At one time or another, most everyone leaves home.  We leave the life we’ve known, the place where we’ve grown up and we begin a new life somewhere else.  I distinctly remember when I left home for the first time.  My parents packed the car and we drove east for seven hours so I could begin my freshman year in college.  I had chosen that particular college over the school in my hometown because it was close enough I could get home in a day but it was far enough away I could begin a new life of my own.  I was independent.  I was free.  Even though I had lived all over the world, there was something distinctly different about being on my own for the first time.  I keenly felt a sense of loss when my parents departed to go back to their home without me.  I missed them.

There are many reasons why people leave home.  Some leave home to start school.  Some leave home to start a new job.  Some leave home to get married and start a new family.  Some leave home to begin military service and some leave home just to get away.  It’s not clear why the prodigal son left home.  Perhaps he thought he was ready to be independent.  The younger of two sons, he had asked his father for half of the property that would become his.  With his inheritance in hand, he left home to begin a new life.  He was free.

The desire to be free is universal.  We all desire to be free:  free to live our lives as we see fit, free from oppression and injustice, free from hunger and want, free from prejudice and fear, free from constraints and anything else that would stop us from following our dreams.  Sometimes in our yearning to be free we can easily get lost if we look to ourselves instead of looking to God to lead us. 

The prodigal son started a new life.  He thought he was free, free from the influence of his family, free from the influence of his father, but he wasn’t as free as he thought.  He squandered everything.  He lost it all, and wound up in a pig pen eyeing the food he was feeding to the pigs.  He was very hungry.  He was very lost.  You may have heard the phrase you can’t go home again.  Sometimes you can go back home, but it will never be exactly the way it was when you left it.  Thanksgiving break was the first time I came back home to visit my parents after starting college.  It was the first time I remember being hugged by my father.  I felt loved and secure in his warm embrace.  He missed me, welcomed me, and then sent me back to college.

Jacob and his family had originally gone to Egypt to escape famine.  Over the years, the Egyptians enslaved the Israelite, and they got lost.  They wanted to come home.  They longed to be free.  They yearned to be free.  They cried out to God to set them free and to bring them home.  So God sent Moses to lead His people out of slavery in Egypt into the land God promised them.  The Lord himself led the people in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.  The Lord chose not to lead his people by the most direct route.  Instead he took a long detour through the wilderness.  He nourished the people with manna when the people asked for bread.  God provided water from a rock when the people cried out from thirst.  Even though God Himself led his people home to freedom, they were unhappy.  They complained.  At times they longed for the security of slavery over the freedom of following God.

We are not that different from the people God led out of the wilderness.  We are not that different from the prodigal son.  We want to be free.  Although we are not physically enslaved like the Israelites were in Egypt, we have our own Egypts, those things and those situations that hinder us from fully becoming the people of God; in a word, things which enslave us.  Things like addictions to alcohol, drugs, pain killers, things from which we cannot free ourselves, things that only God can truly free us from.  Like the prodigal son we have our own pig pens, those places we find ourselves when we have nothing left.  Those places we find ourselves when we have squandered the gifts God has given us, or gotten lost along our life’s journey by selfishness, illness, even war.  Our Heavenly Father who loves us earnestly desires us to return so he can lavish us with his grace and be reconciled with Him.

In 2005 when I was still in the Air Force, deployed to Germany, I participated in a very small way in freeing political prisoners.  The command had received word to arrange for the release and transport of 404 Moroccan soldiers who were essentially prisoners of war, men who had become lost to their country, their families, and their friend.  Some of the men had been detained for as long as twenty years even though the fighting had ended 14 years earlier.  They had been held in Algeria by guerillas.  The mission remained classified until the August day the two US military flights, supervised by a US senator, flew the men home.  News articles indicated the men had had limited contact with relatives during their detention.  I wondered what freedom would be like for them.  Would anybody or anything be waiting for them with open arms when they returned home?  Would they have an income, jobs, family and homes?

Freedom is messy, freedom is uncertain, but freedom opens us up to new possibilities for our lives, possibilities not available when we are enslaved or detained.  True freedom is only found in complete dependence upon God.  It is a paradox.  Only when we are completely dependent upon God are we truly free.  From our perspective life is uncertain and messy at times.  We still face troubles of various sorts here on earth.  God in Christ who loves us leads us out of our slavery to sin through the waters of baptism just like God led the Israelites out of Egypt.

When the prodigal son became hungry, his hunger led to repentance.  When the prodigal son returned to his father to confess his sin, to seek his forgiveness, and to offer himself as his father’s servant, he never even got the chance.  His father had been waiting for him and ran to greet him.  He greeted his son as he would a special guest with a robe, a ring and a feast.  The lost son was found.  This was worthy of a celebration.  The son who had been enslaved to his selfish desires repented and returned home with empty hands, empty pockets, and an empty stomach.  Received in his Father’s open arms and loving embrace he returned to the dependence and freedom of his Father’s house. 

Brothers and sisters in Christ, our Heavenly Father actively scans the horizon awaiting the return of His lost sons and daughters.  Are you enslaved in an Egypt from which you can’t escape?  Call upon Christ to lead you home.  Do you find yourself in a pig pen, lost to those who love you?  Turn around and come home.  Bring only yourself.  Open your hands, your heart, and your spirit.  Your Heavenly Father who loves you is waiting for you with open arms, a loving embrace, and real freedom.  Come and eat at the holy supper, receive forgiveness of sins, life and salvation.  Completely entrust yourselves to God and you will be truly free.  Take courage to let God lead you especially if He takes you on a detour through the wilderness.  He will lead you home.  You can be sure of that!

Amen