As I led a recent Bible study, I asked people to identify “where” in the Bible story they saw themselves. The story is famous: The Prodigal Son. I wrote a brief reflection in my last blog based on this passage of St. Luke’s gospel in chapter 15 (Luke 15: 11-32).   I’m still reflecting on the story, because it contains the heart of the gospel in it. As we move toward Palm Sunday (in three days), we are invited to enter more deeply into the real-life story of Jesus. After all, he invites us to do so. “I have come that they might have life and have it to the full,” St. John’s Gospel assures us. So, I wonder for you… do you see yourself in the story of the Prodigal Son?  Where do you enter it?

Can you relate most to the rebellious younger son who wants his 1/3 slice of his father’s estate so he can go “be his own man” unburdened by the obligations of family and work, but equipped with the money he wants?  You wouldn’t want to share his self-destruction experience, but do you see yourself like him: separating from family, friends and “home,” and tripping up along the way? Are you now in that place of wondering how you could “go back,” whatever that means? Do you wonder if you would be accepted back?  More to the point: do you see yourself and God in this way? You think have irreparably damaged your life and made God mad? You wonder if God could forgive you, love you, and really want you? If this is you, remember that the father ran to his son when he saw the son a long way off from the house. God is eager to welcome and restore you. It is his joy to find those who were lost to him and to themselves.

Do you see yourself like the father? Your heart aches for the good of someone you love. You wait for someone to come home, but must let him go his (or her) way until that person figures out that coming back to you means being met with love, grace and forgiveness. Do you yearn and pray for this and ready your heart to forgive and understand that someone’s brokenness is not something you can fix until your love and support will be received? To the point: know that this is how God loves and waits for people to return to him. God does many things to offer adoption and welcome, but ultimately people must choose to receive it. Often that means facing brokenness, need or desire for belonging with a sober view. Know that God welcomes you in this way. Like God, love generously. Be forgiving. Be willing to forgive and help restore others who were lost and cannot “find” themselves. They know only that they need to go to someone who can help.

Do you see yourself in the story of the older brother? He’s the one who didn’t mess up his life (he thinks…). He stayed home and worked hard, did what he was told, and didn’t dare ask his father for something beyond what he had deserved. He thought he had to “earn” everything he got. He was dutiful and committed, but he learned to hate along the way. He resented his father for giving the younger son his inheritance early, and he resented the father for not treating him with special favor. In the mind of the older brother, the father became a scorekeeper, and the older brother was long overdue for extra favors.  Do you find yourself in that story? Today we call it “legalism” and “merit.”  You do what you’re supposed to do, and God owes you. Your relationships are often based on meritorious service, do’s and don’ts, shoulds and ought-to’s. You struggle to find yourself compelled purely by love or grace or generosity. Forgiving is hard for you, because the other person doesn’t “deserve it.” Are you like that? I think the most dramatic scene in the parable is not when the younger son realizes that he has self-destructed, but when the father stands alone with the older son outside away from the house and away from the party welcoming back the younger son “who was dead and is alive again.”  The father pleads with the son who didn’t self-destruct because he is about to do just that. The older son is lost. He is lost to knowing his father, his brother, and to knowing that relationships are based on love rather than merit. So the father stands and pleads with his son to view life from the perspective of grace and love rather than scorekeeping.

There the story ends. We do not know the choice the older brother made. If this is your part of the story, you get to write the ending. One thing is for sure: the father would return to the house and let the older brother choose, just as God lets you choose. He always pleads, asks, and invites, and then is willing to wait for his children to respond to love and grace.  In this Lenten season, may this reflection remind you that the door to the household of God is always open to you.