Last week I received an email from a woman who said she was unable to keep our appointment. It was the second time that had happened. I know from our first meeting a couple of months ago that she’s having a difficult time in her life. She ended her email by saying, “I hope you will not give up on me.” The day before I received that email someone told me their adult child had said to them, “Please don’t give up on me.”

I don’t presume to know what either of them meant by their words but I have some pretty good guesses. They are struggling and feeling vulnerable. They want to know that they are still of value and worth the effort. They want someone to believe in them even if they don’t or can’t believe in themselves. They don’t want to be written off. They want a reason not to give up on themselves. 

Do you know why I can make those guesses? Because there have been times when I said the same thing and that’s how I felt. Maybe you have as well. Maybe those are your words today. 

I think we all come to moments in our lives when we fear being written off by another. And we come to moments when have to decide whether we will write off another. That’s the thread I want to follow through today’s gospel (Luke 15:1-3, 11-32), the Parable of the Prodigal Son. 

I want to use the younger son, the father, and the older son as lenses through which to look at our own lives. You won’t be surprised when I tell you that I have more questions than answers. Today’s gospel doesn’t prescribe a particular life, it describes life. It’s a story in which to find ourselves and then decide what we want to do with what we’ve found.

The Younger Son

The turning point for the younger son is “when he came to himself.” If he came to himself then he must have been apart from himself, not himself. He’s far away in a distant country. That’s less about a location and more about what’s going on within him.

He’s poor and hungry, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually. He’s spending his days in pig poop. He is, as his father says, lost, but it’s not geographical. He is lost to himself.

Haven’t there been times when you were so far away from yourself and lost that you feared others would or already had given up on you? 

How did you get to that distant country? What was your lostness about? Maybe it was grief, fear, self-doubt. Maybe you were stuck. Maybe it was a big change or transition in your life. Maybe your plans didn’t work out. Maybe you failed, betrayed, or disappointed someone. Maybe it was an illness, a divorce, an addiction. Maybe it was something you said or did or a choice you made. 

Before going home the younger son plans what he will say to his father. “I’m a sinner, not worthy to be called your son, treat me like a hired hand.” I wonder if what he’s really saying is, “Dad, do whatever you want, but please don’t give up on me.” When have you said that to someone?

But what if that’s not the issue. Maybe the question is for the younger son. Will he give up on himself? I think we often give up on ourselves long before anyone else gives up on us.

I wonder what parts of yourself you’ve given up on? What have you written off? Who or what might help you begin to believe in yourself? To see your own value? To come to yourself?

The Father

“While the [younger son] was still far off, his father saw him,” suggesting that the father had always been waiting, watching, and hoping. The father had never given up on his child. No matter how long he might wait he knows his son is worth the wait.

He never stopped loving his son even when he had to love him from afar. He never questioned his son’s value, or stopped believing in him. He refused to write off his son. 

I wonder who has never given up on you, always known your worth, seen more for you than you could see for yourself. Who has believed in you even when you didn’t or couldn’t believe in yourself? When have you been that person for another? 

The thing that strikes me about the father is his compassion. He “was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around [his son] and kissed him.” Maybe compassion keeps us from giving up on another. Maybe compassion for ourselves keeps us from giving up on ourselves. 

Compassion – suffering with another – is what let the father feel his son’s hunger and lostness, smell the pig poop, and stand with him in the pig pens day after day. It’s hard to write off another when we feel their suffering as our own.

Where is compassion in your life today? From whom are you receiving it and to whom are you offering it? Who needs your compassion today? How’s your self-compassion? 

The Older Son

You know as well as I that sometimes it’s hard not to give up on another. The older son can’t even acknowledge that he has a brother. “This son of yours,” is how he refers to his brother when he’s talking with his father. He’s written off his brother. 

Others have a way of pushing our buttons and bringing up our own stuff. I wonder if that’s what happened to the older son. He’s done everything right. He’s been responsible, hard working, and obedient. He sees himself as everything his younger brother is not. We do that to others sometimes, don’t we? 

I wonder if the older son might have more compassion if he could see that he is just as far away from himself and lost in his need for approval and to be recognized as his younger brother was in the distant country.

But he can’t. He’s angry and refuses to celebrate. And yet, his father refuses to give up on him. He pleads with him to come to the party. He calls him “Son,” and says, “you are always with me and all that is mine is yours.” 

I wonder when you’ve been the older son? Who have you written off or given up on? What would it take to get her or him back? 

Maybe it begins with looking at our own stuff rather than another’s stuff. Maybe it means offering the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it means not assuming we know the whole of another’s life story. Maybe it’s about forgiveness and compassion. 

Alive And Found

Or maybe it’s the refusal to give up on coming to life and being found. It’s what we see in the father. When his younger son returns he says, “Let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead is alive again; he was lost and is found! And they began to celebrate.”

When the older son refuses to go to the party his father says to him, “We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”

I wonder where you are in this story. In what ways do the three characters reflect aspects of yourself? What will you do with what they’ve shown you?

I began by telling you that today’s gospel doesn’t offer answers or a solution. It does, however, offer a promise – the promise of coming to life and being found. It’s a promise that is always in the process of being fulfilled. In what ways is that promise being fulfilled and transforming your life this Lent?

I don’t want to give up on that promise for myself, you, or anyone else. I hope you don’t either. So how about this? No more write offs, not ourselves or anyone else. 

No more write offs.

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Image Credit: By John Macallan Swan – Tate Britain, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.