Lent 4: The Journey Home

This Week in The Way of Grace: Bible Stories for Lent

We're in Week 4: The Journey Home: A Pattern of Divine Reconciliation, page 45 in The Way of Grace.  We know this story of the prodigal son from Luke 15:11-32. It's a story of a father's unconditional love, a son's rebellion and repentance, and an older brother's resentment. Real life emotions, accompanied in our book by Joe Avila's real life story of redemption.

Whether you have a book or not, here's a look at all four lectionary readings this week...

Finding Our Way Home, Again

The soul of a people is shaped not only by where they have been, but by their longing for where they are meant to be.

Every exile has a return written into its ending. Every separation contains the seed of reconciliation. Every rupture longs for repair.

This is the rhythm of our sacred story – the divine impulse that calls us home.

The readings for this Fourth Sunday in Lent signal to us of a homecoming far deeper than geography, far more profound than mere apology. They speak of the divine movement that restores what is broken – not merely in individual hearts, but in the great community of God’s people.

The Rolling Away of Shame – Joshua 5:9-12

Gilgal – the place where Israel's shame was rolled away. The people, once enslaved, once wanderers, now stand at the threshold of promise. No longer does heaven rain down manna; the land itself now yields food, a sign that they have entered a new reality. The wilderness is behind them, but something greater has happened: the weight of exile has been lifted.

What does it mean for a community to step out from under the shadow of its past? To eat, not at the table of rationed portions, but of abundant blessing?

True homecoming is not just about finding a place to settle – it is about restoration, about stepping into the fullness of what God has always intended. The long road is not merely about running away, but about running toward the place God has promised to us. So, Israel returns not only to the land, but to the comfort of their identity as God's people.

Their past cannot be undone, but it can be redeemed and reimagined.

And yet, as anyone who has lived through exile knows, the past does not disappear overnight. The wounds of oppression, the echoes of shame, linger in the bones of a people.

It is one thing for God to say,

“I have rolled away your reproach.”

It is another thing to believe it. To trust that we are not bound by our history, but held by our future. To live as though we are truly free.

The Unburdening of the Soul – Psalm 32

However, there is a caution. Sin can block our homecoming, weighing us down with the burden of guilt. The only thing that can lift that is a heaviness that only confession can lift. The psalmist knows this well.

“When I kept silent, my bones wasted away.”

To hold onto sin, to let it fester unspoken, is to wither from the inside out. But when the truth is laid bare, when the hidden wound is exposed to the light, something miraculous happens: the weight vanishes, and joy rushes in like floodwaters after drought.

David’s sin was not just private and personal. It infected everyone, including the entire community, which was wounded by David’s desire, murder, cover-up and pretense.

Uriah did not get sent to the frontlines without the complicity of David's commanders, those blindly obedient to the hero King.

And the murder of Uriah – a man of courage and conviction -- did not just affect Bathsheba, his widow, but an entire nation who winked at the killing of a conscience, the extermination of upright conduct. David normalized the death penalty in the service of desire.

It took Nathan the prophet to shame the King. Nathan’s boldness – “You are the man who did this!” – forced a king and a community to face the truth, to collapse under the weight of guilt, shame and secrecy.

To confess is not merely to admit wrongdoing; it is to step back into righteousness. 

It is to make space for healing, to unclench the fists that grip our shame, and to trust that grace will meet us in our letting go. This is the soul’s great paradox: that what we fear will destroy us is often what saves us.

The Ministry of Reconciliation – 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

When we have experienced God’s mercy and reconciliation, then we cannot help but become ambassadors of reconciliation.

Paul’s words carry an urgency -- this is not merely an invitation, but an obligation, a witness, a public testimony that once were we blind, but now we see. Once we cowered in the darkness of secret shame, but now we bask in the light of God’s unflinching grace. And just as the sun radiates its warm nurture to the place where it shines -- bathing plants, warming the soil, setting in motion beneficial connections -- following Jesus is to be caught up in the Son’s work of cosmic repair.

We can’t seem to help ourselves but often we make reconciliation conditional. We demand penance before grace. “They” need to be really sorry. Really grateful.

We count sins against others, withholding forgiveness until debts are repaid.

But Paul says something radical: God in Christ was reconciling the world, not counting their trespasses against them. Not counting.

What if we took this seriously? What if the Church were a place where the balance due was 0? Where the weight of past failings was not endlessly litigated, but genuinely let go? What if communities did not merely tolerate those who return, but ran to embrace them, like a father’s feet racing toward his lost child on the horizon?

The Homecoming of the Heart – Luke 15:11b-32

The father runs. This is the moment that makes this parable immortal. The father’s eyes have been searching for the son who has squandered everything. But when his eyes catch a blurry glimpse of an unmistakable figure, it’s his feet which tell the story.

The son, still rehearsing his apology, feels the embrace of the arms of love before he can earn his way back. And before he can explain himself, he is already home. Grace outruns guilt. Love erases ledger books. The exile ends in an embrace.

But the story isn’t over. We wish it were. There is still the elder brother, standing outside the house, arms crossed, unwilling to join the feast. And here is the great communal question: will we enter the house of joy, or remain outside, clinging to our sense of justice, our need for retribution?

The prodigal’s return is not merely personal; it is an event that shakes the household. It forces a reckoning. It reveals the posture of the community. The father has chosen mercy, but will the brother accept it?

Communities contain not just forgiving fathers, but peevish elder brothers, demanding tokens of worth before reluctant welcomes.

Pouting, we stand outside, refusing to join the dance of grace because we’re moving to the rhythm of retribution. Our spiritual egos think we deserve more than others.

But in truth, we are all the prodigal. 

Every one of us has squandered something sacred. Every one of us has needs mercy. We are here not because we have earned it, but because God is the kind of Father who runs to meet His children.

The Cosmic Movement of Return

In the great mystical vision of the world, exile and return are written into the fabric of creation itself. The Divine Presence (Shekhinah) follows us into the far country, kneels beside us at the pig trough, never abandoning us, always calling us home. The light of the Infinite flows through the cracks of our brokenness, healing, resuscitating, reuniting all things back into wholeness.

This is not a transaction, it is the sacred movement of return. Teshuvah – Hebrew for repentance -- does not simply mean to feel sorry. It means to turn, to reorient, to step back onto the path that leads home. 

It is not merely about making amends – it is about stepping into alignment with the rhythm of divine grace.

The Israelites step into the land. The psalmist steps into joy. Paul calls us to step into the work of reconciliation. The prodigal steps into his father’s arms. 

Our question remains -- will we step into the house of celebration, or will we remain outside, captive to our need for control?

Lent is the season of return, the time of rolling away shame, the moment when exile begins to end. Not just for us as individuals, but for our communities, our churches, our world.

The feast is being prepared. The music is rising. The Father is already running to welcome us. Will we step into the house and join the party?

And Now for Buddy the Cat --