In the Place Just Right

Luke 15:11-16

October 5, 2025 (World Communion) • Mount Pleasant UMC

How did he end up here? Face down in the mud, longing to eat pig slop…how did he get here? He was a good kid, from a respectable Jewish home. His father had lots of land, and was well-known in the community. Of course, that’s where the problems began, with his father. What was it that caused him to go to his father and tell him, “I wish you were dead”? Well, he hadn’t said it quite that way, but when he asked to get his inheritance right now, it was the same thing. And then, when the father signed over the deed to his portion of the land, and he turned around and immediately sold it to someone else—he knew he was heaping shame on his father and his family name, but at that moment, he didn’t really care. He just wanted out. And out he went, pockets full of cash. He knew he was abandoning his responsibility to care for his parents in their old age, but he didn’t care about that, either. All he cared about was getting to the city as quickly as he could and starting to enjoy the good life that he deserved (cf. Wright, Luke for Everyone, pg. 187).

And enjoy it he did. Wine, women, parties every night, friends surrounding him—the best food, the best hotels, not a care in the world. The days of farming seemed far behind him, and he told everyone that if he never had to pull another weed, life would be fantastic. He never wanted to smell the odor of a farm again. So how did he end up here? Why is he feeding pigs and thinking about pushing them out of the way so he could have their food?

It’s important to remember that pigs were unclean to every good Jew. Both Leviticus and Deuteronomy said so. Bacon was out of the question. No ham steak. No pork chops. Jews didn’t raise pigs, which means he is a long way from home, on a Gentile farm, both physically and spiritually because good Jews also didn’t associate with bacon-eating Gentiles (Liefeld, “Luke,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, pg. 983). To a first-century audience, this story would have been offensive on many levels. Telling your father you wished he was dead. Living it up with “wild living” (15:13). Dining with the pigs. Everyone in Jesus’ audience would have been right with the prodigal, wondering how it was he ended up in the wrong place.

Have you ever been there? Well, maybe not face down next to a pile of pig slop, but have you ever been in a situation and you couldn’t remember how you got there? Have you ever thought, “What went wrong with this situation?” The prodigal had it all, lost it all, and found himself with empty pockets and no friends but the pigs. There are people today in the same situation. Surrounded by stuff, face down in a pile of bills that we’re not sure how to pay, we wonder where it all went and how it all went so fast…and why we don’t have any more of it.

This morning we’re continuing our series called “Enough,” where we’re thinking about generosity, joy and simplicity and how those things can be the center of our lives. So last week we began by talking about wants vs. needs and I hope you spent some time this week thinking about the difference between the two, especially as it relates to your life right now. I know I was super aware of when I said I “wanted” something or “needed” something. It made me stop and think because it’s when we get those confused, when we begin to think we have to live beyond our means to keep up with everyone else—that’s when we find ourselves in the situation of the prodigal, wondering how in the world we got to a place that’s just so wrong.

So where did the prodigal go wrong? First of all, he was impatient. He wanted it all now. He is the younger son, always in the shadow of his older brother. And, besides that, in Jewish custom, in a family of two sons, the eldest would have gotten two-thirds of the property when the father died, and the younger would only get one third (Liefeld 983). For whatever reason, the younger son felt he had nothing to look forward to, so he might as well get what he can get now. So he goes to his father and says, “Give me my share of the estate” (15:12). Not content to wait, the prodigal demands what he thinks he deserves right now. He’s just like we are. I often call our world the “microwave culture” because the words “delayed gratification” mean very little to most people. Previous generations saved money for what they wanted; today, we buy it on credit and figure out how to pay for it later, because the advertisers tell us we deserve it and we shouldn’t have to wait for it. Now, that same attitude is prevalent in more areas of our world that just finances. Same-day shipping, fast food, instant downloads—waiting is out of the question. We want it now. We deserve it now. We’re impatient.

