Rev. Tessie Mandeville
March 18, 2007
Christ Covenant MCC
Decatur, GA 30033

We are deep in the Lenten season, this period of time that is symbolic of Jesus’ journey in the wilderness for 40 days. It is a long journey and we are not through. The wilderness experience preceded Jesus’ path to the cross. I suggest to you today that if Jesus had not spent time in the wilderness, he wouldn’t have walked the path to the cross as resolutely as he did.

It’s probably tempting for all of us to skip right over the wilderness, to bypass the times of wandering and suffering and questioning, and to move right on to resurrection. Because the truth is, as Christians, we already know how the story ends. We know that it ends in resurrection. But I would ask us today to live as if we don’t know the end of the story. I would ask us to walk with Jesus all the way through the wilderness and to the cross. There are no shortcuts to resurrection.

Our gospel story today can help us live as if we don’t know the end of the story because when you read the story of the Prodigal Son, you realize it doesn’t have an ending to it. These are some of the things we know:

• We know there are a father and two sons.
• We know that the younger son asks for his share of the inheritance and then squanders it in another city.
• We know that the older brother stays home and works with his father.
• We know that the younger brother comes to his senses, realizes that he needs to ask forgiveness of his father and heads home to do that.
• We know that the father sees this son from a distance, runs out to meet him, shows him mercy and welcomes him home.
• We know that the older brother is furious at this “special treatment” the father shows the younger son.

We don’t know the following things:

• We don’t know if the older brother comes to the welcome home party.
• We don’t know if the younger brother, who receives mercy, starts showing that mercy to others.
• We don’t know if the older brother stays angry, takes his share of the inheritance and leaves.
• We don’t know if the two brothers ever reconcile.
• We don’t know what happens to the relationship between the father and the angry older brother.

When it comes down to it, there’s a lot we don’t know about this story. I believe that is why this story has maintained its intrigue for over two thousand years. There is mystery to it because the ending is not written in. Jesus didn’t tie up this parable in pretty pink wrapping paper with a bow on top! He intentionally left it unfinished, I believe, so that we can enter into it, so that we can find ourselves as all the characters in the story, and so that eventually we can write our own endings to the story.

The stories of our lives aren’t finished yet. I’ve heard it said that life is a journey, not a destination. And life is not linear. Sometimes we find ourselves circling around to face some of the same issues we faced at earlier times in our lives. When I do that, I like to use the image of the spiral, but instead of going up, I’m going down it. I’m going deeper into the heart of the matter, and coming to deeper knowledge about God and myself. Of course, I think that only after I struggle with the question, “Why am I dealing with this again?!”

We have an invitation to enter into the parable of the prodigal son and when we do that, we can see ourselves as all the characters in the story. Because let’s face it, at different times in our lives, we are the different characters.

So let’s enter in because the stories of our lives aren’t finished yet. Sometimes we are the merciful father, able to rush out to greet a son, or sister or brother, or friend and offer them wild mercy. Sometimes we’re able to throw our arms around a person before they can even ask for forgiveness. It is so wonderful to have this example of wild mercy and to trust that God meets us in this way.

But for most human beings, the concept of mercy is a lot more complicated. To talk about mercy, forgiveness, reconciliation, grace—we have to acknowledge the painful ways that we hurt one another. My older sister and I have been estranged for almost 10 years. Neither one of us were able to show a lot of mercy to the other. Our estrangement started when I came out as a lesbian. Since we were raised as fundamentalist Christians, Patty couldn’t reconcile my spirituality and sexuality. And, I wasn’t always kind to her when she couldn’t reconcile my spirituality and sexuality. We allowed a rift between us. About one year later, our little brother was killed. The last time I talked to Patty was at our brother’s funeral, and it was a terrible time for both of us. Neither of us was at our best.

Just recently our mother had a health crisis and we almost lost her during a particularly long surgery. During this crisis, Patty and I found a way to enter one another’s lives and to write a different ending to the story. We’ve both grown up a lot in the last 10 years and life has tempered us. Now we write emails to one another and ask questions about one another’s lives. We are slowly moving toward forgiveness and reconciliation and for that I am grateful. But I don’t pretend that this is easy. But to do this, I believe, is to approach God’s wild mercy and to bring our own souls nearer to healing.

The stories of our lives aren’t finished yet. Sometimes we are the angry older brother. And here’s the thing: He wasn’t angry because his father treated him badly; he was angry because his father treated his brother well and he didn’t think his little brother deserved it. See, it’s not that we are against grace; we just don’t always like it when it’s shown to others.

The older brother was angry that his father loved them both equally. In the older brother’s mind, there wasn’t room for both of them at the table. How often have we heard that from the churches we came from as LGBT people? There are churches who are extremely upset that LGBT people were lost and now we are found in the grace and mercy of God.

I was on email several times last week with a woman that would only identify herself by her first name. She wrote because she is concerned about LGBT people in her church. Apparently her church voted not to allow LGBT congregants to become members. She asked me to give her some resources to use to counter this exclusionary practice. We had some great conversations, I was able to offer many resources, but it was also a reminder to me that there are a lot of churches out there still in the role of the angry older brother. They aren’t against grace. They just don’t like it when it’s shown to others.

The stories of our lives aren’t finished yet. Sometimes we are the younger brother. The wanderer. The one that takes what is ours and squanders it. But sometimes we’re also the broken and humbled ones. The ones who realize that we’ve hurt others. That we’ve broken sacred trust with one another. We are the ones who repent, who turn, and with a profound sense of humility, go home and make things right.

Rabbi Jack Riemer says it this way:

Now is the time for turning…

But for us turning does not come so easily.
It takes an act of will for us to make a turn.

It means breaking with old habits.
It means admitting that we have been wrong;

and this is never easy.
It means losing face; it means starting all over again; and this is always painful.
It means saying: I am sorry.
It means recognizing that we have the ability to change….

Life is a journey, not a destination. Live as if you don’t know the end of the story because the stories of our lives aren’t finished yet. Don’t write yourself out because you think change isn’t possible; write yourself into the story and let your life write a new ending. Because in each story, there is always room for more forgiveness, wild mercy and grace. Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Days of Awe, Rabbi Jack Riemer in Singing the Living Tradition, UUA Songbook & Readings