Coming to His Senses

And coming to his senses, he went back to his father.

This is one of the most most painted gospel scenes from Scripture

as it speaks to the human heart condition in so many ways.

Yet it is complex.

We often focus on the younger brother’s life of dissipation

where he squandered everything.

Sometimes we focus on the older brother

who refuses to come into the party.

But today I would like to focus on the father.

We call this the parable of the prodigal son

but we might be better calling it the prodigal father.

Prodigal means outrageous.

But it really should be the outrageous father

because the father is the one who is outrageous in his forgiveness.

This will help us understand all the Father is.

This parable is not just about what forgiveness is

but what forgiveness does.

Forgiveness sets us free.

When we accept forgiveness

from the Father in our own lives,

then we are free.

We are set free from our sins.

That part seems straightforward,

but we find it hard sometimes to allow God’s forgiveness in.

Sometimes we find it hard to accept

that God would forgive us for our mistakes.

Sometimes when we hurt somebody who we really love

and we know we have hurt them

and we ask for forgiveness from the Lord,

we ask in a sense why did I do that?

And we want almost to be punished a little bit

because we know we were wrong.

So we find it hard to sometime accept.

But hopefully we will finally accept God’s forgiveness for us.

I think once we do, we realize now I am free again.

But the other part is when we do not pass on

that forgiveness to somebody else,

we have the exact same unfreedom that plays out.

Because what the Lord gives to us in forgiving us sets us free.

But when we refuse to forgive somebody else,

it causes the exact same unforgiveness,

that same unfreedom.

It is hard to understand

but the one who is most unfree in this gospel today

is the older brother.

Because he refuses to forgive the younger brother.

Because he even refuses to forgive the father

versus celebrating the younger son.

And so therefore, he remains physically outside the party.

We are meant to read into that this means outside heaven.

He cannot get into heaven

with unforgiveness on his soul.

I always remember when I was down at the monastery in Big Sur

and the abbot there said,

“You know, there is only one thing you cannot take into heaven.

There is one thing that guarantees

that you cannot get into heaven with is - unforgiveness.

If you have unforgiveness on your heart, when you die,

you will wait until you forgive to enter.

You can not get in with unforgiveness.

So why not forgive now?

You can not get in with it on your heart.”

I thought it was shocking when I heard that.

Here is a metaphor that might help understand this.

Imagine an old time sheriff’s jailhouse.

Remember those old time sheriff jails with the gate?

Imagine you walk into one of those old time sheriff’s jails

and you close the gate behind you

and you reach out between the bars.

You have the key on the O-ring and you lock the key.

Then you take the key out of the lock

and you have the key on the O-ring.

And then you throw the O-ring out into the sheriff cell

where there is no sheriff.

Now you are locked in your own prison cell by yourself,

by your own doing.

That is the definition of unforgiveness.

Now here is what is interesting.

It does not make any difference

if you are unforgiving towards yourself, God or somebody else.

It is the same prison cell.

It does not matter whose unforgiveness it is,

it is yours that puts yourself in a prison of your own making!

Here is what is strange to me.

When you remain unforgiving to somebody else

who has hurt us, and it is even righteous,

like they really have hurt you,

it is they have done great damage to you.

We will not forgive them.

We think we are putting them in prison, but we have not.

We have only put ourselves in, they are free.

In fact, they might not even care that we do not forgive them.

But we are the one suffering

in our own prison cell of your own making.

Now here is what the Lord says in today’s gospel

is that he comes along with the key on the O-ring

and offers it to us for our freedom.

But we have to be the one to take it and open the gate.

He will not open the for us.

Now here is the thing, we can reach out

and we can take the key from Jesus,

but we still have to take the key and put it in the lock.

And even when we put it in the lock,

we still have to open the gate.

And even when we open the gate, we have to step out.

And when we have to step out, we have to agree to stay out.

All of those are the steps of forgiveness

and that is what gives us freedom.

Without it, we remain unfree.

Today’s gospel is about God offering us back

the original freedom he gave to us.

When we roll out sin, when we accept that

we become free once more.

But let us not fool ourselves in holding back

that unforgiveness or that forgiveness from somebody else

because we will just put ourselves right back in the same cell.

So today, whomever you have some grievance against,

and it might be righteous, leave it at the table today.

Leave it here, and do not take it up again.

Just leave it here.

Whether it be against ourself for the hurts,

the things that we have done,

whether it be against somebody just this week or 10, 20 years ago,

or whether it will be from the Lord

from failing to meet up to your expectations,

leave your unforgiveness at the table today

and take up your freedom once and for all.

And coming to his senses, he went back to his father.