Joshua [4:19-24] 5:9-12 Psalm 34 2 Corinthians 5:17-21 Luke 15:11-32

As a novice preacher, I feel kind of lucky to have the story of the prodigal son as a text. For after all, you know it well already. If I were to survey the congregation, 95% of you could tell me the basic plot of this parable. But then again _ perhaps you know it too well _ it deserves another look. For our time today I want to turn the focus away from "the Prodigal Son," and call this the parable of the "loving parent."

Three people enter our lives through this parable. Three characters that Jesus tells us about. First, there is the younger son who knows that by tradition he will not inherit the land. He is seeking independence _ to be out on his own. Then, there's the older son who will inherit the land and be responsible for it. He is loyal and honorable as a way of life. Finally there is the loving father. He is the father of both sons, and loves them both equally.

We know what happens to the 3 characters. The younger son squanders his inheritance and winds up penniless and starving. He realizes that even his father's servants are better off than he is _ so he returns home, pleading for forgiveness. But he does not have to plead. As any loving parent would do, the father rejoices to see his lost son returned home to him. The father does not have to respond so generously, but in his joy he lavishes his son with all the best things and throws a party in his honor. The older, faithful son now becomes envious, unable to understand why his younger brother deserved such a grand party despite his unfaithfulness. He is only able to see that his irresponsible little brother is being rewarded for doing absolutely nothing!

The older son is like many of us in the church. He is faithful to a fault; but he has totally misread his relationship with his father. Because he has dutifully worked hard without the grand rewards from his father, he sees his relationship as one of slavery. By focusing on his own good works, he has been unable to see of his father's consistent love.

Perhaps the younger son is like even more of us _ anxious to be independent, and not realizing that he cannot produce anything on his own, he wastes the resources his father has provided for him. Like many of us, he knows his Father will come through for him when needed, but he never anticipated the love he receives when he finally chooses to return home.

The two sons give us a picture of ourselves. Perhaps there is a continuum between rebellion and the blindly faithful, and most of us exist somewhere along this continuum at different points of our lives. Wherever we are, we are unable to realize God's perfect love for us.

That is why Jesus tells this parable- and that is why I want to refocus our attention from the Prodigal Son to the Loving Parent. Through this parable, Jesus teaches us that the Loving Parent is the God who loves us and takes care of us. The father in the story is the landowner, and in the same sense, we must remember that God is our creator and provider. God is the sole source of our security. As the character of the father provided for his sons, they were dependent upon him. Whether our awareness of our own such dependence on God is new (like the prodigal son) or life-long (like the Faithful son), the Father accepts us as his beloved children.

What we find out is that God's love is constant. That love was secured for us at the time of our conception. His love for one does not diminish his love for another. Jesus' parable illustrates that we have earned God's love neither by our confession nor by our fidelity _ it is God's free gift to us. Because the Father's love is constant, God always rejoices in our presence and calls us to always rejoice in each other.

It turns out, then, that everything we have and everything good we do is through God's love. We will never be able to fully understand the infinite capacity of God's love _ but we can realize two implications of it. First, that as creatures, we are dependent upon Gods' love, and thankfully, we can be assured in knowing that his love endures forever. Secondly, we are not only children. We are members of a family _ each person loved equally by God.

The parable that we traditionally call the Parable of the Prodigal Son, actually gives us more insight into who God is, than it does about who we are. Our human inability to fathom the perfect love of God remains _ but we are given enough insight to know that it is so great that we must respond. And there is a response to this parable. Maybe it's not a coincidence that it leads us right back to the central message of the Bible. That is _ we respond by loving our God and loving our neighbor. This is what God call us to do. Loving our God means to be present to him _ everyday. Loving our neighbor means to rejoice in and with the whole community of humankind. For we are all beloved creations of our God.

Perhaps this parable is so well-known because it contains one of the central messages of our Christian community. It is, in a nutshell, the good news of Christ. For God, through Christ, reconciles us to himself, and gives us the ministry of reconciliation to each other. We are all called to be reconciled to God. If we are lost, we need to return. If we are blinded by our own good works, we need to see the love of God in our brothers and sisters. Let us then be reconciled to God who loves us each and let us be reconciled with our brothers and sisters in Christ who are each loved by God.