Great Endings: There’s No Place Like Home

“Oh, but anyway, Toto, we're home. Home! And this is my room, and you're all here. And I'm not gonna leave here ever, ever again, because I love you all, and - oh, Auntie Em - there's no place like home.” -Dorothy Gale, The Wizard of Oz

 The Wizard of Oz is one of my wife’s favorite films. The music, the whimsical world it creates, and the famous transition from the muted black and white of Kansas to the fully saturated Technicolor of Oz have delighted audiences for generations. There is a reason it remains a classic.

At the beginning of the film, Dorothy feels confined by her ordinary life in Kansas. She dreams of escaping “somewhere over the rainbow,” imagining that happiness must exist somewhere beyond the familiar people and places surrounding her.

She gets her wish, although not in the way she expected.

Oz is beautiful, colorful, and wondrous. But Oz is also dangerous. Almost as soon as Dorothy arrives, she begins searching for a way back to the plain, seemingly unremarkable home she once wanted to leave.

By the end of the film, Kansas has not become more exciting. The farm is still the farm. Aunt Em, Uncle Henry, and the farmhands are still the same people. What has changed is Dorothy. Her journey has taught her to recognize the value of what had been around her all along.

Jesus tells a similar story in the Gospel of Luke, one usually known as the parable of the prodigal son.

The younger son also imagines that real life must exist somewhere else. He asks his father for his inheritance, leaves home, and travels to a distant country. Unlike Dorothy, he leaves deliberately, rejecting both his father’s authority and his place within the family. But like Dorothy, he discovers that the world beyond home is not what he imagined.

His money disappears. His new companions disappear. A famine leaves him so desperate that he envies the food given to pigs.

Then Jesus tells us that the son “came to himself.”

It is a beautiful phrase. The son begins to see clearly again. The home he once regarded as confining now appears to him as a place of abundance. The father whose authority he rejected now appears gracious and merciful. Even his father’s hired workers have food enough to spare.

Dorothy awakens to the value of home. The prodigal comes to himself and remembers the goodness of his father.

In both stories, the long journey home begins with learning to see differently.

But Jesus’ story adds something important. The son may decide to return, but he does not yet understand what awaits him there. He prepares a speech asking to be treated as a hired servant. He hopes that his father might tolerate his presence, allow him to work, and give him enough food to survive.

The father refuses that ending.

While the son is still far away, his father sees him and runs to meet him. Before the son can finish his carefully prepared speech, his father embraces him and calls for a feast. The son discovers that he is still loved.

Sometimes, a great ending does not fundamentally change the world around us. Sometimes the most life-altering change is learning to see God’s goodness and mercy in the ordinary moments we once overlooked.

The people around us may be the same. Our responsibilities may still be waiting. But grace can teach us to recognize these ordinary places as the setting in which God has been meeting us all along.

That may seem like a small change, but it is the difference between black and white and Technicolor.

Faith trains our eyes to notice daily mercies: bread on the table, friends who remain, forgiveness we did not earn, strength for another day, and a place where we are known by name. These gifts are not always dramatic enough to feel like Oz. Often, they look more like Kansas.

As this summer ends and another season begins, many of us will return to familiar routines. That may not be especially exciting. But perhaps the invitation is not to escape the ordinary. Maybe the invitation is to come to ourselves and recognize the grace already surrounding us.

We may wander far. We may take love for granted. We may even convince ourselves that we have forfeited our place in the family. But God is still watching the road.

A great ending can take us somewhere we never expected. The greatest ending brings us home—and reveals that grace was already running out to meet us.

Rev. Ryan Young