Sermon #44 — Our Pilgrimage to Grace: Into the Place of Emptiness — Luke 15:11-32, Pt. 2

 “Inordinate love of the flesh is cruelty, because under the appearance of pleasing the body we kill the soul.”
Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153)

In Sermon #43, I began an exploration of this most famous of all parable, commonly called the “Parable of the Prodigal Son.”  In that first installment, I discussed the context.  We saw something, then, about the meaning of the younger son’s actions in culture of an ancient near eastern village.

Here in this next sermon, I go a little deeper into the meaning of the young man’s quest to satisfy his wants and desires.  And in that he is not so very different from what so many of us modern, western individualists.  We make ourselves the central focus of our lives.  We live for ourselves and by means of ourselves.  But we weren’t designed for that, and to live that way is to live contrary to very nature and results in a twisted, distorted life.  That’s what the younger son in Jesus’ parable eventually learns.

Jesus offers a different vision for life.  He recalls us to a life lived into God, a life lived by means of God.

It is a vision for life that St. Augustine captures in his seminal prayer: “For thou hast made us for thyself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in thee.”

Read Luke 15:11-32.

Then listen to “Our Pilgrimage to Grace: Into the Place of Emptiness.”

©2013 Gary A. Chorpenning; all rights reserved.

Related articles

• Sermon #43 – Our Pilgrimage to Grace: Itching for Something Else – Luke 15:11-32 (gachorpenning.wordpress.com)