Truth Trackers
Ages:            Rising 4^th -- 6^th graders
Dates:           June 10 -- 14 from 6 to 9 p.m.
Cost:            $10 per child, $30 family maximum
Location:     Hillside United Methodist Church
Contact:       (770) 924-4777, extension 73

Polar Expedition
Ages:            Rising Pre K 4's -- 3^rd graders
Dates:           June 18 -- 22 from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.
                      June 24 -- 28 from 6 to 8 p.m.
Cost:             $10 per child, $30 family maximum

Registration
Registration will be held on Sundays at Hillside in the foyer between services beginning May 6 for attendees.  Scholarships are available.  For more information, call (770) 924-4777, extension 73.

Traditionally called "Jesus, Parable of the Prodigal Son," the story also illustrates our contemporary need to come home.  It is a story about a forgiving father who seeks relationships with all of his children in every age.

Throughout the centuries, many have called this their favorite story ever told.  Rembrandt's  "Return of

the Prodigal" captures its essence on canvas.  The repentant adolescent is pictured kneeling at his father's feet with his face hidden.  Standing defiantly erect in the background is the well-dressed elder brother.  Rembrandt also masks his face as if to say, "In these two sons we can each find ourselves."  Indeed, this seems to be Jesus' point.

We see ourselves in these two sons because people are the same in every age.  Margaret Mitchell's number one selling novel of all time, Gone with the Wind, contrasts the characters of the sinful Scarlet, and the respected Melanie.  There is also the worldly Rhett Butler, set opposite the highly moral Ashley.  These fictitious Atlantans of the Civil War era can still be found in our city.

Recently a young man came begging at a church door having slept in the dumpster the night before.  He seemed amazed that fellow street people had stolen his cash and his coat at a shelter.  Fortunately for him, he had run out of resources just a week after leaving his family home.  Asked if he had heard the story of the Prodigal Son, he said "I am a preacher's kid and have had it pumped into me all of my life."  He was reminded that his father was probably waiting and he smiled and walked off toward home, hopefully to find a welcome mat.

Then there are others who are the good boys and girls who never run away or outwardly rebel; their secret inner rebellion is kept well hidden, but it's there just the same.  We know them as respected bankers, esteemed physicians, sometimes clergy, who are good at being piously good.  The sin of being good is that it is harder to forgive those who have acted out their rebellion when we have kept secret our sinful and hard hearts.  We learn to look down our clean noses at our inferiors.  We lose sight of our own inward rebellion.  We ask, "Why should this sinner be given grace so easily when we have worked for it so long and so well?" 

It is clear that the Father in the story represents our merciful Father.  Ours is a God who is eager to be friends with all of us.  Those of us who never rebel and those who do; as we consider

a turn toward home, we need to look again at the meaning of repentance.  Its root meaning in the Latin means to feel sorry for sin.  The New Testament Greek word for repentance is "metanoia," which means to turn, or be converted.  It is like driving south on the freeway and getting off on an exit ramp and turning around and driving north.  It is a change of direction.  This is what happened to the prodigal son; he turned around and returned to the father.  This is what needed to have happened to the elder son.  Instead of hardening his heart in jealousy toward his father, he needed to be converted. 

And how do we find our way to the Father?  We must come to Him from whatever place we have been.  Some of us would have to come as did the prodigal son pleading for mercy and finding it as the father runs out to meet the repentant son.  The son had been lost but is now returned home.  Others would come from having lived superficially as the respectable persons but who had inwardly lived apart from God.  The point is that both must come to God as sinners in need of grace.  The dangerous sin of being outwardly good is that we can pretend not to need God at all.  And our Father freely forgives both types of sinners.  God always receives us when we genuinely repent.  "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 
(I John 1:9)   Forgiveness is guaranteed! 

It is our choice whether to come home.  As we approach Mother's Day and think of our families, let's pray about truly coming home to those we love, and know that with God, you can always come home to his mercy and waiting embrace.