Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
A teacher once told me that until you can explain something to a child, you don’t really understand it. CS Lewis, another great teacher, believed most ardently that good children’s stories were only good if they could mean just as much to the adults reading them as the child being read to. So today, I want to share a story from one of my favorite children’s Bibles, The Book of Belonging-
[A Reading of “The One Who Watches and Waits” from The Book of Belonging]
The story of the prodigal son has been told as a story about repentance and forgiveness, about fathers and sons, about jealousy and greed, about law and grace, about the Pharisees and the tax collectors. But when deciding how to tell this story to children, the theologians behind this book chose to tell it as a story about belonging. The two sons both in their own ways struggle to believe in their own belovedness- the elder tries to earn his father’s care through hard work and loyalty; the younger understands his worth through money and when it is all gone, only then does he consider his father’s regard. Neither of them sees their father clearly, distracted and disillusioned by their own insecurities and ambitions. And perhaps we might say that the father does not see his sons clearly either- he entrusts a naïve and irresponsible son with wealth, and he does not appear to notice the resentment of his older and more reliable son until it explodes. Or perhaps the Father sees his children more clearly than they see themselves. Perhaps he sees through their anxieties and frustrations, their mistakes and misadventures, their competitiveness and envy. Perhaps when he looks at them, he sees in sharp relief that they are his children, reflecting his image back to him, beloved. Perhaps, as the story goes, he simply delights in them, in their existence and their selves and their whole hearts.
For our own sakes, we hope that God is like this father, generous and gracious and forgiving beyond our wildest imaginings. But sometimes, maybe, we hope our God will be a little more like the older brother when it comes to others, keeping a tally of wrongs and only sharing God’s love with the worthy. This is where so many people got Jesus wrong during his ministry, and it leads to so much conflict and suffering in our world today. If the kingdom of God is like this man and his two young sons, then belonging there is not dictated by our mistakes or our past. If God is as prodigal with love as the father of the prodigal son, if God is as reckless and shameless as the father who runs out to meet the child who was lost and has been found, then everything we think we know about who is worthy is meaningless. If God’s heart is anything like the father’s love at the heart of this story, then there will always be more than enough love to go around, and some of it will go to people we’d rather see mucking out pigsties in a far away land. Every last one of us belongs to God, and every last one of us is beloved. God stands ready to throw us a homecoming party, complete with fancy clothes and nice shoes and a delicious meal. Will we join the celebration, or will we stay outside and grumble?
Mother A Writes 