A God Who Leaves the Light On
A sermon written and preached by Rev. Elaine Murray in Advent 2023 based on Luke 15: 1–2; 11–32.
Dinner time conversations in our house are so holy,
And at times so wholly exhausting.
But I love the questions —
they often teach me so much.
Like the other evening, my son Isaiah asked,
“What’s your favorite period of time?”
Thinking back,
did he mean…my twenties?
The 1960s?
Before I could think of an answer,
he had his:
Mine is The Hadean Period,
he said.
It was around 4 and a half billion years ago
Ok so, the earth didn’t have a core yet and the moon had like *just* formed and it looked really weird and looked really giant because it was really close to the earth. There were volcanoes and rivers of lava and there was no such thing as life yet.
It’s just…it was just not a good time to be alive.
Oh! Okay…
He caught me by surprise.
Perhaps every generation reaches a point at which we believe,
Truly,
THIS is the worst time to be alive.
The Hadean period
sounds a lot like the kinds of scriptures
that come up in the season of Advent -
Descriptions of an apocalyptic world —
a world where the “day of God” has come —
The moon will go dark,
the rivers turn to blood —
quite a time for God to arrive,
and in the words of my son, perhaps
“just not a good time to be alive.”
I think of this year
With wars and rumors of wars —
Did you hear —
Christmas is canceled in Gaza?
The cave where it’s believed Jesus was born
Is too dangerous to be venerated this season.
Christmas will have to wait.
It is a heartbreaking time to be human.
Jesus sat with heartbroken humans,
with tax collectors and Pharisees,
I imagine in a time when all were wringing their hands
At the latest “time to be alive”
to tell a story about a man who had two sons.
“I would be better off without you, Dad”
Is essentially what the younger son said at the outset of this story.
“I want right now what’s coming to me”
And the stories began to circulate —
The story the father tells himself about who he is as a father —
that his son would refuse a relationship with him.
And another story —
The story the son tells himself about who he is as a person that life would be better without his family.
That life apart from the family would be better for him
Than life together.
And still another —
The story the older son tells himself about how much he deserves for sticking it out and staying around.
The world is full of the stories we tell —
Stories we tell ourselves about who we are
as a result of the things we have done and left undone.
As days grow shorter
and darkness falls around us
We may reflect on relationships we’ve had —
And the people we have been.
Estrangement, closeness —
Perhaps you have the gift of family surrounding you,
Or have felt all alone in a crowded room.
I think about my son’s question,
“What was your favorite period of time?”
What are the stories you tell about that time ?
How do they shape your views of life,
Of faith now?
Several years ago,
There was an ad campaign, you may remember it, For Motel Six, with Tom Bodett’s friendly voice quipping,
“We’ll leave the light on for you”
For the weary traveler
For the family on a budget,
The highway driver on the look out —
in need of safety and a place to belong.
Picture this Father in Jesus’ story,
Up each night, waiting,
Keeping watch for a son to return —
Leaving the light on,
With the promise of safety and a place to belong for when his child returns.
That is the promise of the babe in the manger.
No matter what story we are telling
About who we are
Or what we’ve done
What character around the creche is us —
We return to a God who leaves the light on for us.
The story shifts, in verse 17, when Jesus tells the crowd of youngest and oldest sons around him
that the younger son “comes to his senses.”
Can you imagine?
The wayward child seeing himself,
perhaps in a shard of broken glass,
Face covered in pig slop,
Emaciated and skin weathered by his life choices
But knowing where he’s headed next:
To meet the Prodigal Father —
The extravagant parent,
The one ready to go over the top at the victory
That who was lost is now found
And who was estranged
has now come to his senses and made it home.
This is a story of Advent —
of the arrival of God —
In a time when all seemed lost,
the manger is a sign for us
to come to our senses and see:
There is a God who leaves the light on for us,
God is watching and waiting,
and arriving over and over again
to delight in us coming to our senses,
In finding a place of safety and belonging in God’s household.
For the younger son,
There’s a truth that’s deeper than what he told himself when he left.
There’s a part of the story that he’d forgotten:
That his father feeds his hired hands better than the slop of these pigs.
The Father keeps watch,
waiting for an opportunity to live a new story,
Not of being rejected,
but of being compassionate and welcoming generously.
The older son has the opportunity to tell a new story— of gratitude, that all this time he had it all.
Stories we tell around Christmas time -
The powerful story of God
coming to earth in a humble child
With poor parents,
Surrounded by shepherds and angels
With magi from the east —
It seems no matter how many times we tell that story,
We can imagine it from many vantage points :
Have we been the faithful Mary,
saying “yes” to God
No matter the cost
And delighting in what it could mean for the cosmos?
Have we been the dutiful Joseph,
Heeding dream visitations from celestial sources?
Or the shepherds just showing up for the night shift, only to be met with miracles and invited to a blessed event?
Jesus’ birth was God writing a new story for humanity —
leaving the light on
for a people who had gone wayward,
who couldn’t be further from what God had in mind when life was formed.
We leave the light on for others as God has for us:
Receiving them with hospitality and warmth
In small, powerful ways,
We heal the world together in small kindnesses —
The way people pull in their legs to let you by in a crowded aisle;
The “oh, you first” gentle gestures,
And “thank yous” to the person handing us our coffee and taking out our trash.
We leave the light of God on
in a season overwhelmed
with long nights and dark days
In these brief moments
of being able to make another’s day a little brighter and load a little lighter,
We say to the world,
There is a place for you, as God has made a space for me too.
Elaine is a writer, mother, change-agent, and pastor in the Presbyterian Church (USA). She lives in Boerne, Texas with an unruly dog, two remarkably bright children and her witty, inspiring spouse.
