2 Corinthians 5:15-21

And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer for themselves but for the one who for their sake died and was raised. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no longer know him in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ: be reconciled to God. For our sake God made the one who knew no sin to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

Luke 15:11-24

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region, and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that region, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to his senses he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up 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 like one of your hired hands.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

Stay with the Heart
So many people are scared and upset, angry and worried about our current situation these days. My message this morning is an encouragement for us all to cultivate a heart of compassion. Let us respond to suffering with compassion. Stay with the heart of compassion. Dwell in the heart of compassion. And when we get lost, return to our true home, to the heart of compassion which is our true home. The Jesus path is the path of love and compassion, and the path of truth and justice. Love, compassion, truth and justice. I didn’t make this up. It’s all in the New Testament.
When we get lost, we can always return to our true home; not to anger, not to confusion, not to despair, not to anxiety, but our strength will be found in the heart of compassion. This is the heart of Christ. And like the prodigal son, we can always return home.

The prodigal son returns home.
In our readings today, we have the well-known parable of the prodigal son.
The prodigal son runs away from home. Why does he run away? And why does he come back home? These are key questions. The point of listening to stories from the New Testament is that there is a teaching, there is an insight available, there is something for us to learn. If you already know everything about this, then you don’t really need to be here in church, and you are just wasting your time. So the first thing is to approach these stories with an ear of humility. What is there for me to learn here?
The prodigal son is a symbolic story. It’s a metaphor with a lesson for us, right here, today, in Maine, in Waldo county. It speaks to what is going on right now, in our own back yard, and in our country.

As a minister, I listen to people, then I respond.
People talk to me, and I listen. I listen to you during the week. I ask questions. I hear what people say to me, and I reflect on what’s going on in your lives. I try to understand what you are going through, what you are dealing with, what is upsetting you, and what questions you are asking. And then I write my sermon as a response, in an attempt to offer guidance and wisdom, empathy and compassion, based on Christian teachings, based on our readings from scripture.
Even so, it is likely that I will be misunderstood this morning. Someone will be offended. Someone will misinterpret what I say and get angry. That is the risk I take every week, standing up to preach.

Refuge in the storm.
The church should be a refuge in the storm. That is what Christ intended the church to be. But that does not mean that we ignore the storm. We do not turn our backs on the storm or pretend that there is no storm. Church is not an escape, but it is a refuge from the storm.
These days, there is definitely a storm. I can’t ignore it, and I can’t deny it. There is a storm, and it is right here. The winds are howling. And so, what are we going to do? How do we go about our daily lives? What does Luke have to say about this? What does Jesus have to say about this?

The prodigal son leaves home.
The prodigal son leaves home. He leaves the place where he is loved. In search of something better, maybe more exciting, more flashy and enticing, he leaves home. He is looking for something else.
This is what we do when we walk away from the heart of compassion, the compassionate Christ, the heart of Jesus. We leave our home. We become the prodigal son. Lost, hungry, wandering around trying to figure things out, looking for something better. Until we realize there is nothing better than the heart of compassion.

The sad heart.
The heart of compassion is not an angry heart. The heart of compassion is not an arrogant heart. The heart of compassion is not a heart filled with hatred. Rather, it is, a heart of sadness. It is a heart of care and empathy for suffering. It is Jesus saying, “Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem.” It is Jesus crying tears of sadness because the people are so confused.
The prodigal son is confused. He wanders away from his home. He rejects the heart of love and compassion. He rejects his home. But in all of his search, he does not find anything better. In fact, he descends into a horrible nightmare.

