A sermon based on the parable of the lost son: The Father’s Heart
Luke 15: 11-32 / Lewisville Presbyterian Church
Rod Smith / 02-11-2018
I purchased this painting from a street artist in Gorky Park, Moscow in 1992. The subject immediately brought the prodigal’s father to mind.
Luke 15
Now the tax collectors and sinners (rejected people, “other”) were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees (schooled, religious) and the teachers of the law (leaders, elite) muttered (expressed dissatisfaction, complaining), “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (He does things that are against our religious laws and ways and things we would never do).
Then Jesus told them (he addresses them – they are important to him) this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents (renewal, turns around) than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.
“Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two (this is a natural triangle – rivalry perhaps comes with the territory – it certainly has in my family) sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ (usually a disbursement reserved for after the father’s death – so the request itself is hurtful – this sounds like something many younger sons I know would do). So he divided his property between them. (I am sure this might have been a painful thing for the father to do. Notice that Jesus gives no inkling as to what it is that motivated the younger man to do the things he does).
“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant (perhaps he desires to be unknown) country and there squandered (wasted) his wealth in wild living. (Sounds like he had a plan when he asked for his share of the wealth). After he had spent everything (probably a considerable sum since the father is portrayed as wealthy – he has a large operation with hired hands), there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. (We do know the young man understands the need to work). He longed (suggests cravings) to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. (I think Jesus is using a little shock value here to show just how desperate the young man had become. He is apparently friendless – perhaps when he still had money he was not. I have noticed Jesus has a way of rubbing it in – and with a handsome touch of perhaps playful and dramatic humor).
“When he came to his senses (implies he was not sensible to this point, when he got his sanity back), he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare (my father’s servants are better off than I am), and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father (treasured words of repentance) and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son (he is correct); make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father. (An act that requires humility – loss of face – and effort.)
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him (notice the father sees him, it doesn’t say he sees his father – the father was looking out for him) and was filled with compassion (no anger, no recrimination, no lessons) for him; he ran (eager, undignified) to his son, threw his arms around (lets any other people who are nearby see his welcome and hi gladness) him and kissed him (the signs of a father who is overjoyed).
“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ (He acknowledges his sin, he’s correct about having lost his place in the family).
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe (restore) and put it on him. Put a ring (restore his status) on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. (The father orders a party) For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. (The father does not have the same view of the son and what he deserves – his response is extravagant, over-the-top, and is in response to the son’s coming home, not in response to his waste or his prior senseless and uncaring actions).
“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ (We see his immediate jealousy – even understandable jealousy.)
“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded (sad that he had to do this) with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ (the older son is correct – but “correct” does not accommodate extravagant love – at least in this case. Extravagant love seldom makes sense. We see the distinction between a place of entitlement and a place of undeserved grace.)
“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
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Parable: Story, some long, some very short, to illustrate a larger or deeper truth, often humorous, often wild or outlandish. Once heard or read they seldom leave the searching reader alone. Parables niggle; present a counter view of a prevailing axiom; a good parable can be a bump in the brain of the thinking listener or reader. The upside is that parables are usually universally accessible. The downside, if there is any, is the church-reared has usually heard all the parables at some time or another and can therefore easily believe a particular parable to be fully milked. Jesus used parables as did and do many effective teachers.
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As you read and read and read the chapter over and over again (the underlining and the parenthesis are mine) kindly note several themes that emerge from the three parables: losing, finding, celebrating the restoration, in community. All three suggest rejoicing when what was lost is found. The man risks in order to find one of a hundred sheep (1/100) and rejoices and wants others to rejoice with him when he does. The woman employs great effort to find her one lost coin (1/10). When she does find it she rejoices and hopes others will rejoice with her. The father rejoices when his lost son returns and wants his family and the community to do with him (1 of 2). Each parable has something lost and something found and a reason for celebration. A wandering sheep and a lost coin suggests no act of will or deliberate action on the part of the sheep or the coin. The younger son is deliberate. His actions are an expression of deliberate rebellion. I will remind you that Jesus is addressing sinners (tax collectors, rejected, uneducated people) and the educated (Pharisees and teachers of the law) are watching and listening and muttering (expressing contempt) that he “welcomes sinners.”
In the Biblical parable of the prodigal, the son who returns after squandering his inheritance, the father runs to meet the now-humbled penniless son and celebrates his return. A massive party ensues. He who was unreachable and in a distant land (no Facebook; no SnapChat) discovered the harsh truths of the consequences of diminishing and then vanishing resources. His desperation sends him home as one willing to be his father’s hired hand. The parable, the subject of a million sermons and interpreted by the greatest of artists over thousands of years, is about the father’s love. He is generous. He is patient. He is forgiving. He’s spent, we can safely presume, years watching for the son’s return, and when it finally happens, the father is overwhelmed with joy and there’s no a trace of recrimination expressed in his vulnerable, exuberant welcome. Of course the dad could be hurt again. He could use the return as a “teaching moment” but he doesn’t.
