Welcome Home? Starting Over After Prison

Prisoners Week, 20-27th November 2011
Theme: Welcome Home? Starting Over After PrisonReading: Luke 15: 1-2 & 11-32

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Sermon Notes
This year’s theme for Prisoners Week is ‘Welcome Home? Starting Over After Prison’.
People don’t belong in prison.

People belong in the communities from which they came into jail and to which, in the main, they will return.

It makes sense to work out how best to prepare for people starting over after prison. What kind of welcome will they find?

A lot of people believe it’s fair to offer a fresh start when a person has ‘paid their dues’ and ‘done their time’. The picture is sometimes clouded, like when prisoners are released into the community under the terms of a license and the break with prison is not quite as clean as they wished; or another example would be when communities are hesitant because they felt let down previously when the offending behaviour was repeated. But to be the kind of community in which those who have chosen a path they regret could start over, that would be a shared aspiration of many.

When this story Jesus told, most commonly called ‘The Parable of the Prodigal Son’, is discussed, the focus is often on the prodigal or wasteful son, as the title suggests. He is the younger brother who causes an affront by asking for his share of the inheritance, pre-dated as it were, whilst his father is still alive. Some have speculated about the upheaval, the changes in living that the rest of the family would have had to experience in order for this sum of money to be realised and handed over. Remarkably the younger son’s wish is granted and with a sizeable stash of cash he leaves home. Perhaps it might have worked out differently, but the time comes soon enough when the resources are all squandered and what appeared to be an enviable lifestyle had come to ruin. In his desperation, a long way from home, he decides upon a plan. He will go back, express his remorse and ask his father to take him on as a hired help. (Interestingly, employment opportunities for ex-offenders are one of the keys that make a difference to reducing re-offending. Those who study these things also identify positive social connections, family and friends, accommodation, and self-belief as factors that all contribute to a person being able to stay away from offending behaviour and a return to prison). But back to the Parable of the Prodigal Son..... Some would say the surprise in the story is that the father doesn’t tell him to ‘Be gone and never darken this door again, after all we’ve been put through!’ Surely that’s what Jesus’ listeners were expecting, sinner meets his come-uppance. The real surprise is the party, the celebration, the ring on the finger, the welcome, not as a hired worker, but as a son, his restoration to full status as a family member, the genuine new start that was being offered. Enter the elder brother.....

We don’t want to miss the tension that exists between the two brothers. Like so much that can be found in the Bible this story doesn’t flinch in the face of common realities, for such profound struggles exist in many a home and community across the country. Clearly the elder son doesn’t want his brother back. It was tough when he left, the whole household had to accommodate the choices the younger son had made and it took time to adjust. But now the elder brother was getting along quite nicely without him and he wasn’t in a place where he could easily make changes. Nor did he like the spotlight shifting and all the attention being heaped on the offender. Had he the elder son not shouldered the responsibilities and done all the work while junior did as he chose? He could run off a litany of his younger brother’s sins as he complained at the generosity that was being poured out again. He would not be making an appearance at any celebration!

It’s clear that the elder son was in a different place to the one in which his father was. Maybe physically they inhabited the same space, they worked the steading together and shared a house, but to the father it must have seemed that both his sons were in a far off country, so great was the emotional distance between him and his eldest son. The father had lost not one but two sons. Now the elder boy was in danger of losing all that really mattered.

The story’s a bit of a cliff hanger and we are not told what happens next. Instead it crackles with drama and potential at the end. We are left wondering, guessing, fearing the worst and hoping the best.  Will these two brothers move towards each other and find some common ground? Will they be able to accept one another? Jesus told this story to those who grumbled about others and complained that he spent time eating and being friendly with sinners. The story was Jesus’ third example of how much God rejoices when people turn their lives around and sense afresh that they belong. A lost sheep was restored to the flock, a precious coin was found again, and a lost son came back home.