Biography
The Rev. Grace Imathiu was born in Kenya and raised in the city of Nairobi. She’s ordained in the Methodist Church of Kenya and has served congregations there and in Washington, Ohio, Tennessee and Wisconsin. Grace is currently pastor of Brown Deer United Methodist Church near Milwaukee. She has preached and taught around the world, from Germany to Malaysia and from England to Brazil. An anthology of her sermons, Words of Fire, Spirit of Grace, has been published and she was a featured preacher at the 2004 Festival of Homiletics. [Biographical information is correct as of the broadcast date noted above.]

"Living the Prodigal Life" 
Jesus once told a parable that has given me an exciting vision of how to live in this world and how to be wastefully gracious with others. The story, like many things that inspire me, is ordinary. It is a Jesus parable that begins with a very simple "A man had two sons." Nothing extraordinary about that, nothing unusual, nothing particularly interesting. A simple story about a man who had two sons, an ordinary family and, to tell you the truth, for me nothing inspiring happens. Sons behave like sons often behave and the parent behaves like the book on parenting says they ought.

Yet scholars tell us that this very ordinary story is the best known and best loved of all parables. One scholar ventures to call this parable “Jesus’ masterpiece.” That great African ancestor of the Church, St Augustine of Hippo, confesses that he was inspired, yes, moved to tears when he heard the story of the younger son. In his “Confessions,” Augustine writes that "this story is about me. I had squandered God's gifts on fruitless readings and unwholesome texts which I fed on but it was like feeding on husks of hogs. Instead of being nourished I became weaker." For Augustine, the parable strikes a tender chord. It is the story of his own conversion. The story of his turn around. The story that made him see himself in a new light and gave him possibilities of another way of being. The story inspired St. Augustine to be more than his squandering self.

Alas, for me, I am only surprised that such a simple, plain and basic story could have such a profound effect!

In this story, the younger son decides to leave home. We are not told why he decides to leave home. So there is plenty of room to speculate and to theorize on the circumstances surrounding his leaving. Some of us might speculate on this younger son's adventurous spirit, others might say the younger was seeking the kind of company he could not get at home so he left, simple as that. And still others might speculate that sibling rivalry played a major role. While others might read the story closely and note that the parable has no mother, no sisters, no daughters, no grandmothers; a household without women! The macho intensity of this parable-family would be enough to drive anybody out!

Whatever your speculation, the story itself does not spell out why the younger son left home. We only know that he left in a manner that reveals he was not planning to return. He packed everything he owned and what he couldn't pack and take with him, he sold and put the denarii in his wallet. Then he had a talk with his old man and said, “Dad, it’s like this: if there is anything that you were planning to leave me in your will, I'll take it now. For me, you are dead.” Whatever piece of the farm his father gave him, his inheritance, he sold and put the shekels in his by now fat wallet. He was financially equipped to move, to leave the familiar and adventure into the unknown.

“A man had two sons,” says Jesus. And without giving the story a title Jesus simply tells the story and lets the chips fall where they may. Now tradition has done Jesus the favor of giving this parable the title: “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” Thing is, this title is hardly accurate. The traditional title suggests that one character’s story and history is the only legitimate and sole history of the entire parable. But see, this is not a Hollywood production with only one star and all the other actors are nothing more than supporting cast. This is a Jesus parable! It is a story with the power to excite all of us no matter where we might read ourselves in the story.

The parable is unlike our world where the story of only one group of people, one race, one nation, one gender is written and read as the one and only legitimate history of the entire world.

But look! Our world has lived more than one history. We live in a world of people who are not like us and who do not want to be like us. So the challenge of hearing this story is being mindful of the layers of exploitation and struggles of different groups of people for whom such a story is also a site.

“A man had two sons,” says Jesus. And he proceeds to tell not just part of the story but the whole story.

Now growing up on the equator in the foothills of Mt. Kenya, I spent plenty of time trying to decipher which of the two sons was “the prodigal son.” And more so, trying to figure out which son I was. What can I say! Truth is my friends and I have argued until the cows came home about which of the two sons was the prodigal one! Some say clearly the younger son was the prodigal one. Others passionately argue it was clearly the elder son who was the prodigal one. And of course there are some who say both sons were prodigal. But tell you what, what does prodigal mean anyway?

