pulled into the driveway
She had pulled out of five months earlier.

She was smothered with hugs and kisses,
And welcomed home by her parents and Bailey the dog.

Yes, we did worry about the example this set for her younger brother.
Yes, we did have friends who wondered about our sanity. 
And no, this did not make us popular at cocktail parties
In image conscious NJ,
Where everyone brags about their children at Yale and Harvard.

These things did not matter.
Love won out.
Our daughter, who had been lost, was found.

Kristin’s return to college was not always smooth.
But she did manage to finally graduate with honors,
And today she is employed and fairly self-sufficient. 

If nothing else, both of our kids
Know that home is where they will take back,
Not because they have to, but because they love you.

Now although there are some similarities to my story
And the one that Jesus told to the Pharisees, 
As recorded in the Gospel of Luke
There are also some significant differences.
The story in our Gospel lesson this morning,
Is traditionally called “The Prodigal Son”,
Even though there is no Scriptural basis for that name.

It could also be called the Prodigal Father,
Because he gave his property away to his son,
Without regard for consequences or cultural norms.

Our 21st century American culture
Is much more tolerant of independent maverick children
Than first century Palestine.

In our culture children are expected to grow up and leave home
And possibly travel across the country or world to re-establish themselves.

In first century Palestine,
Children, even adult male children, were expected to stay home
And help on the family land holdings.
They were expected to preserve and add to the family land
Not sell it in order to finance wild living. 

Although Kristin’s leaving did not make me popular among her friends’ parents,
It did not destroy my honor or cause me the kind of shame
Experienced by the father in this morning’s Gospel.

In a society, where the individual has no existence outside the clan,
And preserved, inherited property is the basis of wealth
The son’s leaving destroyed the father’s honor,
And left the entire family financially weaker.

The father would have been viewed by the entire community
As both crazy and a poor family leader.
He brought shame on the family for not being able to keep his son under control,
And he was probably not able to show his face in town.

Yet when his son returned,
The Father did not ostracize him or send him away 
But with open arms he went out to greet his son
And honored him with a huge party.

This Father’s love transcended all cultural norms and expectations.

If we, who are much more tolerant of independent young adults,
Are able to see the how extraordinary the Father’s reaction is,
Imagine how this story sounded to the Pharisees
With their emphasis on rules and proper behavior. 

Like most parables, in this story of a Father’s love,
We can pick up many story lines,
And take home many messages.

This morning, the one I want to focus on is the Father’s love.

This is a story about a human father,
Whose love and forgiveness transcend
All of his son’s financial irresponsibility, immoral behavior and cultural violations.

This father doesn’t wait for the son to come to him,
Begging and pleading,
But rather runs out into the road,
A not very dignified behavior for the head of household,
And wraps his son in his arms. 

If a human father can do this,
Imagine what God the Father does for us.

God does not wait for us to come.
God comes down to us in the form of Jesus Christ,
Loving us, forgiving us and saving us.

Just like the son in this story,
Who was not worthy to be called a son,
We who are not worthy to be called children of God,
Are made children, purely by God’s grace. 

We don’t earn our status by what we do,
God comes to us regardless of who we are,
Just because God loves us. 

Even if you have walked away,
Even if you have thrown away your baptismal birthright,
Even when you are not worthy to be called child of God,
God is there waiting for you with open arms,
Running toward you,
Wanting you to come home and be part of the family.

Because home, after all, is where God always takes you back.