The young man in the story of the Prodigal Son is not all that uncommon.  I can readily imagine one of the Lord’s listeners thinking, “that’s just like my nephew.”  Another with tears in his eyes might have said, “Let me tell you about my son.”  How does a young person live faithfully in the present day–to be in, but not of the world?

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The Gospel lesson for Wednesday’s Lenten service was the story of the Prodigal Son.  The Gospel lesson today is the same.  No, you aren’t going to get a warmed over version of Wednesday’s sermon.  On Wednesday we focused on the end of the story, the homecoming.  This morning I would like to direct your attention to the beginning of the story—the young man himself.

The Prodigal Son is one of the best known stories, parables that Jesus told.  It is about a young man who wants to set out on his own.  He asks for his share of the inheritance, sort of a “I wish you were dead” slap in the face to his father.  The situation is so common that I would think that the Lord’s listeners immediately identified with what he was saying.  “That’s like my nephew,” one probably thought, and another with tears in his eyes “let me tell you about my son.”  It is just as common in our day, as it was in the Lord’s day.

David Kinnaman, the President of the Barna Group, which does a lot of statistical research of trends in the Christian church, did a study of young people who were not a part of the church.  In doing so, he kept running into young men and women who had been very active in the church as teenagers, but since had dropped away from the church.  In the past we have been familiar with this, especially as young people went away to college.  Our observation was that when they got married, and especially when they had a child and thought about baptism they would come back to the church.

This wasn’t what Kinnaman was observing.  After listening to the stories of a large number of young people, he divided them into three groups:

•             Nomads, those who walk away from engagement with the church, but still consider themselves faithful Christians.

•             Prodigals, those who lose their faith and describe themselves as no longer Christian.

•             Exiles, those who are still invested in their Christian faith, but feel stuck (or lost) between culture and the church.

Human nature may not have changed, but those of college age and young adults are living in a different context then the world in which I grew up.  They have never lived in a world without computers.  Science, not the Bible, is what they turn to in order to understand the physical universe, and that includes evolution.  Terrorism, domestic or foreign, is simply a fact of life and will probably strike again within the United States.  Dialing a telephone number makes no sense to them at all. You might as well be talking about a party line.  Homosexual couples are an accepted part of their circle of friends, as are a guy and girl living together without being married.  Marijuana is simply a matter of choice, like alcohol, and is just as legal in many places.  These are all part of their daily landscape.

Millions of young Christians, and former Christians, would describe the church as hypocritical, judgmental, too political, and out of touch with reality.  And these young people are not like the young man in the story of the Prodigal son, who quickly ran through his money and ended up hiring himself out to tend the pigs, and ultimately competing with them for food.  Many of our young people are doing quite well financially.  When the young man in the Lord’s story hit bottom, he thought to himself, “I can return home.  I may not be received as a son.  Maybe my father will accept me as a hired servant.  At least servants have something to eat.  Can there be a homecoming for these young Christians and former Christians?  Or must we simply dismiss them and assume that they will either find their way back on their own or that the church will simply be faced with an ever increasing average age?

Jesus didn’t simply write people off.  He was constantly reaching out to those who were on the edge and even to those who didn’t belong.  His stories, like the one about the Prodigal Son, were constantly challenging those who were complacent with their own religious belief.  The great struggle of this emerging generation is not that different from the struggle that we face:  “how to live faithfully in a new context, how to be “in the world, but not of the world.”  “In the world, but not of the world” is the sentiment expressed in the prayer of our Lord for his followers in John 17.

That leads to asking myself is my faith strong enough to let me be questioned?  Do I understand and accept that I am in fact a sinful human being?  To really believe that is a humbling experience.  It means that I can be wrong, even in some of my most cherished beliefs.  It means that we don’t have to wait until a future judgment day to recognize that we are nowhere near as good as we would like to think that we are.  We are forced to be honest with ourselves.

Before we launch off joyfully to save others, we have to realize that we are the ones in need of a Savior.  It is necessary for us that Jesus Christ suffered and died.  It was our sins that nailed him to the cross.  It was our guilt that he accepted as his own.  The instant that we accept that, we can say to those who question us, we are in the same boat.  Suddenly we discover that it is not them and us.  We are on the same side of the table.  We are both absolutely dependant on the grace of God.  We too have to struggle to learn how to live faithfully, to be in, but not of the world.

Years ago when the church was going through convulsions over what was being taught at the seminary, Charlie Mueller was a District President.  He was scheduled to go to a meeting of the Council of Presidents.  He had two different kinds of buttons like the politicians have made for their campaigns.  One said “I may be wrong.  Let’s talk.”  The other said, “I may be right.  Let’s talk.”  He offered them to his fellow presidents.  Not a single one would take one.  Charlie said that he was so upset by the state of affairs that on the flight back when the plane hit an air pocket he didn’t care if it went down or not.  When the members of the church and its leaders cannot calmly discuss their faith and the implications of faith, then we are in trouble.

The German theologian and preacher, Helmut Thielicke, pointed out that this parable that Jesus told was really about the Waiting Father.  It is the father who is constantly gazing down the road, hoping, praying that the prodigal would return.  When he sees him at the end of the lane, he forsakes all dignity and runs to meet him.  He embraces him and kisses him.  He calls for the servants to bring a robe so that the boy can divest himself of his ragged, smelly clothes.  He puts a ring on his finger and orders the fatted calf killed for the celebration.  That’s how the story ends for us.  Our heavenly Father joyfully welcomes us home.  Our response is to joyfully welcome the nomads, exiles, and even the prodigals back where they belong.

The one point that Mr. Kinnaman missed was that the nomads, exiles, and prodigals aren’t all young.  They come in all ages and all are just as important.