Liturgies

Monday, March 18th 2013

Two Brothers, And A Story With No Ending

By Rex Hunt

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About Rex Hunt

Rex a retired minister of the Uniting Church in Victoria, Tasmania, NSW, and the ACT, was the principal author/editor of The Canberra Affirmation, editor of New Green Shoots and Other Story Sermons, author of Against the Stream: Progressive Christianity between Pulpit and Pew, and with John W Smith, editors of Why Weren’t We Told? A Handbook on Progressive Christianity.

Lent 4C, 2013 Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Just before coming to Brisbane I sat down and calculated it has been nearly 52 years since I left home. And as they say in the classics: a heck of a lot of water has gone under the bridge since then!

While I haven't lived in the family home with mum and dad since then, my mother had a way of keeping in touch with her absent son.  She told me to send my washing home,  in a box, by bus, each week! And as an obedient first-born son, I complied with her wishes!

Much ink has been spilt over the story of the Prodigals. The story is one of the best known of all the biblical stories in our religious tradition.

It is certainly the longest in the Jesus tradition.  And it's right up there with the stories of the Good Samaritan, and the imaginative nativity stories of Jesus...
All, I might add, told by the anonymous storyteller we call Luke.
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