Home At Last

 March 27, 2022

We’ve all heard it or said it. Maybe both. You’ve had a rough day; it seems everything you touch falls apart when someone says something that makes you snap angrily. Realizing your error, you then apologize, saying, “I’m sorry; I’m just not myself today.” Raise your hand if you can say, “Been there; done that.”

There was a time when my reaction to such an apology would have been, “No; your real self just came bursting through the facade you’ve established.” In one sense, I wouldn’t have been entirely wrong. If we have any conscience at all, we are aware of how careful we are to make a good impression. We aren’t proud of our jealousy, our greed, our lust, our laziness, so we work hard to offset those tendencies with acts of kindness, selflessness, and sacrifice.

Today’s Lectionary Scripture is taken from Luke 15; the story of the Prodigal Son. In actuality, it’s a story of two sons. One wandered from home, but came back; the other never left home, but was just as lost as his younger brother. 

In the story, this younger brother squandered his inheritance in a faraway land; something we’ve sadly seen with amazing regularity. Whether the fortune is actual dollars, or perhaps health, or relationships, squandering what has been given us is too often our own story. This young man ends up in the worst of all places—a pigpen. For a Jew, there could hardly be a more despicable place to be. But he’s there, starving, when according to the story, “he comes to his senses.”

Only that’s not what it says. Our modern translations have missed the mark here, for Jesus was paying this sad young man quite the complement. What Jesus said about him was this: “He came to himself.” Whereas once I thought people at their worst were exhibiting their genuine self, Jesus saw things in a completely opposite manner. This young man wasn’t his real self wallowing in a pigsty. He was his true self when he thought of his father and home.

How we see people, the lenses through which we interpret life tell more about us than them. Saying that people at their worst is who they really are is a reflection on me. My outlook is skewed, my vision is clouded by my own sinfulness, the darkness in my own soul. Our true selves are seen in our longings for home, for a father who stands at the gate, gazing into the distance, hoping and praying for his lost son to come home.

In the end, the story is a contrast between the father and the elder brother. The father’s heart was broken for his son; the brother’s heart was hard and heartless towards this younger sibling who, broken by his sins, finally came crawling home. I suspect the elder son saw his brother much as I used to see people: He was a worthless wastrel who deserved no pity. The father however, saw him as he really was: a son who finally had realized his real identity. 

It was some years ago that God taught me my error; I can still be judgmental, but am grateful that my heavenly Father saw through the filth and grime and told me who I really am. It made all the difference.