With the parable's lost and found literary neighborhood of “lost and found sheep,” “lost and found coins” and my own language of Kimeru which calls this story, Rugono rwa mutana uria waurite, which means “the story of the lost son,” I have always assumed that prodigal meant lost. I have always thought the lost sheep was a prodigal sheep and the lost coin was a prodigal coin and anyone who has a poor sense of direction and is constantly lost is an example of prodigal.

Then, to my surprise, it turned out that prodigal has nothing to do with the lost and found department. Prodigal is not even a very bad thing to be! Webster's Dictionary opens up the definition of prodigal to more than I had ever imagined. Prodigal means extravagant, reckless, profuse, squandering and wasteful. Prodigal also means abundant, bounteous and lavish. Out of the word prodigal comes prodigious! People who are not prodigal are miserly, stingy, mean and tight-fisted. So you see, prodigal can be a bad thing. But then again, prodigal can be a very good thing!

Now, prodigal can be sinful. Look at the sons who are both inward looking, self-indulgent, greedy. But then take a second look. Eyes on the Father! When practiced on another, prodigal is radical in it’s goodness and grace. Eyes on the Father! Reckless in his welcome of this returning son. This father who drops whatever he is doing and the old man runs across the public square: that is prodigal. Prodigal is overwhelming in its forgiveness.

Eyes on the Mother! This mother who clasps her raggedy, battered, lived-with-swine-looking daughter and unashamedly, oblivious of gossip and rumormongers throws a party for this daughter. That is prodigal! Prodigal means too much, extravagant, overflowing, unconstrained, like a parent who forgets the cultural codes and overjoyed, falls on the grown child’s neck, embracing and kissing as though this grown-child was a newborn all over again. Prodigal is the reckless dishing out of heaped helpings of mercy. Dishing out extravagant portions of love. Prodigal is doling out grace in squandering and wasteful servings.

So look and see the picture before us: nothing but the finest robe on his battered and bruised body. Nothing but the most precious of rings on a finger that is a stranger to manicures; best shoes for dusty calloused feet; bar-b-cue the fatted calf, there is no better day we are saving it for. Call the musicians, let every one dance, dance, dance! And now a toast, a prodigal, passionate toast. Raise your glass one and all: “A toast! Here is to resurrection! He was dead, and alive again!”

If we must title this parable, call it the Parable of the Prodigal Father. But perhaps even more accurately call it the Parable of the Prodigal Family. But why title it at all! Why not be like Jesus who tells an ordinary story. “A man had two sons,” says Jesus. And this ordinary, basic and simple story becomes a window to see how prodigious living changes everything from the ordinary into something extraordinary. Go, live likewise!

Interview with Grace Imathiu
Interviewed by Lydia Talbot

Lydia Talbot: Grace, I’m fascinated with how you managed to nuance the definition of the word prodigal, that we usually think of as a pejorative term, to mean in a positive sense abundant or bounteous, and that helped shape your vision of how to live. Tell us how all this fits into your own history and journey

Grace Imathiu: Thank you, Lydia. I want to hear Jesus tell me that it’s not being wasteful on myself to live a life where grace is wasteful in my forgiveness, not on me but on others. Especially those who are different from me, who look different, who believe different, who are different. How to be generous in my forgiveness and in my kindness.

Talbot: Your name, Grace, was so appropriately given to you by your wonderful parents. I must ask you, Grace, how was it growing up as a child of a prominent bishop in Kenya?

Imathiu: My father is a retired Methodist minister who served as Bishop of the Methodist Church in Kenya. I grew up in a Christian home and the wonderful thing about that is I grew up in a generous environment, a prodigious environment, surrounded by Christians who loved me into becoming the Christian and disciple of Jesus that I am today.

Talbot: You say that as a child you awakened every morning wishing that everyday were Sunday! Just help us absorb what it was like to worship at the church you grew up in.

Imathiu: For me church was not a boring place where we just sat and were lectured to, church was alive! It is where all of us were pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that made it happen. Whether you were a child or an adult, you belonged. For us, Sunday morning was one of the most exciting hours of our week.

Talbot: Where everyone was part of the worship.

Imathiu: Yes.

Talbot: Tell me about, Words of Fire, Spirit of Grace, your recent publication.

Imathiu: It’s a collection of sermons preached around the world on especially this generous God whose words are of fire and a spirit of grace.

Talbot: We’ve learned something very important about living the prodigal life from you today, Grace Imathiu. Thank you so much, Grace.

Imathiu: Thank you, Lydia.