Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, March 23, 2025
by Dr. Miles Hopgood, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: Neither we nor God are the characters in the parables that Jesus tells. The stories he tells illustrate the character of God and of how God is at work in our stories.
When we approach a parable, we are tempted to take the same approach as a casting director. Who fits which role best? Which one is God, which one is me? Which one is the coworker I can’t stand? And so on. Sometimes this can be an acceptable approach, but other times we can fall prey to typecasting. In reality, we have all been each of the characters in this story. Like the younger son, we have all found ourselves hungry in the mud at times, wondering if our mistakes can be forgiven. Like the elder son, we have all been driven to jealousy by the mercy and grace shown to others. Like the father, we have all waited with longing for a thing that might not happen. As Hamlet says, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women in it players. We have our entrances and exits, and one man in his time plays many parts.” With lives as complex as ours, where do we find ourselves, and more importantly God?
One start is by recognizing that while there may be many characters in these parables, there is only one story being told, and it doesn’t belong to any of one of them. We are wrong to call it the parable of the prodigal son, but we would be no more right to call it the parable of the hopeful father or the jealous brother. Like the parables of the lost sheep and lost coin that preceded it, this parable is the story of joy, specifically the joy of recovery. It is the story about all the ways in which things could have, should have gone wrong, but didn’t. For how many times have we seen stories of families torn apart that did not go like this? Of relationships that were not repaired because egos got in the way? Of reconciliations that were undermined because we could not truly forgive? Of hurt that lingered because resentment is too juicy an emotion to quit? Just as we have lost things countless times and never found them again, we may worry that our story with God might end with being lost and never found, being repentant but not forgiven, of being allowed back on conditions that meant we would never be truly be welcome.
These are miracle stories, because the way we expect them to go is not how they turn out. Against all expectations, the sheep who strayed was not devoured but recovered; the coin was not lost down a crack but found; the hopes of the repentant son and the longing father were exceeded, leaving us with hope that the jealous son too might be won over. It is between each character in these stories that we find God, at work to do what for us is impossible, promising us a future that the reality of how wrong things can go makes us rarely hope for.
