I heard a sermon on the prodigal son

Context
I'm in Dallas today, so I attended a worship service at King of Glory Lutheran Church. Pastor Jon Bustard preached on, among other things, the prodigal son story from Luke. The text and a recording of his sermon of the week usually get posted to the King of Glory website, but as of this writing, they're not up yet.

Commentary
I think Pastor Bustard preached a great sermon today. That's really saying something coming from me because I hate preaching. It's even more surprising because, being having been a Christian all my life, I've probably heard at least 25 prodigal son sermons. But this one actually made me think about a new aspect of the story, because Pastor Bustard was challenging us to be involved in God's recovery of the rest of His prodigal children, instead of just emphasizing how happy we are that God found us.

Rationalist that I am, if I'm going to be involved in solving a problem, I need to know what causes it. Pastor Bustard's sermon made clear to me that there are two reasons the prodigal son stays away from his father, and that both of those apply to people who stay away from church today:

1) Guilt. Late in the story, the prodigal son realizes what he's done wrong and is convinced his father will never want to take him back. Today, there are many people who think, "I can't go to church. Who I am and what I've done are too awful to be in the holy presence of God." This is not true, but I think as Christians we forget that. After all, how often do we seek out child molesters to join our congregation?

2) Lack of perceived need. This is the one that really stood out for me today. As I was saying to my husband, "you can't catch the prodigal son when he's received his inheritance and he's walking away." It's kind of like the first step in Alcoholics Anonymous: "we admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable." Only when one's life becomes unmanageable (like when one's out slopping pigs and starts wanting their food) does one really need Christ.

This second reason made me feel worried. If people I knew had that lack of perceived need for years and years and constantly told me how unnecessary religion was in their lives, would I get lulled into inaction and not be prepared or available when their need suddenly came up and punched them in the stomach? I hope not, and here are two ways I can think of to prevent it:

1) I can insulate them a little. When they lack a perceived need I can say things like, "I understand that this is not necessary in your life, but here's how grace works for me," kind of like programming 911 into their spiritual speed dial in case of emergency.

2) I can keep my eyes open. I can recognize that opportunities to bring back prodigals may be sudden and brief and be prepared for them at all times. In other words, I can stay awake and keep plenty of oil in my lamp.

What did you hear today?