The second mistake the prodigal made was choosing the wrong god to worship. His god is the god of pleasure. Jesus says that once he got away from home, he “squandered” [isn’t that a great, descriptive word?] “his wealth in wild living” (15:13). Other translations have that as “riotous” (KJV) or “loose” (NAS) or “dissolute living” (NRSV). The word means that he was “recklessly…wasteful in the use of resources” (New Oxford American Dictionary). That’s what the word “prodigal” actually means, by the way—wasteful. He did whatever felt good, with no regard for tomorrow. He thought the money would last forever. He’d probably never had that much money before all at once. So I picture him buying presents for his new friends, buying meals, buying whatever shiny thing captured his attention, and, at least in his elder brother’s imagination (and maybe in reality), wasting a lot of money on prostitutes (15:30). He’s having a great time, not thinking about anything except his own pleasure. And it’s all good…until the money runs out. And when he money runs out, the friends disappear. Because his god was pleasure, he made no plans for the time when it was all gone. Do we ever dedicate our lives to the wrong god? What happens when that god leaves or fails you? What happens when it all falls apart? The god of pleasure always leaves us in the dirt, alone, sitting in the wrong place.

The third mistake of the prodigal is that he did not have any accountability. He leaves home on his own, seems to sever all ties with his family, and finds himself alone when it’s all gone. When a difficult time (like a famine) comes, he’s in need. There’s no one to take care of him, no one to walk alongside him through the struggle. And, again, for a lot of us this strikes close to home. We have lots of acquaintances, but how many of us really have a friend who will hold us accountable, who will call into question the choices we make? How many people do we let in close enough to be able to speak truth to our lives? We don’t do that, and when difficult times come, there is more blame than building up. We need people in our lives who will hold us accountable, who will challenge us to make good decisions in every area of our lives, including stewardship.

And one more: the prodigal didn’t live for anything beyond himself. That’s partly evident in his worship of pleasure, but even when he leaves home, he seems to have no other goal than making himself happy. Friends, that’s not a large enough goal to live for. That’s not a big enough reason to get out of bed in the morning. If the only thing we’re living for is to make ourselves happy, and if we end up doing that by buying stuff, or through one addiction or another, or by destroying relationships when we think we no longer need them, then we will, like the prodigal, end up face down in the mud, alone with the pigs. We’ll end up in the wrong place. None of us plan to or want to end up there, but many people do. So how do we end up in, as that old Shaker song “Simple Gifts” says, “the place just right?”

What will bring us out of all these prodigal blunders is developing a sense of mission or purpose in our own lives. Several years ago, Pastor Rick Warren wrote a book that spent many weeks at the top of the bestseller lists. I’m sure many of you have read it; it’s called The Purpose-Driven Life, and I think it was so successful not because people necessarily wanted the Christian message inside, but because it reminded us what we already know, deep inside: we were made for more than just getting through the day. Pastor Warren begins the book with these shocking words: “It’s not about you. The purpose of your life is far greater than your own personal fulfillment, your peace of mind, or even your happiness. It’s far greater than your family, your career, or even your wildest dreams and ambitions. If you want to know why you were placed on this planet, you must begin with God. You were born by his purpose and for his purpose” (pg. 17). Those words are shocking because we’ve been taught that it is all about us, and we live our lives that way. Our money, our resources, our time—it all goes to support what we think is most important: me, myself and I. But Pastor Warren is right: it’s not about me. And it’s not about you. We need a mission that is bigger than “me.”

That’s what God gave to Abram way back in Genesis 12. There wasn’t anything special about Abram; to all appearances, he was just an ordinary man living in the desert. The only thing that set him apart was that he listened to God, and he grabbed ahold of a mission bigger than his own small life. “Go from your country,” God said. “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.” But this wasn’t just for Abram’s sake. No, God goes on to say, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (12:1-3). Abram, and all his descendants, were called by God so that they could bless the entire earth, so that they could share the good news about the creator of the universe with every other nation on earth. Abram was blessed to be a blessing, and everything else in his life flowed out of that mission. We need a mission bigger than ourselves, and we then need to order our lives around that mission. Everything we do, every resource we have should be used to serve that greater mission.

