Posts Tagged ‘Luke 15:1-3 & 11b-32’
Unsettled and Uncertain – Br. Lain Wilson
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Unsettled and uncertain, disoriented, lost,
bereft of chart or compass, unmoored and tempest-tossed:
our daily life confounds us; old certainties are gone.
No confidence consoles us or trust in anyone.[1]
These lines, from a newly composed hymn we’ll sing together at the end of this service, speak so clearly to the sense that so many of us have today. Disoriented, lost, without means of discerning where we are—let alone where we’re heading. The expectation that our daily life—our routines, or waking up and going to work and returning home and going to sleep and everything in between—can provide some measure of meaning and stability threatened. Loss of livelihood, fear, the invasion of actions and principles that are so contrary to what we hold dear: we all too easily find ourselves in a place where “no confidence consoles us or trust in anyone.”
As clearly as these words speak to our own circumstances, I can’t help but see reflected in them also the figure of the prodigal son. I can’t help but imagine him taking his share of the inheritance and going to a far-off country and encountering there . . . well, disorientation and uncertainty, a life unmoored and confounding. That he had agency, that this situation resulted in part from his own poor choices, is true, but secondary to the forces beyond his control that made the effect of these choices so dramatic. Read More
Choices – Br. David Vryhof
Br. David Vryhof
There was once a man whose younger son wanted to make his own choices in life. Now it pained the father to let him make these choices because he suspected that his son was not really mature enough to make wise choices – but still he gave him the freedom he wanted. (There are times when this is a good thing for love to do.)
At any rate, his son was pleased, and he began to make his choices.
He chose, first of all, to have his share of his father’s inheritance turned into spending money. Then he chose to leave his father’s home, taking all his money with him. Next, he began to choose some new friends, and together with them he chose some ways to spend his money. And with each choice that he made, that deep inner part of him, the part of him that made choices, was becoming something a little different than it was before.
Until at last he found that his choices had ruined him.
That was the turning point. Read More
The Prodigal Story – Br. Curtis Almquist
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32
The English word, prodigal, comes from the Latin, prōdigus, wasteful. Here we have this story Jesus tells about the “prodigal son” who wastes his life away until he comes to his senses. I would say this is more than a story about a son; this is like a five-part mini drama. Read More