Fourth Lent

Luke 15: 31 – 32

“His father said, ‘Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours – but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!’ ”

When I worked as a holiday camp leader, the kids loved when I told campfire stories about wanderers who had been lost and were seeking their way home. The kids in my care had been taken from their homes and were wards of the state, so it’s no surprise that they would identify with lost wayfarers. Yet, it’s everybody taken in by stories about heroes trying to find their way home?

From Homer’s Odyssey to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz to the animated film Finding Nemo, there have been countless variations on the same theme – an adventurer went out to find life, only to wish desperately that he or she could find the way back home.

It didn’t matter that for my young campers, home was often a dismal and even unsafe place. Home is where the heart is, and their hearts were invested in ideal versions of the people and places from whence they came.

In the story of the prodigal son, Jesus tells us that the home we all long for is just a quick turn away. All we need do is turn away from our false identities (fed by greed, fear, pride, or self-centredness), and turn toward the faithful God who stands on the hilltop longing for our return.