We need to be aware of history.
If you are scared and worried these days, it’s understandable. It’s important to understand what is going on, and it is important to understand history. We need to educate ourselves about the past because the past repeats itself. We may not be able to do anything about it. But we do need to be aware of what is happening now, and what happened in the past. Not to be angry, but, as a spiritual community, to stay with the heart, remain in the heart. This is our true home. If we run away from our true home, then we are like the prodigal son, and we will be lost.
The history of our country began with a civil war. The American Revolution was essentially a civil war. England put tyrannical and fascist pressure on the American colonies, and war broke out. The war pitted father against son. For example, Benjamin Franklin was estranged from his son William. They found themselves on opposite sides of the war, and they never spoke to each other again.
Then, a hundred years later, there was another civil war, the war between the states that again pitted father against son, brother against brother. It was a horrible nightmare of death and destruction. We need to understand how horrible war is. We need to understand that hatred never ceases by hatred.

We need to understand fascism.
We need to understand fascism and the history of fascism. We need to know about such things as Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass, the event that was the beginning of the Holocaust, the horrible event in 1938 Germany in which the Nazi party instigated a pogrom against Jewish people while the German authorities looked on. On that night, the night of broken glass,
“Jewish homes, hospitals and schools were ransacked as attackers demolished buildings with sledgehammers. Rioters destroyed over 1,400 synagogues and prayer rooms throughout Germany, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Over 7,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed, and 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and incarcerated in concentration camps.”

These are facts. We need to know the facts. We need to know, for example, that Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022, just three years ago. This was a major escalation of the war that started in 2014. In spite of what anyone says to the contrary, the fact stands. It is a fact of history. But in public discourse these days, lies abound. Propaganda abounds. And so we need to know our facts, so that we are not confused or misled by lies.

We need to understand that people are different.
And perhaps most importantly, we need to understand that people are different. There are differences. Yes, we are all human beings. But we are not all the same. Each person is unique. For example, we each have differing ways of understanding and perceiving the world. We do not all see things the same way. We have differing ways of thinking. Differing ways of processing information. There is a huge spectrum of difference. Our individual experiences of the same event vary considerably. And so, we need to be gentle with each other. We need to accept differences.
Fascism is a rigid view of reality that does not accept difference. Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian ideology. We need to understand it, so that we can prevent it from happening again. Human history is full of these horrible stories of domination and genocide because of difference, because of “othering.”

I have to minister to the entire church.
I can’t stand up here and pretend nothing is happening. There are definitely bad things happening. And I know that you all go home and watch the news every day. Many people are scared and upset. Many people are angry. And I would not be doing my job if I just stood up here and told jokes to make you laugh. I mean, I like to tell jokes, and I like to make you laugh. But if that’s all I do from this pulpit, then I am doing you a disservice.
So how do we respond as a church? We come back to the heart. We stay with the heart.

The prodigal son wakes up.
Eventually, the prodigal son realizes what he is doing. When he is in the pigsty, eating swill, he looks down at his hands and sees that he is eating swill, and suddenly wakes up. “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!” he says. So he goes back home. He goes back to the place where he is loved. He goes back to the heart of compassion. And his father welcomes him back with open arms.
As a church, we need to be a refuge. We need to be a place where people can find safety and peace, a place of prayer. That means that we are not going to attack anyone here. We are not going to attack anyone who has different political or social ideas. This church needs to be a sanctuary, a safe place, a place of prayer for all who want to pray and find peace in their souls.
That does not mean we can ignore the storm. We do what we can do to help others. And helping others is based on a heart of compassion, a sad heart, a heart that knows suffering.
The invitation this morning is to return home. Let us return to our true home, again and again, the heart of compassion, the heart of Jesus. When the prodigal son returns home, his father greets him with open arms. “While he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.”
To stay with the heart means to remain in prayer. And so I offer these words from the 17th century Christian mystic Brother Lawrence. Brother Lawrence learned how to pray from his heart in an ongoing communion with God. He called it “practicing the presence of God.”
Of his prayer life he wrote, “I cannot imagine how religious persons can live satisfied without the practice of the presence of the Divine. For my part, I keep myself retired with Him in the depth of the center of my soul as much as I can, and while I am there, I fear nothing. How happy we would be if we could find the treasure of which the Gospel speaks. All else would be as nothing. Let us search unceasingly, and let us not stop until we have found it.” Amen? Amen.