“That didn’t go as planned.”
My guess is that all of us could use those 5 words to sum up 2020. When I look back over the past 10 months, I’d have to say that very little of it went the way I’d expected it to:
I’ve written less than I thought I would.
I’ve read more than I thought I would.
I’ve preached in church less than I thought I would.
I’ve spent more time preparing sermons than I thought I would.
Some other things that surprised me in 2020…
Going months without seeing people who have been part of my life for years.
Being accused of being wrong while simultaneously being acknowledged for being right.
I never thought that masks would become such a big deal.
I never expected to write a blog post about planning (because I am waaayyyyyyy down on the type-A, checklist, planning scale!).
And yet, here we are. We’re facing new realities that none of us saw coming. A virus that won’t go away. An election that won’t end. A new year quickly approaching with God only knows what else.
Really, only God knows.
You see, if I had to sum up 2020, I’d say that it’s the year that has all of us ending up in places that we never expected. And if I had to describe the place, I’d call it pig slop. That’s right, 2020 has turned into the Year of the Pig … Slop.
Maybe you grew up hearing the story of the Prodigal Son as a bad story about a bad son who made bad decisions that led to bad consequences. I guess it’s easy to read it that way when you feel like you were the good son who didn’t do any of those bad things. But the real story is about a Prodigal Father who knew that once his son compared where he ended up with where he’d left, he’d come home.
(Side note for all you “Reckless Love” haters out there – the word “prodigal” literally means lavish and reckless and it pretty well sums up the kind of love the father had for the son in the story.)
Many of us are fighting for the people we love to see themselves the way we see them. Maybe you’re one of the fighters or maybe you’re one of the ones being fought for. It doesn’t matter as much as realizing that where you find yourself now could very well be the place where you find yourself.
It happened for the prodigal son in the pig slop. Somewhere between running out of funds, friends, food, and a future, he found himself actually wanting to eat pig slop. It’s the kind of experience that makes all of us want to bubble wrap the ones we love in order to keep them from experiencing it.
But the father who loved big and lavishly and recklessly and without regret in the face of horrific, life-altering choices made by his son, didn’t.
He didn’t try to protect him or control him because he knew that it was only at the cliff that his son would come to his senses.
What about you? Has 2020 brought you to a place that you never expected and now realize that you never actually wanted?
Maybe the personal retreat that seemed so refreshing for the first week or so has turned into mind-numbing and soul-crippling isolation.
Perhaps the realization that “we are the church” that energized you in personal devotion has now devolved into a “who needs the church” cynicism that makes it hard to get out of bed before lunch on Sunday.
Maybe by now the freedom you felt when you got laid off due to COVID and no longer had to answer to “that boss” has devolved into desperation about how you’ll move forward.
The beauty of the prodigal story is that the son ended up in a place that was such a stark contrast to the place he truly longed for that it brought him, in the words of Luke, to his senses.
Other translations say that it was at the pig slop that he came to himself, and if 2020 can lead us to places that remind us that we aren’t where we need to be, then the Year of the Pig Slop won’t have been wasted.
As C. S. Lewis wrote, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”
Here we are at the end of 2020, finding that so much of what we worked for and fought for has only brought us face to face with a hunger in our soul that racial equality, political victory, and personal prosperity can’t satisfy. That, my friends, is the place where pig slop can become a full stop. A place where we realize that we already had what we were searching for the most: a Father who is waiting on us, watching for us, and ready to fire up the grill and start the party playlist the minute he sees us coming home.
What exactly are we waiting for? Let’s go home.
