This morning’s scripture portion from the gospel of Luke is one of the best known parables in the Biblical text, the story of the ‘prodigal son’.  In popular culture, we have taken the word ‘prodigal’ to mean one who has strayed from the straight and narrow and returned with his or her hat in hand.  We think then of a prodigal as someone sorrowful or repentant who has seen the error of their ways and has returned to the fold.

            But Webster gives us a different understanding of the word and the story it names.  It describes ‘prodigal’ as: characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure or abundance[1].  Given this definition, the prodigal might better describe the wayward son while he ‘squandered his property in dissolute living’, but certainly not the returning offspring.  Prodigal might also describe the generous father who gave away 1/3 of his possessions to a younger son who could not wait for his father’s passing before getting his inheritance.

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            Or – it just might describe the father who forgave that wayward son freely – without requiring some overt show of sorrow or apology – pardoned without meting out some form of punishment before accepting the son back into the household of the family – who forgave in grace not in sacrifice, forgave because of his great and abiding love for the son rather than in any worthiness the son may have had or any thing the son might have done to earn that forgiveness.

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            To first century ears, the story of the prodigal – whether it was son or father – was shocking.  For a son to demand his inheritance while his father still lived was an amazing affront to the father’s honor.  For the father to give away what was his was foolish in the extreme.

            The original hearers would cheer on hearing that the younger son ‘came to himself’ and came home – but they would be shocked again to hear not only that the father watched for the return of his son, but ran out to meet him instead of waiting for the son to come to him.  That the father would do something to undignified as run anywhere – to make such a fool of himself running after the sinner - was laughable – that he would accept the son back into his home was beyond reason.

            But Jesus is making a point here – the point that is hinted at in the first verses of the gospel text.  The tax collectors and sinners are coming listen to Jesus.  The Pharisees and the scribes are complaining that Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them. 

The point?  Righteousness is not to be equated with sinlessness.  Rather righteousness is equated with forgiveness.  It is those who have experienced the river of grace flowing from the fountain of God and who understand the life-giving beauty of grace.

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            Psalm 32 is attributed to David and is called one of the seven penitential psalms.  But a ‘penitential’ psalm is not the same as a psalm of ‘lament’.  We might utter a psalm of lament at those times when we feel as thought God has turned the holy back on us.  A psalm of lament is born of a heart that feels forsaken and without hope.  A psalm of lament is for those times when all we see is blackness and despair.

            A penitential psalm is entirely different.  A penitential psalm is more a ‘prayer of thanksgiving offered by individuals after the forgiveness of sin and the experience of healing.’[2]  We hear that experience of healing in the opening verses,

‘Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. (vs. 1, 2, NRSV)’

            This is not a happiness that comes from always walking the straight and narrow.  This is not the self-righteousness that infects those who thank God that they are ‘not like that other guy’.  This is the happiness of one who has known the devastation of sin and the wasting effects of holding it all in:

‘While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. (vs. 3, 4, NRSV)’

            Ever been there?  Haven’t we all been there?  Perhaps life has just turned bad.  Perhaps there is trouble in the family that seems to have no resolution.  Perhaps there are resentments and anger that we cling to with all our pride perhaps even a touch of arrogance – something that we will not let go of even though it’s eating us alive and interferes with our relationship with God.

            Certainly David, the author of this psalm, had been there.  After David ordered the murder of Uriah, he quickly took Bathsheba to be his wife.  He was hoping to keep secret his illicit relationship with her.  He was hoping that no one would know that she had gotten pregnant while her husband was away fighting.  He was hoping that no one would learn his sin and deceit.

            But sin and guilt make for unfriendly bedfellows.  Perhaps no humans knew, but David knew and what’s more, God knew.  His guilt ate at him like a cancer until the prophet Samuel came to him and accused him openly of his sin.

            I think that knowing that his sin was a secret no longer might actually have been quite a relief to him.  Perhaps it was then that David bowed down to God, openly confessed his sin and suddenly felt the wave of relief and joy of liberation that comes from the weight of sin, anger or resentment being lifted from his shoulders?

            Don’t we feel those same things?

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            Repentance – so long in coming – so wonderful when received – so freeing when experienced – and free for the asking if we will humble ourselves to ask.

            Is it any wonder then that the Apostle Paul himself quotes this psalm in Romans 4:6-8, his own great teaching on the grace of God?

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            The grace of God becomes David’s ‘hiding place (v. 7)’ – that safe, secure, protected place where nothing can harm or cause pain – the place where we can be surrounded by the love of God.

            The psalm continues with assurances from God, ‘I will instruct you… I will counsel you…’ – a promise of the Holy Leading, the Holy Spirit.  The promise of abiding love and care – there for the asking – but we do have to ask.

            Forgiveness, restoration, grace – free for the asking, but God will not force us into the holy presence.  Rather, like the prodigal father the Lord of all creation looks for our coming, runs down the road to meet us, clothes us in righteousness, restores us to the family of God – not requiring we try to but our way in, but freely giving us access to the security of the hiding place of redemption and love. 

           In this psalm from David, we read that to be righteous is not to ‘manage somehow to obey all the rules, to be sinless’.  Rather ‘the lives of the righteous are pervaded by sin and its consequences… To be righteous is to be forgiven... To be a witness to God’s grace.’[3]

            As those first century Christians prepared to celebrate Easter, they would need to comfort and assurance of these words – more than words of forgiveness, but words of assurance that even though we fall, God is ever willing to pick us up.  Even when we turn our backs on God, God is standing, waiting for our return to offer us the warm shelter of his hiding place.

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            On this, the 4^th Sunday of Lent, the church traditionally turns from examination of personal spiritual lives to the passion and sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf.  By those same traditions, we drape the cross in purple as a symbol of that sacrifice. 

This year we have enlarged that drape to illustrate more clearly the gracious generosity of our God in ways that we might not consider.  The sacrifice of the cross was not just for that long ago far away hillside.  The love, the grace, of the cross flows down from the cross to the altar and communion table where we share the Lord’s Supper – but it’s still more than that.  God’s love and grace don’t stop there.  Like the draping, they flow down into the church – not just for Easter, not just for Sunday – but into our everyday lives to reach us where we are – just as we are.

In these next weeks before Easter, let us recall the mercy of God, unearned, undeserved, free for the asking and a hiding place for all.

Amen.