Now, that’s true of us as individuals, and it’s also true of us as a church. If you’ve been around here any length of time, I would hope you’ve heard us talk about our mission statement. Our mission is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. And we seek to live that out in three ways: we love God, love people, and love life. Everything we do as a church connects back to that mission. The goals we set, the way we spend our money, the programs we endorse all relate to our mission, and that mission is bigger than taking care of ourselves. Friends, if all we’re doing here is making each other happy, we’re wasting our time. Any mission less than impacting the world with the Gospel is too small for a church like Mount Pleasant. And, I would even go so far as to say that any mission in your life that has as its end goal something less than changing our world for Jesus Christ is too small a mission for a follower of Christ.

When we give ourselves to a mission bigger than us, then the way we use our resources changes. We begin to realize that everything we have is a gift from God, even our money, and it all becomes a tool to serve the mission. It is true that we spend on what we value. For the prodigal, who worshipped pleasure, his money was spent on stuff and parties and riotous living. We could live like that, too, but what does that say about our mission and what we value? So here’s the challenge for this week, as we continue on this stewardship journey. Pull our your sermon study guide for this week, if you don’t already have it out, and turn to the back page. There, you will find a blank space with three sections marked off: short-term goals, mid-term goals and long-term goals. So here’s what I’m encouraging you to do: sometime this week, sit down as a family or, if you’re single, sit down with a trusted friend or two, and talk about what your goals are. What is the mission that drives your life? And, then, out of that mission, what are your goals? Things you hope to accomplish in the next year are short-term goals. Anything we plan to accomplish in the next five years are mid-term goals. And things that we want to do sometime in our lives are long-term goals (cf. Hamilton, Enough, pg. 40). Goals begin to give legs to our mission and then, out of that sense of mission, we begin to align our resources, financial and otherwise, to help us accomplish our goals. But if we never determine what the end point is, we’ll never be able to be responsible stewards.

For instance, several years ago, because we believe in the mission of the church to change the world, Cathy and I set a goal of being Biblical about our giving, so we set out to become tithers, giving God at least the first ten percent of our income. We did that when we were in seminary, a few years ago. So, to keep that goal, I have my gift to the church set up to be sent on the first of every month. We use the Church Center app, but it doesn’t matter if you’re writing a check or doing bill pay through your bank, and it’s the first thing that is paid every month. When I do it this way, it doesn’t get spent somewhere else. My financial practices are then lined up with my spiritual goals. For all of us, our mission should determine our practices—and our practices tell us what we really have embraced as our mission. So, this week, sit down and set clear goals for your life, then talk about how to line up your practices with what you hope to accomplish. And one way you can get into that is to look at that “wants” list we created last Sunday. Do those “wants” fit into your mission and your goals for life? Remember, it’s not about you. It’s about a greater mission.

The prodigal son, there in the mud next to the pigs, “came to his senses” (15:17), Jesus says, got up and returned home, asked to be part of the family once again, and aligned his mission and goals with those of his father once again. And his father welcomed him home. Now, while this is certainly a parable of salvation, it’s also a reminder that no matter how badly we might have messed up, God is always waiting to welcome us back home. It’s never too late to start over, to set new goals, to grab onto a bigger mission, and to pursue it with our whole heart. So let’s move in that direction this week, shall we? Let’s ask God what mission he has for us.

In just a few moments, we’re going to celebrate Holy Communion together, which reminds us of how Jesus gave his life for a higher purpose. Jesus knew what he came to do. He came to die for the sins of the world, but in the Garden of Gethsemane, on that last night before the cross, Jesus prayed a prayer he’d never prayed before: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me” (Luke 22:42). He asked the Father to change the plan. Isn’t there some other way? Scholars debate what was happening in the garden that night between the Father and the Son, but we do know what his final words were: “Yet not my will, but yours be done.” And the next day, he went to the cross for our salvation. Communion reminds us again that there is a greater purpose for our lives, so as we come to the table this morning, let’s focus our hearts on praying that same prayer Jesus prayed: “Not my will, but yours be done. Let me serve your kingdom first, Lord.” In that spirit, then, on this World Communion Sunday, let’s join with brothers and sisters around the world as we come to the table for Holy Communion.