Luke 15:11-32, that is why Jesus said the tax collectors and prostitutes were entering the Kingdom ahead of the Pharisees, not because their sin was smaller, because their awareness of their sin was bigger and awareness is the door to repentance and repentance is the door to the feast. Be honest, really honest, which son are you? Maybe you are the younger brother, maybe you are in the far country right now, maybe you have taken everything God gave you, the gifts, the opportunities, the relationships, the calling and you have spent it all on things that left you empty. Maybe you are sitting in your own pigsty right now and the shame is so heavy that you cannot imagine standing up, let alone going home. Your father is watching the road right now, he has been watching it since the day you left.
Your father is not standing with his arms crossed, he is not preparing a lecture, he is not making you wait, the moment he sees you on the horizon, dirty, broken, ashamed with your pathetic rehearsed speech, he will run, he will sprint, he will hike up his robes and sacrifice his dignity and crash into you with a love so violent that it will knock the speech right out of your mouth. You do not have to clean up first, you do not have to prove you have changed, you do not have to earn your way back, you just have to turn around, that is all repentances is, turning around and the father will cover the distance.
Maybe you are the older brother and honestly that is the harder diagnosis, because the older brother does not think he has a problem, maybe you have been in church for years, decades, maybe you have served faithfully, tithed consistently, volunteered sacrificially. Maybe you have done everything right and maybe deep down in a place you do not let anyone see, you are angry, angry that it does not seem to count, angry that people who showed up at the last minute seem to receive the same grace you had to work for, angry that God’s love does not seem proportional to your effort.
If that is you, you are always with the father, everything he has is already yours, you do not need to earn it, you never needed to earn it and the reason you are angry is not because the father is unfair, it is because you have been living as a slave in a house where you were always a son. Put down the ledger, stop counting, come inside, the feast is for you too, it always was.
Your father is not standing with his arms crossed, he is not preparing a lecture, he is not making you wait, the moment he sees you on the horizon, dirty, broken, ashamed with your pathetic rehearsed speech, he will run, he will sprint, he will hike up his robes and sacrifice his dignity and crash into you with a love so violent that it will knock the speech right out of your mouth. You do not have to clean up first, you do not have to prove you have changed, you do not have to earn your way back, you just have to turn around, that is all repentances is, turning around and the father will cover the distance.
Maybe you are the older brother and honestly that is the harder diagnosis, because the older brother does not think he has a problem, maybe you have been in church for years, decades, maybe you have served faithfully, tithed consistently, volunteered sacrificially. Maybe you have done everything right and maybe deep down in a place you do not let anyone see, you are angry, angry that it does not seem to count, angry that people who showed up at the last minute seem to receive the same grace you had to work for, angry that God’s love does not seem proportional to your effort.
If that is you, you are always with the father, everything he has is already yours, you do not need to earn it, you never needed to earn it and the reason you are angry is not because the father is unfair, it is because you have been living as a slave in a house where you were always a son. Put down the ledger, stop counting, come inside, the feast is for you too, it always was.
