Prodigal Repeat

In looking for some sermon ideas on a well-loved, well-known text, I ran across my sermon from three years ago. I don't think I can preach it again (I'll save it for the next congregation) but it was fun the first time around. And long, by the way - fair warning.

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It started like any fight they had had over the past few years, like a hundred thousand fights which mothers have had with teenaged daughters since the beginning of time. Marlene rolled her eyes as Tina screamed her typical list of complaints: you never let me do anything, you’re no fair, everyone else gets to… Marlene wondered sometimes if her daughter had a book in her room called “How To Fight With Your Mom,” and simply took her scripts straight from it.

There was no arguing that their relationship had begun to deteriorate more quickly over the past few months. Marlene remembered how beautiful Tina had been as a baby, how well behaved, how everyone at church smiled at her sleeping through the sermons and playing quietly in the pew. “Such a good baby!” they had said. “Look at her now,” thought Marlene. Where had that good baby gone? Disappeared under layers of resentment and anger and eye shadow, apparently. It was if Tina had turned into another person altogether.

Marlene loved her daughter. But the screaming, the crying, the doors slamming shut, staying out too late, coming home smelling of something odd – things were not good. She didn’t really know what to do. For the thousandth time, she wondered if things would have been easier if Tina’s father hadn’t left when Tina was three years old. But she’d never know; no use thinking about it now. Tina was still yelling, starting to cry and rant and rave when the final – predictable – shout came: “I wish you were dead!” she screamed, and ran down the hallway to her room. Marlene heard the door slam shut. She sat down on the couch, exhausted. Nothing to do now but wait.

Hours went by and Marlene finally went to bed. All was quiet from Tina’s room. Marlene guessed she’d simply worn herself out with yelling and had fallen asleep. In the morning, Marlene knocked on her door. No answer. She knocked again, with a little irritation in her voice: “get up, Tina,” she said. “Time for school.” No answer. Slowly, she opened the door. On the neatly made bed was an envelope marked, “Marlene.” Not “mom,” she thought, as she crossed the room to pick it up. She sat down on Tina’s bed, noticing that the closet doors were open and clothes were missing. So was Tina’s teddy bear, which she had cherished since childhood. Marlene read the note with a sinking heart. She realized that her 14-year old daughter was now a statistic: a runaway. One of thousands of kids who left home every year. Some came back, some simply disappeared forever.

Marlene called the police, then sat down at the kitchen table and put her head on top of her folded hands. She wept for the wasted years, for the endless fighting, the misunderstanding, for her utter hopelessness at what to do with this child. “Watch over her, God,” Marlene prayed. The doorbell rang. Marlene answered it, and saw a young policeman at the door. She smiled through her tears; she could almost hear Tina whispering in her ear, “he’s cute, Mom.” With a heavy heart, she answered the policeman’s questions. “We’ll do our best, ma’am,” he said as he left. “Thank you,” she replied.

At church on Sunday the congregation prayed for Tina, and people wept with Marlene, offering her hot dishes and cups of coffee. But as the weeks went by, people stopped asking as often if she’d heard from her daughter. Marlene began to feel people looking at her with pity, but not talking to her. She supposed they didn’t know what to say. Her closest friends still asked, but they knew the inevitable answer: “no word yet,” Marlene would say. Tina’s name remained on the prayer list, but after three years, no one asked at all anymore. When her birthday would pass, Marlene would wonder: was she still alive? Was she okay? Did she ever think about her mother? Would anyone make her a birthday cake?

Every Sunday Marlene prayed at church for Tina’s return, and for her safety. Sometimes she returned home in tears, sometimes numb, sometimes angry. Until one Sunday in June when she pulled into the driveway and noticed a scruffy young boy sitting on the front step, with a backpack in his lap. Probably wants money, she thought with frustration. Good grief.

She opened the door and grabbed her purse, shut the car door and turned around, and looked again at this boy. Was it a boy? Short hair, but the same strawberry blond as Tina – just dirtier. The boy stared at the ground until Marlene began to walk toward him. He looked at her, just as Marlene realized this was not a boy, dropped her purse on the ground and ran to the steps. She threw herself on the ground in her very best church clothes, and wrapped her arms around this dirty, skinny, hungry seventeen-year old girl. Her daughter. Marlene could hardly speak with joy and wonder. Where had she been? What had happened to her, that she was so thin, so dirty, so…afraid? Marlene held her daughter and felt as if she would break her fragile bones, she squeezed so hard.

“Mom?” came a quiet voice, uncertain, trembling.

“It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter,” Marlene said over and over. “You’re home.”

“But there is something…” Tina began.

“It doesn’t matter,” sobbed Marlene.

