The Prodigal Son is one of the most popular of Jesus stories in Luke's gospel, and little wonder why. There is something for everyone to be found there - the ungrateful child who demands his birth right, leaving home and travelling to a 'far country.' There is the jealous older brother who cannot fathom his father's kindness to his miscreant sibling. Then there is the father, whose one and only concern is the safe return of the one who went away.

Most people at some stage are prodigals and may remain so all their lives. The pull of the material world is very great, particularly today. Money, status, power sex, drugs and the like are formidable sirens, calling on different levels in different time and ways. The promise is great, the experience almost always disappointing in the long run and often becoming disastrous. It strikes me that humans were not really built for unrelenting affluence, rather a struggle to get by that builds character, community and fellow-feeling.

I was a prodigal once, a bit of a wanderer in the desert too. The lure of good times almost always turned sour, leaving only a rising anxiety. Like the father in Jesus story, who ran to meet his son and greeted him with kisses, God accepted this prodigal back with unsurpassing love. What can I say, but thank you.