Homecoming

I’ll never forget the day I came back to church.  I had grown up going to church every week, but once I moved away to Edmonton after high school, I vowed never to step foot in a church again.  As far as I was concerned, church was for hypocrites and Pharisees, people more interested in telling us how bad and wrong we were.  I was done!

Just like the prodigal son, tired of the family dynamics, tired of his bossy older brother telling him what to do, one day up and told off his dad and high-tailing it out of town, leaving the father shocked, the older brother saying, “I told you so!” and the poor mother in tears, weeping and wailing as the yelling escalated until the young man stormed off, never to return.

The family conflict was very serious.  In the time of Jesus, his culture was steeped in honor and shame.  Families were very hierarchical and competitive. Men battled for status like chickens in a coop, constantly pecking at each other to prove their superiority.  Honor was the touchstone of every action, and when honor was diminished by a child, the whole family was judged.  Honor killings were real.  From the point of view of North American values, it is abhorrent, but in the days of Jesus, a breaking of honor could result in a family losing so much status that their very livelihoods were threatened.  Just as Joseph in our Christmas story had the responsibility to restore his family’s honor by sending Mary away, in this story, the father had the responsibility to discipline his son, and could even have his son stoned according to the law.  By demanding his share of the inheritance, the son had disgraced and dishonored his family in the eyes of the community.  By allowing his son to get away with it, the father had disgraced and dishonored himself in the community, proving that he was a weak man and a terrible leader.

That was compounded when the young man returned.  The father again disgraced himself in public by running to his son and welcoming him so lovingly.  Again, his emotional excess would have been condemned by all who saw it. 

Jesus used this shocking story to attack the honor system and the claims of superiority that the Pharisees were asserting when they criticized Jesus for socializing with dishonorable and shameful people.  He consistently connected with those who had been hurt and victimized by the high expectations and competitive toxic culture that left people feeling hopeless and excluded.

We may not be shaped by an honor culture the way the Pharisees are, but our culture still needs to return home to a healthier way of relating to one another.  Many of you have heard of the term ‘toxic masculinity’, which is when men feel the pressures of cultural expectation to be tough, to be unemotional and to seek power over others to gain status.  Even 5-year-old boys are told to not cry, to suck it up, not be a sissy.  Toxic masculinity encourages emotional detachment and in worst cases can lead to violence against women and children.  When world leaders start wars and don’t know how to stop them even when they are losing, that’s the ultimate in toxic masculinity.

We also still get caught up in the shame/blame dichotomy.  It’s very addictive.  If I don’t feel good about myself, I can blame others for my emotional dis-ease.  If I struggle with addictions to unhelpful habits or obsessions, if I feel that there’s a huge gap between who I want people to think I am and who I am in private, if I don’t want to admit that I make mistakes, and avoid taking ownership of my actions, I can get caught up in flip flopping between feeling shame about who I am, and blaming others for the life I am experiencing.  The shame-blame game can escalate until we drive off to Ottawa and deny that our constant honking and partying is not hurting the people around us. 

How do we come home?  How do we break the shame-blame flip flop?  How do we get the big party and the fattened calf and the bear hugs from someone so incredibly happy to see us return? 

The prodigal son hit bottom, feeding the pigs.  It was the worst job possible for a boy raised in a kosher household, unimaginable as far as the Pharisees were concerned.  But he realized that the only one who had landed him in the pigsty was himself.  He chose to admit that he had screwed up.  We practice that every Sunday when we say words like “When I kept silence, my body wasted away, while I groaned all day long.  Then I acknowledged my sin to you, my guilt I did not hide.” (Psalm 32) In church talk, that’s called confession, or in modern psychological jargon, accountability.  When we acknowledge where we’ve gone wrong, where we’ve missed the mark, we shift from shame and blame to accountability and vulnerability and that, my friends, frees us in so many beautiful ways!

Many of us have gone through turmoil and conflict these last few years, not knowing if or how we would have a chance to see family and friends.  Many of us have said goodbye to toxic relationships and wonder if they will ever be saved.  Lent is when we take time to become more accountable to ourselves and others so that we can experience the amazing love and healing that our loving parent God has for us.  The joy that can be ours for the asking, the healing of our deepest shames as we come home to a loving embrace and a party that never ends.  When I wandered back into that church so many years ago, I realized that the biggest hypocrite in the building was me.  As the tears streamed down my face, I had a sense that I was starting an amazing journey that would take me on many adventures with many wonderful people.  That there is always a way back home into love.  May it be so for us all!