The Extravagant Mother

Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32

Preached at Prescott American Baptist Church

March 10, 2013

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: It is hard to be human. So much is required and our knowledge is so limited. I sit in a circle with women in our county jail two nights every week. I see in their faces and I hear in their voices how lost and forgotten they feel. Most of them have made a series of bad decisions, been in the wrong places at the worst times and chosen to make money or get high illegally. They aren’t bad people. But they are lost in a certain way. And they feel like they are lost so deeply that being found is impossible. 

Mother Teresa lived and worked in Calcutta among the poorest and the sickest people, the forgotten. She said, “The worst disease known to human beings is to be lost and unwanted. Our hunger is not so much for bread and rice but to be loved, to be somebody.”

I believe that we, as people of faith, can assist God’s efforts to redeem the world by telling stories of redemption, stories in which people can see and hear themselves. It is our privilege to tell the old, old stories in new ways so that even the women in our county jail will realize they are included—today—in God’s story of eternal love. 

Once there was a mother and she had two daughters. The youngest daughter said to her mother, “Mom, give me all of the allowance you ever plan to give to me. Give me all the money you plan to spend on my college education. Give me whatever would be mine after you die. Give it to me now. I want to go out into the world and have adventures on my own.”

So the mother gave the daughter what was hers and a few days later the younger daughter went away.

She went into the city where she wandered through the malls and into boutiques, filling shopping bag after shopping bag with all sorts of jewelry, bubble bath, shoes and short skirts. She attended wild and crazy parties in the evening when she could no longer shop. She danced and laughed. She stayed in a fine hotel where the uniformed doorman saw her safely to her room each evening. She ate at restaurants where the napkins were cloth and the servings were small but artfully designed on the plates. She drank only the finest bottled drinks from morning to night. She could see the city and all of its twinkling lights from her pent house window. She slept on silk sheets and her head rested on fabulous pillows. What a wonderful adventure the youngest daughter had!

And then her money ran out. The girl could no longer pay for her room at the hotel. She could no longer afford to shop. She had no money for restaurants, not even a Krystal burger. And nobody invited her to wild parties after her money ran out. The daughter started walking along the shoulder of the highway, dodging the rocks tossed to the side by huge trucks and speeding cars.  She walked on and on, in search of a life for herself. That night she slept in the backseat of a wrecked car in a car junkyard. She sat among the piles of wrecked cars and wished for something good to eat, some place nice to sleep, and a friend who would stay by her side. 

The owner of the junkyard allowed the girl to straighten up around the place, moving car parts and organizing things. In return she was given a blanket, a pillow, coffee in the morning and a biscuit. She ate Kennel Ration with the dogs the rest of the day.

Finally her stomach could no longer stand to eat another bite of dog food. Her back was aching from the lumpy car seat she was using for a bed. The girl thought to herself, “I know that my mother has camping equipment in the storage shed out back of the house. I would be better off to sleep in a sleeping bag inside a canvas tent in my mother’s back yard than to stay here and die of hunger. I’ll go back home, apologize to my mother for how foolishly I have behaved and I will ask if I can mow the lawn and trim the hedges for a sandwich, a cookie and a soda.” So the youngest daughter started walking home.

The mother was standing at the kitchen sink, drying dishes and humming a song when she saw something down at the end of the street.  She stopped drying the dishes and leaned over the sink, trying to see if her eyes were simply playing tricks on her.  Could it be? Her youngest daughter had been gone for so long. The pain in the mother’s chest loosened as she threw her dish towel up in the air and ran outside on the porch to see her daughter more closely. She waved her arms up in the air with a great gesture of joy. Tears of happiness filled the mother’s eyes and she could stand still no longer. She began to run and as she ran her daughter began to run too. They ran right into each other’s arms and hugged each other tightly while they cried. “Mother,” the youngest daughter sobbed, “I’ve been foolish. I am sorry for wasting so much time and money. I want to come home. I will work…”

The mother had something to say that could no longer wait. “I want to throw a party for you! I’ll get the charcoal in the pit and we’ll grill hamburgers, hotdogs and chicken breasts. I’ll order a cake from the bakery and buy six flavors of ice cream! We’ll have punch that will knock your socks off!” The mother hugged her daughter tightly. “Because you were lost and now you are found. We need to have a huge celebration.” The mother went into the house and put dance music on the CD player. Even the dog was kicking up her heels with joy.

Just then the older daughter came downstairs from her bedroom where she had been working on her algebra homework. “What’s happening?” she asked, looking sternly at her mother. The older daughter was the serious type.

“Your sister was lost and now she is found! We’re going to have a big celebration this very night!” the mother exclaimed.  “I’ve ordered a bakery cake and I’m going to the grocery to buy six flavors of ice cream! Can I get anything for you while I’m there?”

But the older sister did not answer her mother. She puffed up with anger and jealousy, swelling into a rage. The mother stopped and looked closely at her oldest daughter. “Come on, now. You are not going to be angry about your sister’s return, are you?” The mother reached out to hug her daughter. But the older daughter backed away from her mother’s embrace.

“You listen to me, Mother.” The daughter spit her words. “I keep my room clean and I save my money. I make good grades at school because I study hard and keep up with all my assignments. I feed the dog and empty the cat’s litter box three times a week. But you have never ordered a bakery cake and gone to get six flavors of ice cream for me. Now this foolish sister of mine who wasted so much of your money and so much of her life has come crawling back here and you throw a big party! I am offended.”

The mother sat down and took a deep breath. She loved her daughters more than any words could say. She wanted her daughters to know that her love was steadfast and unconditional. “I love you all the time. Everything I have is yours all the time. But we have to throw a party for your sister. She was lost and now she is found.”

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We traditionally think of the longest of the three stories in the fifteenth chapter of Luke as “The Prodigal Son.”  But this story is not about the child who took his half of the inheritance and went to the big city to spend it irresponsibly. It is also not a story primarily about the responsible child who did everything by the rules and on time. No. This story is about the parent, (the extravagant mother, the compassionate father,) who gives the inheritance of life and love to all her children. 

We can be in exile from the love of God whether we are trapped by being irresponsible or trapped in our self-righteousness and resentment. More than anything all of us need to know that we are wanted and welcome at home. This story is about the kind of love that never closes the door on any member of the human family. 

I think about the women in the circle with me at Shelby County Jail. They have heard the old, old stories and so much of what they hear is about exile and punishment. It is hard to be a human being and it is especially hard to find a way home once a person feels lost. 

As a community of faith we can invite neighbors, friends and family to hear the old story in a new way, a way that includes all of us and invites us to trust love more than we trust our guilt and shame.

This is our extravagant inheritance. 

Amen

Help Me Remember: Bible Stories For Children, Elaine Blanchard, Pilgrim Press, Cleveland, OH 2005