Grace to you and peace from our loving God, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

"Home" is a subject of great meaning and powerful symbolism. It's no wonder that it is the topic of much news and many stories. We begin to hear, for example, that some of our troops may begin to come home early from Iraq; and that is the cause of considerable hope and anticipation. We are told of the tragedies related to homes; more than 500,000 homes in Chile were substantially destroyed during the recent earthquakes; and of course the millions displaced in Haiti still weigh heavily on our hearts and in our prayers.

Literature, movies, and television too make use of the theme of home-coming. The great saga of the Iliad and the Odyssey are all about Ulysses' repeatedly-foiled efforts to return to Ithaca and Penelope. "Coming Home" was a movie that addressed the difficulties of returning from the Vietnam War. "The Wizard of Oz," now a mega-classic, explores the meaning and importance of home. Even the "Matrix" series concerns a battle to reclaim the earth as proper human home from the clutches of machines. "Jumanji," "Homeward Bound," Gilligan's Island, Lost-the list may be endless.

Marie and I watched the 2005 film "Munich" on Friday. It tells the story of the events surrounding the assassination of eleven Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Even this is a tale, it turns out, about home. It was a Palestinian group—Black Saturday—that engineered the assassinations, seeking to garner international attention for their cause, which was the establishment of a Palestinian homeland—a cause that yet remains a dream. During a conversation in the movie between one of the Israeli agents who seek to retaliate against those who planned the murders and a Palestinian, the Palestinian says simply, "Home is everything."

Hymnody too reminds us of a home beyond this one, a vision of which supplies a fundamental spiritual need-"Jerusalem, My Happy Home." We know from scripture that our true home as Christians is with our Lord. We have no abiding place. We are in but not of the world, because our home does not consist of a place but rather resting in the presence of our God. The search for one's true home and the discovery of what constitutes "home"—a safe, secure, welcoming place of belonging-is an eternal theme.

The son in today's well-known story from Luke rejects "home." He is, as seems so common in our own day, filled with a sense of entitlement. But he makes the extraordinary and presumptuous request of an early inheritance. Not only does he repudiate home, he cavalierly snubs his father. He behaves as if he would be just as happy if his parents were already dead, or at the least he simply can't wait to receive what he believes is already his. He chooses to reject his roots, leave home, and try to live the life he imagines will be better than anything he might know with his family. Perhaps he wants to make his own way, but he does so carrying with him the intended future benefits of his family as bolstering support.

His life of wandering in a far country, predictably, doesn't last very long. As the funds run out and the distance from support systems make their way into his consciousness, his heart begins to turn and he remembers. Here's the kicker from the text:

"But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger? I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants."'

Knowing now (or perhaps again) who he is, he is willing to take a lesser place, so long as he dwells in his proper place. He realized that he simply cannot be who he is totally beyond the presence of family and Father. And he is willing to risk being only a part of what he is and what his family desires for him. He simply wants to be again a part of home.

A girl named Dorothy has a fight with her aunt and uncle. She feels threatened and hurt at home and she decides to run away. She soon runs into a traveling carnival man; his surprising wisdom is to subtly encourage Dorothy to return to her home. But on her way back, she is caught in a tornado that apparently transports her even farther from home—to the land of Oz. Her entire quest from that point on is to get back home, whether it be from a far away place or from a dream.

At the end of her considerable adventures, what seems her last viable chance for home is lost. As the "Omaha Fair" balloon sails away from the Emerald City, a tearful Dorothy wonders how she'll ever get home. Glenda tells her that she has always had the power in her shoes. Just like us, the power to head home is within us. We can point our feet towards the pig sty, or we can point our feet towards home. It is our decision whether or not to swallow our pride and ego. It is our decision to repent. No one can make that decision for us. We have to make that decision ourselves. We have to make the decision about which path we walk, about where our true home lies.

Dorothy clicks her heels and says to herself, "There's no place like home." I'll bet the prodigal son was saying that as he crested the hill to view his father's estate. Home. All the good memories come back. A feeling of peace and security returns, but will there be acceptance? (adapted from "From Pulpit to Pew," Robert D. Prescott-Ezickson)

The son completes his journey. And before the son makes his carefully prepared speech, what does the Father do? He immediately—without hesitation or consideration—forthwith restores the son to, not some partial position within the household, but to the most complete fulfillment of his identity. He was, is now, and has always been a son. It was the son who had forgotten who he was for a time; the Father knew all along. It is the son who needed to "come to himself." The Father had never forgotten.

First come the signs of acceptance. The Father sees, has compassion, runs, embraces, and kisses. Please note well that these wordless signs precede any exchange. The forgiveness is there even before the son blurts out that painfully-well-rehearsed confession and plea.

And then, without pause, the graces of restoration are quickly given. Out fly the robe and the ring and the shoes—the accouterments of the son's place and the son's belonging. And the food, not just any food, but the best—in order to seal the clear recognition of proper place, of attentive care, and of full communion.

I use that word intentionally. I'm sure you heard "communion" as a reference to the meal to which the Father will soon treat all of us, around a table where we all have our proper place and where we "come again to ourselves." But I meant more than that. Sharing a meal is the intimate, embracing, nourishing context where we really know our place and who we are. The meals we share at home-as the Father and son do in this parable-convey this depth of meaning. We know it when we return for those regular, yet special, holidays and sit again around the table with parents and siblings-or with whomever have become the representatives of the place we know as our home.

We don't just click our heels, but we know in which direction to point our feet. Away from the squandering places, in the dens, or among the denizens of dissolution.

Of course, the point is that we are all prodigals. We all have left or will leave and have over the course of our lives repeated times of leaving our home in our Lord. And at those multiple times in our lives when we come to ourselves and return to the Father, an embrace awaits, full of provision and acceptance and a forgiveness we simply can never deserve and yet is ours before we ask. This is a home that is always there for us.

God's grace resides not in our moral ability to repent but in God's free embrace of us, whatever our circumstances. This is so because the Divine and Human Son has sojourned in this far country of sin, lived every corner of the pig sties we have to offer, and suffered every indignity of human design. That Son now abides with the Father, and the Father can never forget what the Son accomplishes for us in these days of Lent and in the upcoming week that we name Holy. Our one home-our singular place of peace-is communion with God.

To this home, even before we confess our most grievous faults, we are embraced by grace and offered a sign of peace. In this home, the accouterments come flowing out in the form of the white and pure baptismal robes. Through this home, we are nourished with the greatest and best that there is to offer—the bread and wine of a celebratory feast of acceptance and forgiveness. In this home, our God comes to us with grace. Living in that home, we are granted the ring of royalty. We are, our scriptures inform us, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people. (1 Peter 2:9)

It is our inheritance—indeed the inheritance of every human being—that we may claim at any time and as many times as we need. It is the only inheritance that is always there for us. It is the only inheritance that can never be taken from us.

If and as we come to ourselves, there is no peace like the peace of home we know in God's gracious embrace. Amen.

May the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep our hearts and minds through faith in Christ Jesus our Lord unto eternal life. Amen.