Saturday, 15 March

My soul longs, indeed it faints / for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and my flesh sing for joy / to the living God. Psalm 84:2

But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate. Luke 15:22–24

In his book “Walking Home” the poet Simon Armitage tells how he walked the Pennine Way “the wrong way round”, going “home” towards the village where he was born. He took no money, but sang for his supper, reading his poems in village halls, churches, pubs and living rooms, and collecting donations in a sock. Most nights he stayed with people who offered him hospitality in their homes along the route. “I got the impression that I could have knocked on anyone’s door, and they would have helped me,” says Armitage. “After all, it was a fairly precarious journey…It wasn’t like there was a Plan B.”

Hospitality is a recurring theme in Luke’s Gospel. In the Incarnation Jesus left “home” but he constantly experienced welcome at friends’ and strangers’ houses. What would it mean for the church to go “the wrong way round” and stop worrying about practising welcome and instead go looking for welcome? Rather than being the Waiting Father, what if we are the Returning Son or – worse - the Elder Brother? Jesus gives us no neat resolution to the story: the party’s waiting while God asks each of us how we might respond to God’s unfair and outrageous grace.

Father, we give you thanks

that when we think we have exhausted your grace,

and we stumble home, destitute and miserable,

you come running,

you embrace us,

and bring us joyfully home to join in the singing and the celebration,

Amen

Melanie Hall 

Wibraham St Ninians