At our Bible Study class the week, we watched a wonderful interview that Oprah Winfrey recently did with Father Richard Rohr, the best-selling Christian author, who was discussing his book, The Universal Christ.
So what is the Universal Christ? Well, Father Rohr shares in this book something that the early Christians knew, but that we as modern Christians have never been taught.
The early Christians understood that Christ existed before Jesus did.
And that’s surprising for so many of us. The first chapter of this book is entitled, “Christ is Not Jesus’s Last Name.”
Father Rohr reminds us in this book that the Bible says that Christ was the first-born of all of Creation…that Christ existed billions of years before Jesus of Nazareth was even born. When God birthed everything into existence, when God said, “Let there be light,” there was the Christ, the firstborn of all creation.
Jesus of Nazareth, was a man 2,000 years ago who discovered that the Christ power and presence (the light and life of the Creator) was within the universe and was within him, too. He was able to become one with it. That’s why we call him the Christ.
And after he made that discovery, he made it his mission to show us the way, the way home, the way to our Christ Self, the way home to our Divine Self, the way home to our True Self.
And that’s what today’s Gospel reading for the fourth Sunday in Lent is all about – the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
Everybody knows this parable. Even people who aren’t Christian know this parable. It’s probably Jesus’s most famous parable. And some theologians say they believe it is Jesus’s greatest parable.
As we just heard, the prodigal son takes his father’s inheritance, and he goes off and squanders it. He spends it on wine and women and a life of debauchery. But then he realizes he’s miserable. And so he decides to come home.
And the father must have been looking for him all these years, because the father sees him coming home from a great distance, and runs to meet him halfway.
And when the father gets there, does he say ‘Son? I am so disappointed in you!’ Does he say, ‘Son, I told you so’ Does he say, ‘Son, I’m gonna punish you for what you did!’
No. He does just the opposite!
He embraces his son, kisses him, and then says, ‘I’m going to put the finest robe on you. I’m going to put an expensive ring on your finger, and we’re going to throw a party for you.’
Once again, we see that Jesus is giving a parable to the people to let them know, God doesn’t punish people.
This parable is a continuation of the parable he told us last Sunday. If you were here last Sunday, we heard the Parable of the Barren Fig Tree.
And the reason Jesus tells these two parables in a row, is because the Scribes and the Pharisees are asking, ‘Why is Jesus hanging around with sinners? Why is Jesus eating at tables with people who are unclean and unworthy?’
So Jesus tells them these two parables to say, ‘No, God doesn’t punish people.’
Now we, like the prodigal son, punish ourselves, when we stray from home. When we stray from our true nature, we sin.
But as we heard, in our Words of Integration and Guidance this morning, Sin means to live outside of the garden. I really love that.
God created this garden, this paradise, this Eden, this place of peace, love, and joy that Jesus said is within us. That’s our true self.
When we live outside of that, when we act and speak in ways that are against that, we’re straying from our authentic self. And when we do that, we live in misery, like the prodigal son lived in misery when he strayed from home. That’s what the story symbolizes.
Sin is a sense of separation from God. It’s when we forget that God is with us, and within us, we forget our God nature.
Father Rohr says, we don’t have to do anything to attain the Presence of God, because we’re already totally in the Presence of God.
The only thing lacking, he says, is our awareness of it.
When we’re aware of God’s presence with us and within us, and we stay centered in that home, that garden, then we live a life of peace and fullness and abundance.
But when we stray from home, often we live in misery.
Now, I’ve shared with you before that, one of my all-time favorite books, spiritual books, is called Discover the Power Within You by the Reverend Eric Butterworth.
It was written over 50 years ago. Maya Angelou and Oprah Winfrey who also said that it is also one of their favorite spiritual books of all time. If you haven’t read it, I encourage you to read it. In the book, Reverend Butterworth also talks about the prodigal son, and I’d like to read to you what he says, he writes,
“If you are asleep to the presence of God in you, then you’re like the prodigal son, living in a distant land. But when you come home to yourself, when you wake up, and suddenly you come alive to the God within you, the depths of you, then God becomes very real to you. Not a person separate from you, but as an added dimension of you, as a living presence ever with you. You can never be separated from God, because you are an expression of God.”
You can never be separated from God, because you are an expression of God. That is the truth.
Now, there’s one person we haven’t talked about yet from today’s Gospel reading, and that’s the oldest son. The oldest son says, ‘Hey, Dad, why are you throwing a party for the son that’s spent all of his inheritance and lived sinfully? I’ve been here this whole time. I’ve been good. I’ve been loyal. Where’s my party?’
And how often we are like that ourselves. But again, it points to what I was telling you last Sunday. God loves us unconditionally, which means without condition. The father says to the oldest son, ‘Son, everything I have is yours. You know, it always has been.’
But the oldest son believes that it’s based on condition. And how many of us, growing up in the Christian church were taught that we needed to earn God’s favor? We needed to win God’s love. That if we did good things, God would love us. But if we did bad things, God would punish us? And that isn’t the truth.
I’ve told you this before: You could go out this afternoon, and you could feed 12 homeless families. Or you could go to Las Vegas and party the night away. And God is not going to love you any more or any less tomorrow. Because God’s love is not based on condition.
So, why do good things, then? Well, because good things are God things, and when we do God things, we remember our Oneness with God.
As Father Rohr said, it’s not about performance. It’s about realization. It’s about waking up to the fact – like the prodigal son does – “Oh, I need to go home to my father.”
And that is what the spiritual life is all about. It’s about coming home to one’s self, to becoming more and more of who God created us to be, our authentic selves, are Christ Selves, our True Selves.
So here we are. We’re in the Fourth Sunday in Lent. And the purpose of Lent is to prepare us for Easter.
And what is Easter?
Easter is the resurrection of the Christ Light. That’s what we’re preparing for, for the light of the Christ to be resurrected in us.
And so my friends, I hope you will find time each and every day, between now and Easter, to enter into the garden, enter into the kingdom within you.
Make the return home.
And there in the silence, in the stillness, may you feel that embracing love of God, like the father embracing the prodigal son.
May you feel that embrace, that kiss. And may you begin to understand that God is present with you and within you…always, and in all ways.
May it be so. Amen.