Waiting and Watching
A Portrayal based on Luke 15:11-32 and Isaiah 49:15
(From the perspective of  a mother and wife.)

Can you hear them – off in the distance – still celebrating? What an exhausting week this has been – but what a JOY. We had just about given up on our boy – almost. I suppose you never really do give up on a child. You keep waiting and hoping. You keep praying that someday your child will get it together.

Let me start at the beginning. Our younger son was always – what would you say – a bit high spirited. He was the one that would climb most anything. He was forever getting himself into trouble with his curiosity. We did our best, his father and I, but my son had a mind of his own. He considered it a source of pride that he didn’t act in orthodox ways. So, when he asked for his inheritance – that one third of our wealth  – we decided to let him have it. Not because we wanted to, but because – WELL we thought he might settle down finally. We thought that just maybe he would get himself lined up in a business. He had some marvelous ideas he told us about.

Almost from the first though,  he got himself messed up. Those friends of his were no help at all. They saw him as a free meal and a jug of wine. We could see the future unfolding but couldn’t change his direction at all. How many young men listen to their mom and dad? Our’s sure didn’t. At first he hung around the area. Oh he traveled a bit, but mostly he came back this way. After all – he did have some rather large plans to follow through on. I don’t know when the plans disappeared. One day we realized that he was gone. Just like that – gone.

He didn’t even tell us that he was traveling. We thought he’d be back in just a few days. The days stretched to weeks, the weeks to months and then to years. Once in a while, but not very often, we would hear a word about him. One of our neighbors who had relatives in Jericho learned he was there, another time it was Joppa. Someone claimed that has seen him boarding a ship to Rome, another said he was in Athens. We didn’t know what to do. We tried to follow up on some leads, but always it was a dead end. Everything we tried, failed. We sent messengers to find him. By the time they arrived at a place, it would always be too late. No matter how quickly we responded, our son was gone. We asked friends who were traveling to watch for him. We wanted him to know that he was welcome in our home. Apparently none of our messages ever reached him. In spite of all of our trying and trying there was nothing.

He was a missing person, by his own choice. It was if he had disappeared off the face of the earth. After a while we didn’t even hear of anyone sighting him. Oh, I know most of the sighting were only wild goose chases, running off into the unknown looking for a missing son.

We weren’t all that concerned in the beginning. We kept telling ourselves that he would come to his senses eventually. We told ourselves that he would grow up, that he would be like his older brother some day. That one day we would be able to depend on him. After all, didn’t he have the same parents? We were a bit concerned about the money, knowing that he was being pretty wasteful. What little word we did hear was distressing. Someone said that his money was almost gone. We wondered what he would do then. We really did think that before he ran out, he would catch on to the way his friends were using him. Then he dropped out of sight. Still we knew that he had the resources to care for himself. We knew that he would be alright – if he could “Just get his act together.” Neither of us believed that the weeks would stretch to years. Sorrow grew in our hearts and got written on our faces.  We kept asking ourselves what we’d done wrong. Why had our younger son turned out so differently from our elder?

And we prayed. We prayed for his safety. We prayed that he would be well. We prayed most of all the he would just come home. And we looked – both of us, looked and looked for him in every crowd, everywhere we went.  I wanted to believe he would come home to us.  I would tell my husband,  “Now just you wait. Our son will come home.” I used to simply stand at the window and wish him here. We both did. Maybe his father stood there even more than I did.  We would look down the road and watch. I used to think of what it would be like, the day that he returned. How we would celebrate! What joy I would feel!

I began to wonder how God must feel, when we wander off and lose ourselves. Did God’s heart ache like my heart did? Does God grieve lost sons and daughters the way that I was grieving mine? I wondered if my son knew how very lost he was.

I thought about the  times I had  judged parents whose children didn’t turn out the way, I thought they should? But not anymore. I saw my son in the faces of those beggars, and I prayed that someone would have compassion on my son, even as I was feeding another’s child.

Sometimes, I thought of how difficult it must be for God – to watch us, so many going on paths of selfishness and greed. Foolish paths. I thought of how difficult it must be for God to see us, day by day, stumbling along – when all the time, God is here to guide us.  I used to think that God was ready to strike us down when we failed or made mistakes. But then I got to thinking – I would never do that to my son. If he came back, I knew what I would do. I would be so grateful to see him, that I would throw my arms around him, just like I did when he was two years old and wandered off.