“I think it does,” said Tina, and pulled away. She looked down at what Marlene had first assumed was a backpack. Not a backpack. A wrapped-up blanket, dirty and torn, and inside, a baby. Probably six months old. Tina looked at her mother. “I guess you don’t want,” she started, but Marlene cut her off. “You’re home, Tina,” she said with some shaking in her voice. “You’re both home.”

The baby’s name was Peter, after his father, Marlene gathered. Marlene’s friends called and visited, and cried and laughed with joy at Tina’s return. They smiled over the baby and took turns holding him. They brought old clothes of their children’s and strollers and diapers and offered to baby-sit. Tina grew stronger and began to smile again, though some days were better than others. They visited the pastor and scheduled a baptism for the next month. The Sunday after Tina’s return, many people rushed up to her at church and welcomed her back. “We prayed for you,” they said, and Marlene smiled. During the hymns, she reached over to touch her daughter’s hand, just to make sure she was still there. It hardly seemed real.

A month later, it was time for the baptism. Marlene stopped at church on her way home from the grocery store that Saturday, to put a rose on the altar. The church door was open, as Marlene had thought it would be, since she recognized some of her friends’ cars in the parking lot. “Probably setting up communion,” she thought. The sanctuary door was open, so she walked in with the rose in a small bud vase. She heard voices coming from the room at the back – whispers, gossiping. Marlene grinned at the idea, wondering who the topic of discussion was today. As she put the vase down onto the altar, the voices grew louder. She could hear the whole conversation now.

“I’m telling you, it’s just not right,” said one. “I mean, baptism is a special thing. It’s a sign of God’s approval. And I just don’t think we should be putting our approval on the baby of a runaway teenager who caused her mother that much grief.”

“I know,” said the other voice. “I mean, for Pete’s sake, what does that say to our kids? Go ahead, run away, do anything you like, and then when you come back it’s all fine? Kids need to learn about consequences. Forgiveness is one thing, but this is taking it a bit too far, in my opinion. If the church doesn’t stand up for good morals, who will?”

“And you know,” said the first voice, “Marlene never even punished that girl. Three years she was gone! Three years Marlene wondered where on earth she was, if she was even alive, and then she just shows up one day on the front porch and it’s like nothing happened. Doesn’t she worry about her running away again? Finding some other boyfriend and having another kid? That girl needs to learn some discipline.”

“I just know Marlene’s going to end up raising that baby herself,” said the second voice. “Happens all the time. Happened to a friend of mine in Michigan. Her daughter had a baby, ran off afterward, and my friend is still raising it. Should be enjoying her retirement, and instead she’s changing diapers. No sense of responsibility at all, that girl.”

“But what really bothers me,” said the first voice, “is that the church is saying this is all okay. I mean, shouldn’t we say something about it? Make sure people understand that having a baby like this is not a good idea? And then there will be a huge party at Marlene’s afterward – did you hear about that? She’s having a baptism party. Sandwiches and cake and everything. As if there’s nothing wrong with this situation at all – as if this is perfectly normal.”

“That’s just poor taste,” said the second voice. “I guess it’s one thing to welcome Tina back home – I’d probably do the same thing if one of my kids ran off. But to give a party for her illegitimate baby? It’s ridiculous. It’s really inappropriate. I suppose she expects us to bring gifts. What about all those people who do the right thing? You know, get married, and then have kids – don’t they get a reward anymore? Now the party is for anybody, no matter what they did.”

“I don’t know what this world is coming to,” said the first voice.

The organist walked in to practice, thought neither Marlene nor the two women in the sacristy saw him. Marlene stood frozen to the spot, listening to her friends gossip about her daughter. Was the party inappropriate? She had been so glad to see her daughter, so thankful to have her home again, that she just wanted to share her joy with her friends. She hadn’t even thought about whether people would approve. Was it a bad idea to have this child baptized? Was everyone in church whispering about her like this?

The organist began to practice the hymns for Sunday. “Hi Marlene,” he called out as he turned the organ on, but she didn’t hear him. She stood at the altar until she heard the notes begin to chime.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me; I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.

Marlene could hear the words in her head. “Amazing Grace,” she tried to sing, but her voice broke with tears. The second verse began.

‘Twas grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved; how precious did that grace appear, the hour I first believed.

Now she was singing, and the third verse began just as her friends walked out of the sacristy.

Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come; ‘tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.

Marlene finished the verse, singing at the top of her lungs, and smiled at her friends who stood staring at her with the look of kids caught peeking in the cookie jar. Their cheeks blushed bright red, and one began to speak. “I…don’t…I mean…”

“Don’t you just love that hymn?” Marlene asked them. “I once was lost, but now am found. Great song.” She put the rose down on the altar. “See you at church tomorrow. Oh – and I hope you can be at the party afterward.”

Then the father said to his elder son, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”