March 30, 2025
Fourth Sunday in Lent
WORSHIP IS IN-PERSON AND LIVESTREAM on VIMEO at 10 a.m. HST
Pastoral Update from Fr. Chris:
Mahalo nui to everyone at Keawala’i for making me feel so welcome as I joined you for the first time last Sunday. Your aloha is a balm to my heart and soul. Sincerely: thank you!
This week, we continue our Lenten journey with Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus is in the wilderness, with us, tending to our very selves with compassion, water, food, and care. This is the same Jesus who longs to know the prisoner and refugee, the same Jesus who longs to walk with the sick and unhoused, the forgotten, and the (seemingly) unloved.
I believe these reminders are particularly important as we turn to this week’s Gospel reading, often called the
Parable of the Prodigal Son. These other names speak to the power of perspective and the richness of this text: the Parable of the Lost Son; the parable of the Two Brothers; the parable of the Loving Father; the parable of the Forgiving Father.
Whatever we call this parable, we may see it as part of the continued narrative of God’s redemptive power, a force born—not of cohesion or bribe or war—but of peace, reconciliation, mutual respect, dialogue and—ultimately—pure, unmitigated grace. See you Sunday!