I imagine you all have a story like this. He simply wandered off one day. I looked up and he was gone. My two year old gone!! I was frantic. Terrified that some wild animal had found him, afraid a slave merchant had grabbed him. We searched and searched for him. Eventually, we found him, sobbing away, lost in the middle of the market. My heart jwent out to him. That dirty wretched looking little boy, his face all puffy from his tears, and dusty from the streets. Why I just threw my arms around him. I forgot to be angry. I even forgot to scold him.

There was many a night I would cry myself to sleep. We both would, my husband and I. There were days when his father would stand at the end of the road with sadness and yearning in his look, tears running town his cheeks. Or he would go to the roof of the house where he could see further – looking for a familiar walk, a way of being.

When he did that, I wondered if God waited the same way for me – or for any of us. I wondered if God’s yearning for reconciliation was as great as my own with my son. I wondered if God waited and watched the same way for lost ones to come to their senses and return home. I wondered if God was more like me and less like the God the pharisees spoke of. If I could love my son this was, was it possible that God could love us this way too? If I cared this much for my missing child, wouldn’t God care even more for the lost?

With each passing month our hopes faded for our boy. He was nowhere to be found.  We had gone over a year  with no word about his condition. If only he would come back, we’d say to each other. If only he would come home – we would find a way to get him on his feet again. The days and months continued to pass. Our hearts grew heavy with grief. Still we kept looking. We would scan the horizon for any sight of a person who looked like him. We’d see a person who looked like him until we were convinced it was, and just has we got our hope ups, we’d realize it wasn’t our son. Tears would come to my eyes again. “Why, I would ask myself. “Why? Why did this relationship with our son have to be so painful? Why couldn’t we just let him go and forget about him?” And then I would remember the words of the prophet Isaiah,  “Can a mother forget the child that she bore – even though these forget you, I will never forget you.” I was reminded that God would not forget me. God would not forget my son.

Oh, life went on. There really wasn’t any other choice. But still we looked. We waited. We hoped. We prayed. We watched. Then one day, when I was gone – for goodness sakes – wouldn’t you know it, I would be gone . . . But oh well, last week, the second day of the week, my husband had gone up to the roof top to pray and search again, when he saw a young man in the distance. At first he thought it was a beggar coming by. The man’s clothing was dirty and tattered. It was obvious the man had fallen on hard times. So my husband watched more closely at the traveler’s arrival. Suddenly, my husband recognized our lost son.

He was in such a hurry as he raced out of the house that he didn’t even notice that his sandals didn’t match. The servants told me that he ran down the road. (They didn’t have the remotest idea what was happening, but they thought they had better follow). He raced down the road and when our son came close his father, his dad wrapped him in  his arms.  Our son had rehearsed a speech for us, something about sinning against his father and against God – he was asking to be a servant, a hired servant. But his father wouldn’t let him say anything. He hollered at the servant to get a ring for our son’s finger, sandals for his feet and robe to cover him with. Then he ordered the fatted calf be prepared for a feast and celebration. With all the commotion going on, word came to me very fast. I was there to join in the celebration by the time it began.

We had a problem though. Our older son, always so  good, solid, dependable . . .  For some reason, he thought that because we were celebrating his brother’s return, that  he didn’t mean anything to us. Strange what kind of ideas kids’ will pick up. As if he were not the joy of our hearts. As if his being with us these last years had not been a gift to us. As if he didn’t know that all that we had was already his. So my husband went to him. My older son was angry, one could say jealous. I suppose he was hurt. It had not occurred to us, that he would feel this way. The bitterness in his heart surprised us. We loved both our sons. We loved them the same.  But,  how could we not celebrate – like his father put it so well, “Your brother who was lost is found, he was dead but is now alive.”

Yes, we have been celebrating around here this week. We will go on celebrating because our lost son came home. I’ve been grateful for this returning child. Grateful for the positive changes in him. Grateful that he has finally realized what he had. Finally, accepted that we could love him, even when he failed.

I’ve wondered these last day, if this is what God feels. Does God have this same kind of joy when we turn from our foolishness – our running away? Does God feel this joy when we return from the far countries we’ve strayed to. I’ve wondered how many rings God has passed out to wayward returning sons and daughters? How many sandals? And how many robes? How many banquets have been thrown in heaven over lost children, who have found their way home?

Well I have to go. I need to get back to the celebrations. I need to feast my eyes on my boys.