[RCL] Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 During Lent, it can be easy to view the season of penitence as one focused on sin, separation, and shame. We can use Lenten disciplines as a way to self-flagellate, wear sackcloth and ashes, bear the crosses of giving up chocolate or committing to…

An image is formed by these lectionary passages, most especially by the epistle and the gospel story, of a God with open arms ready to receive us in a loving embrace. This image is constant and unchanging. Past and future don’t exist in the eternal present of God’s embrace: God is always waiting; God is…

The Prodigal Son is a story familiar to all of us and movingly depicted in art, drama and dance. We like stories like this; ones with happy endings where people come to their senses and are restored to the family. But that isn’t how it always happens, is it? We know of many estrangements between…

One year at the start of Lent, a sweet-natured seminarian with a wickedly funny approach to theology decided to give up his vegetarianism for the duration. Part of his motivation was his absurd sense of humor and his great gift to be able to laugh at himself. But he also wanted to tweak his fellow…

[NOTE TO READER: In paragraph 19, the word “Laetare” is pronounced: lay-TAR-ray.] Today’s parable is the longest in the Bible — and the most quoted. The parable of the Prodigal Son, as it is popularly known, has preoccupied and perplexed the thoughts and works of countless religious and secular scholars, writers, and even artists. Why?…

Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which gives life for the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him.” In the end, it seems it is about bread. Which is only right, since in the beginning it…

To a Christian attorney or judge, a legal reading of the parable in today’s Gospel reading might seem perfectly obvious: The father’s statement, “Son all I have is yours,” means that he made a contract when the prodigal left, and the contract was binding and final. From that point forward, the younger son would get…

In the beautiful fifteenth chapter of St. Luke’s Gospel we hear Jesus telling parables about God. In imagery that is common to his day and yet somehow startling, Jesus tells three stories which show us that God is intensely interested in finding lost souls. Two of these occur immediately before the story which we have…

The Gospel we just heard is sometimes called the ” Story of the Prodigal Son” or the “Story of the Two Sons.” I prefer to call it the “Story of the Forgiving Father.” This story asks each of us an important question: Will you go in? Will you go in to the feast of forgiveness,…