This morning I would like to speak to you as if I was that prodigal, wasteful and reckless son that we heard about in our gospel lesson. I come to you this morning to share my story, the same story that Jesus shared with a rather diverse group of people who had gathered around him from every walk of life: from the social outcasts of society called “sinners” to the “super” religious, self-righteous Pharisees. But really this is not just MY story, but in a senses, it is YOUR story also; an amazing story of God’s grace and love. So listen carefully and learn from my story, the lost son who was welcome back home by his father.
I grew up in what you would probably call a “well-to-do” family. Money was never much of an issue. My father was a successful business owner. My older brother and I not only had what we needed, but often much of what we wanted. That’s not to say that we were spoiled. No, my father expected us to work hard. We put in long hours and learned the family business working along-side-of my dad. Life was good.
My brother and I both knew that when Dad was gone, the family business would be handed down to us. I was excited to think about the opportunities that owning my own business would bring to me. I thought that when the time came I was going to conquer the world, watch out Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Although still a young man, I decided that the time had come. I went to my father and asked him for my share of the business. I was confident in my abilities, thought I knew what I was doing, could handle it no problem. Surprisingly enough, my dad agreed to give me my portion of the business.
It wasn’t long after that I decided to sell my share of the family business and set off to blaze my own trail of fortune and fame, to spread my wings a bit and do what I wanted to do. I left my family and friends and headed to a distant country. Once I arrived in my new home, Jesus was exactly right when he said of me, “There he squandered his wealth in wild living” (Luke 15:13). Actually “wild living” might be a bit of an understatement. My life was spinning out of control. If there was a party, I was there. If I wanted it, I bought it. If it felt good, I did it. I was spending money left and right without any thought of the future. I surrounded myself with “friends” which are easy to find when you have lots of money, but when the money ran out my “friends” were nowhere to be found. I was caught up in a life of self-destruction, a whirlwind of sin.
It took a little while, but eventually I lost everything. No friends. No money. No home. No food. I still remember that day when I went to work for a pig farmer. My job was to feed the pigs. I hadn’t eaten in days and I was so hungry that I remember looking enviously at the pigs and thinking how good they had it. If only I could have even just a little of their food. That’s when I knew that I had hit rock bottom. If something didn’t change, I was going to starve to death in poverty. I had to do something. Something had to change.
I thought back to the days when I lived at my father’s house with my brother. I recalled how well my father treated his workers and that’s when it hit me. I would go back home. I would go back to my father and ask if I could work for him. He didn’t have to accept me as his son, I mean, why in the world would he? I just wanted a job, something to be able to provide for the necessities of life.
As I set out for home, I had a lot of time to think. What was I going to say to my Dad? What was he going to say to me when he saw the mess I had made of my life, the way that I had squandered and wasted the money HE had worked so hard to earn for me. Would he even speak to me, look at me? I finally started to recognize some very familiar sights, places where I had grown up and played with my brother when we were children. I looked up and there in the distance was a man standing on a hill. At first I couldn’t make out exactly who it was. But the closer I got, I soon realized who it was. It was my father. All-of-a-sudden he started yelling something to someone and then he began running in my direction. I didn’t know exactly how to react. I wondered if he would slow down the closer he got. Take a look at me. Take a whiff of me and turn and walk the other direction. But instead he reached out his arms and grabbed hold of me and pulled me close to him. He hugged me and kissed me.
I quickly tried to explain to him what had happened. I told him how sorry I was. I told him that I would understand if he never wanted to see me again, never wanted to call me his son. In fact, all that I really wanted from him was to be hired as one of his workers, that would be more than enough. But it’s almost as if he wasn’t listening. He threw his arms around me, and you know what he called me? He called me “Son.” And said, “Welcome home.” There were no conditions, no probationary terms. He just said, “Son, welcome home.” He gave me nice clothes to wear like the ones that I used to have. He even threw this huge welcome home party and celebrated my return.
I still wonder today, why? How could my father have welcomed me back after all that I had done? I can’t think of any other words to describe it than those that we just sang, “Amazing Grace.” It makes me think of the how our God welcomes us into his family though faith. There is absolutely nothing that we have done to deserve it. In fact, there are plenty of things that we have done that should make God want to keep his distance from us. But not our heavenly Father. In the words of Ephesians 2:8,9 God tells us, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast” (Ephesians 2:8,9). It is all God our Father’s doing. He welcomes us into his family through his gift of faith, and then gives to us through that gift of faith the gift of salvation. He pulls us close to him and says, “You are now my son and my daughter. My home is yours. My glory is yours.” That is amazing grace!
That amazing grace is what you and I experience from our God on a daily basis. Just think of how richly God has blessed each of us, and how he trains us with his Word to use those gifts he has entrusted to us. Now think of how we use all the different gifts that he gives to us. We too often squander them. Maybe not in the type of wild living that I did, but in the way that we fail to use them in ways that honor and glorify God our Savior. The offerings we bring to church become what we have left over after paying for everything else, instead of the first part of our income as a demonstration of his importance and our trust in his promises. We are so busy running kids to this practice and that game, this rehearsal and that recital, that we don’t have time for Sunday school, Bible study, family devotions or weekly worship. You might expect that God would take one whiff of our stinky sinful lives, shake his head in disgust and disappointment and walk way, kind of like what I expected my father to do when he saw me.
But what does God our Father do? Amazing grace! He washes off the filth of our sin with the blood of his Son shed at the cross. He clothes us with the perfect life of Jesus. He comes to us through his Word like he did this morning. Right after we confessed, “I have done what is evil and failed to do what is good”, and what did our Father immediately say back to us through his called servant? “God, our heavenly Father, has been merciful to us and has given his only Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins.” How amazing is that? God our Father has punished his Son in our place, offering his life so that we can have life eternal. Now, that’s grace, completely earned and undeserved love, that God our Father has and continues to show to us every day.
A little while after I had returned home, I heard that my brother wasn’t real happy to hear how my father had welcome me back. I can understand his anger and reluctance. Here he had been faithfully working for our father while I had been recklessly spending what our father had worked so hard for. Dad tried to remind him of all the good things he had enjoyed while I was gone, but it took awhile for him to come around and accept me as a brother once again.
I think that can still be a temptation for Christians today. One Christian looks down on another Christian because of what they know about that person’s past. Instead of welcoming a fellow Christian with open arms, there is a hesitancy or reluctance, a treating that person differently in some way because you’ve been a Christian longer than them. God’s grace is the great equalizer, isn’t it? My brother needed to be reminded of what every Christian needs to be reminded of. Every Christian enjoys the same undeserved blessing that God’s grace freely gives through God’s gift of faith. None of us is more deserving than another. We all live under God’s amazing grace, equally undeserving, equally forgiven, brothers and sisters who have been welcomed home by our Father. That is the story of God’s amazing grace that each of us shares. Amen.
