Lent 4 C: Unlimited love/Welcome home

Bible readings: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Theme: Unlimited Love/Welcome home

About the photo: Abandoned cars in the Australian Outback are a bit like the Prodigal son. They sit there for years and then some car enthusiast comes along, takes them away and lovingly restores them to their former glory. The odd thing is that sometimes out in the outback you see the other son too. It is the car that looks all shiny and new on the outside but is pretty much wrecked on the inside. Even worse - sometimes there is nothing at all under the bonnet.
Kid's Story: Candelo
One hundred years ago, Candelo, New South Wales, was a major wagon stop between the Monaro high country and the coastal shipping ports. The town's river crossing could be disastrous for heavily loaded wagons because river levels and the sandy river bottom were forever changing and there were often patches of quick sand. Crossing the river was particularly dangerous towards evening and in the dark. The town and bullockies together devised a system whereby when the bullockies arrived at the last rise before the town they would shout out candle-o. In response, the whole town would run down to the river with lights and line the sides of the safest place to cross and thus guide the bullock wagons safely into town for the night.
Link this story with the way we leave a veranda light on when we are expecting visitors and the way God is always waiting with anticipation to welcome us.
Drama: The Prodigal's Mum
Ask a mum of adult children to read the parable through a few times before the service and ask her to put herself into the role of the prodigal son's mother. This works better than having a script.
During the service an interviewer asks her the following questions:
1. Who are you?
2. Your family has been in the news lately. What's the real story here?
3. What a drop kick of a son!! I bet you and your husband gave him the rounds of the kitchen when he came skulking back home?
4. So you followed your husband out to greet him!!!??? But at a more decorous pace as befitted a woman of your standing.
5. So what was with the party? Who threw that for him?
6. What a wonderful family! I suppose his older brother was just as pleased as you both were?
7. Well, did you finally convince him?
c. Ann Scull - permission given for use in worship.
Drama: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21
1: No longer, then, do we judge anyone by human standards.
2. We don't?
3: Even if at one time we judged Christ according to human standards, we no longer do so.
2: What's made the difference?
1: When anyone is joined to Christ, he is a new being;........
2: A new being? A new being? Can I be a new being too?
1: ..............the old is gone, the new has come.
2: Who could possibly make me into a new being?
3: All this is done by God, who through Christ changed us from enemies into his friends............
2: It'd be great to have God as a friend!
3: .............and gave us the task of making others his friends also.
2: So this isn't something I keep to myself, then?
1: Our message is that God was making all people his friends through Christ.
2: What about if people think they're not quite good enough to be God's friends?
3: God did not keep an account of their sins,..........
2: That's a relief!
3: ................ and he has given us the message which tells how he makes them his friends.
1: Here we are, then, speaking for Christ, as though God himself were making his appeal through us.
2: It is a serious responsibility which we have been given.
3: We plead on Christ's behalf:........
2: So what should we actually say?
3: ............let God change you from enemies into his friends!
2: OK......how?
1: Christ was without sin, but for our sake God made him share our sin in order that in union with him we might share the righteousness of God.
2: Wow!
C. Rosemary Broadstock and Ann Scull - permission given for use in worship.
Illustration: The Flushpools
Read about the Flushpools in Adrian Plass's Sacred Diary Trilogy and you will find a modern example of the older brother.
Story: Henri Nouwen and Rembrandt's Painting of the Prodigal Son
Source: www.eSermons.com. March 2001
Story: Compared to a Flock
Index 746-748 from Bible Illustrator for Windows Version 1.0d, Parsons Technology Inc., 1990
Poem: Listen to What God is Saying to Us
By Henri J. M. Nouwen and found in Imaging the Word Volume 1 by Kenneth T Lawrence (Ed.), United Church Press, 1994, ISBN 0829809716, page 165 (pictured in an earlier blog).
Quote: Meister Eckhardt
We search for God in a far country while God waits for us at home
Listening Song: Always Have, Always Will.
By Avalon on their album, In a Different Light or WOW 2001.
Listening Song: Prodigal Son
By Steve Grace on his album, Children of the Western World.
Response Activity:
Time of silence.
Ask in the silence with spaces between each question or statement: Are you like the older or the younger son? What is the message and the challenge of the parable for you? Allow the Holy Spirit to read your heart and speak to you.
Time of silence.