The Characters
FATHER: He never regards the son as anything other than a son even though the son has “bought” himself out, moved away, harmed himself, soiled his reputation, and squandered unearned wealth. His deliberate destructive decisions and the actions they birthed have succeeded in depleting his resources. They have have succeeded in knocking him from atop his high and entitled horse. They have succeeded in humbling his now-hungry self.
His actions have not succeeded in destroying or diminishing his father’s love. His father’s love for him is not about the younger son or his behavior. It’s about the father. The Father regards the son as a son and loves him as a son no matter what behavior the younger man has demonstrated. The father’s love is not in response to who the son is or what the son is. The father’s love emanates from who and what the father is. The father doesn’t buy into the son’s line that he no longer deserves to be part of the family. Once a son, always a son – is the father’s truth as revealed by his behavior.
OLDER SON: He has no joy at his brother’s return. It is as if the return is a significant inconvenience, another expense, another drain on the estate. I can hear him asking, “Has he not cost us enough already? Are there no consequences for his behavior?” The older brother is focussed on what he’s done (years of faithful hard work) and not who he himself is and what he himself has. He is filled with his own sense of righteousness. As correct as he may be, being right, being faithful, has not succeeded in transforming him into being a loving person, at least toward his brother. My observations and my experience tells me that love becomes generic. We specifically, perhaps naturally, love members of our family but the love we experience overflows into our lives and permeates all of our relationships and shifts everything about us and the way others experience us. Godly love is transformative. It transforms the source and the recipient. I suspect the older son’s attitude to his younger brother is something the father has tasted before today and about matters unrelated to his younger brother.
YOUNGER SON: He is entitled to his share of the estate after the father’s death but wanting it sooner reveals something about him – perhaps he is precocious, has what we may call wanderlust, perhaps the wealth and the homestead are overwhelming for him. In many formerly British countries and in the UK it is quite common for a young high school graduate to take a “gap year” or a “walkabout” year – to embark on a lone adventure overseas. I know the feeling! Perhaps this is what he wanted.
It’s in being away that he becomes the prodigal (lavish spending, wasteful, extravagant) and is spending and carousing on resources he himself has not earned. In describing the younger son’s behavior Jesus is showing that he is unafraid to talk about such topics.
When he is at his most desperate place his eyes and his heart turn toward his father and his home. This tells us something (actually, a lot) about the father. We know at least that when he left the door was not sealed closed behind him.
Hunger drives him to humility and both make it possible for him to want to go home where at least he knows he will be fed and where at least he knows he will survive. There is no indication in the parable that he thinks he will be fully restored to his place in the family and be celebrated.
Challenge
I don’t know what went on in his heart (and it is a parable) but I do know what it is like to receive my father’s love after years of distance and rebellion. Dads everywhere – please reach out to your sons and daughters today – young child adult, local or distant, and express the love for your sons and daughters that is burning beautifully in your heart.
What goes on in your parent heart?
I know what goes on in mine, I think. Mine’s like the furnace in middle of winter.
The furnace never turns off. My parent heart (or head) is working, thinking, planning, hoping, watching. There are times it’s distracted, but it’s never off duty. There are times it’s filled with anxiety and it can feel like it’s tumbling out of control. There are times love doesn’t always feel like love and feel like something quite different. It can feel like rising anger or a lightning jolt of protection. I see it expressed as I unwittingly scan the surroundings for dangers and potential dangers. I experience my heart as hoping beyond hope and wanting the seemingly impossible for my sons. I experience it as sometimes ignoring my own needs and placing all things on hold until I know what the boys may need. My heart (or my head) is constantly shifting through priorities, trying to identify what is crucial from what is necessary to what is mere waste. Sometimes, really only occasionally, it feels broken by a lapse in a son’s integrity or a harsh word or a moment of son-to-son betrayal – but it is thankfully, quick to recover.
I have come to see that a parent’s love has many seasons, a variety of intensities, and, while it seeks nothing or very little in return, when return-love and gratitude is expressed, even in the smallest and quietest of ways, the reward is wave-like, even overwhelming.
Tell me what yours is like – please.
Application
May we all welcome all sinners and see the inner-sinner within us each. I find that I am both sons and I am the father – are you all three, too? I can be even more extreme than each son and fall short of the father but there are reflections of all three within me.
May the prodigal in each of us find the father’s welcome.
May the parent in all of us know how to welcome and celebrate all of our children (adult and youth and those who have left and those who are wasteful and those who are not).
May we have the hungry son’s repentant humility and none of the earlier haughtiness.
May we have none of the self-righteousness and harshness of the older brother.
May we learn the joy and the value of writing about our love on paper and then place it in the mail with a stamp and send it to out to the people we love, for their sakes and for ours.
I close with this quotation from one of my favorite South African novels, Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton.
The Reverend Theophilus Mismanage says, But there is one thing that has power completely, and that is love. Because when a man loves, he seeks no power, and therefore he has power.
Benediction – from Colossians, chapter 1:
15-20 The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
Now, go out into the world, and may the Grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God the Father, and the passion and the power of the Holy Spirit be with you, now and forever more.
Amen
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