Remember Who You Are

Luke 15:11-32

“Remember who you are and to whom you belong.” I use those words often as a benediction. I confess that I did not come up with them on my own. I have borrowed them from my pastor in Seattle, Rev. Rody Rowe. That is how we ended every worship service at Queen Anne United Methodist Church. I think we all have a tendency to forget that we are a child of God and that we belong to God at some point in life. We sometimes forget that God is the source of all that we are and all that we have, because we want to be independent and self-sufficient.

The younger son in this parable certainly is not independent and self-sufficient. He took off with money that he didn’t earn, but had inherited. He then spent it all and had to get a job feeding pigs. Some scholars think he may have been forced into indentured servitude. Regardless of what kind of job he has, he is at rock bottom, so hungry that he’d be glad to eat what the pigs were eating. And then he has an epiphany. Older translations of the text say that “he came to himself” but newer translations are more to the point, “When he came to his senses…” (Luke 15: 17, NRSVUE). I think another way to put it is to say he remembered who he was and to whom he belonged. He remembered that he had a home. He had a father. He had no idea if his dad would welcome him back. Even if he didn’t welcome him back as his son, maybe he would welcome him back as a hired hand. That’s how desperate the son was at this point.

Have you ever been desperate? Have you ever felt like you were out of options? I have. In those moments when we have hit our limit of what we can do and what we have control over, it is good to remember who we are and to whom we belong. It is good to come to our senses. It is good to return home.

That’s what all this repentance business is about. It’s not about beating yourself up. It’s about realizing your powerlessness and remembering who you are, child of the Most High God. It’s about going home. Repentance is simply returning to God. The Greek word used for repentance it is often metanoia, which originally meant a deep reorientation away from previous errors to a new way of life in God.

If one so lost as the younger son can find his way back home, you can too. We just need to come to our senses and remember who we are.

Prayer
Dear God, we belong to you yet like the younger son we wander afar. We get into messes of our own making. Bring us back to our senses so that we can remember that we can receive all that we need from you. Amen.

Rev. Dana Ezell