Micah 7:14-15, 18-20
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
My son, you are with me always, and all I have is yours. But it was only right we should celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found.
These are some of my favourite verses from the Parable of the Lost Son. The father has in fact lost both of his sons. He has welcomed one son back with great festivity, but things won’t be whole or complete until all the family are together. The story leaves us hanging. It is such a powerful story both in what it says and what it leaves unsaid. Did it ever resolve?
Classically the parable is framed in terms of repentance and forgiveness. But Jewish New Testament Scholar, Amy J Levine, sees another strand: counting and searching. She sees the parable as a call to us to count and recognise those we have lost.
‘Recognize that the one you have lost may be right in your own household. Do whatever it takes to find the lost and then celebrate with others, both so that you can share the joy and so that the others will help prevent the recovered from ever being lost again. Don’t wait until you receive an apology; you may never get one. Don’t wait until you can muster the ability to forgive; you may never find it. Don’t stew in your sense of being ignored, for there is nothing that can be done to retrieve the past.
Instead, go have lunch. Go celebrate, and invite others to join you. If the repenting and the forgiving come later, so much the better. And if not, you still will have done what is necessary. You will have begun a process that might lead to reconciliation. You will have opened a second chance for wholeness. Take advantage of resurrection—it is unlikely to happen twice.’
— Short Stories by Jesus: The Enigmatic Parables of a Controversial Rabbi by Amy-Jill Levine
Who or what are you called to search for this Lent?