Help Wanted: Fathers
Sermon
Holidays Are Holy Days
Sermons For Special Sundays
A few years ago Mass Mutual Life Insurance conducted a survey on Americans' views of their fathers. Respondents were asked to compare past fathers with fathers today. The results were somewhat surprising. On the whole, "Dear Old Dad," the "Father Knows Best" figure from the past, was preferred to today's father. But what was interesting was the people surveyed valued "Dear Old Dad" and today's dad for different things.
"Dear Old Dad" was seen to be better at discipline, at teaching the value of money and work, and at teaching his children to respect authority. By contrast, today's fathers ranked high in spending time playing with their children, helping them in school, and providing emotional support.
But it struck me that all these characteristics: discipline, teaching the value of work, money, and respect for authority, plus playing with children, helping them in school, and providing overall support -- all these things are important.
That raised the question in my mind, "What makes a dad?" It seems to me it is easier to become a father (most of the time, becoming a father is no great trick); it's easier to become a father than it is to be one. What are the characteristics of a good father -- or father figure (for not every child has a father in the home, but most children have father figures)? What makes a father, or father figure, "good"?
Together we could probably come up with a long list of "good dad" characteristics. This Father's Day, let me lift up just three. I'd like to do so by telling stories: true stories. For as Jesus, the Master Storyteller, knew so well, stories have a way of reaching us -- and sometimes changing us -- on a subconscious level.
True story number one was told by a professor at seminary. His five-year-old son became suddenly ill -- very ill. They didn't know it at the time, but the little boy had Kawasaki Syndrome, a puzzling and potentially life-threatening collection of symptoms.
He hurt all over and cried constantly. His parents brought him to a hospital and stayed with him in shifts, day and night. One night, after the boy had been crying for hours, the distraught father asked his son if there was anything he could do to help him feel better.
The son asked his father to climb into the crib with him. So this Ph.D. Theological School Professor, tried. He found he couldn't fit in the crib. Instead he took his son out of the crib and rocked him in his arms.
What makes a father? Sometimes it's just being there. That's a good point for today's dad. Remember that wonderful novel, movie and play, Life with Father? Today it's statistically just as likely to be "life without father." For today more than half of American children will spend at least part of their childhood with no father in the home: more than half! Of the roughly sixteen million American children who live with their mom alone, forty percent haven't even seen their father in over a year!
Even if Dad is physically present, he may be emotionally absent. Urie Bronfronbrenner's famous Cornell University study found the average father spends about 37 seconds a day in conversation with each child. As a father myself, I wonder how much of those 37 seconds are consumed by "Don't do that!"
What makes a father? Sometimes what children need is simply a father or father figure who is there for them: whether or not he actually lives in the home; for a dad may divorce mom but not divorce his kids.
True story number two is about an eighteen-year-old who went off to college. He was a good student and made his parents proud. But one night, his parents got a midnight telephone call from the Dean. It seems there had been a fire in their son's dorm.
The fire raced throughout the building. The boy, realizing the danger, ran up and down the halls, waking up others and helping them escape. He had probably saved the lives of several other students. But in the process he was terribly burned on his back.
Fortunately the damage wasn't permanent, but he had to spend several weeks in the hospital. Then, he took a leave of absence until he was fully well. During that period, the boy returned home. One thing that was required for his recovery was that someone scrub his back daily. The burned skin needed to come off so new skin could grow.
The scrubbing was a painful process and the boy hated it. Of course, none of his family and friends enjoyed inflicting pain. The father took up the task, week after week. It hurt him as much as it hurt his son.
Sometimes what it means to be a father is showing "Tough Love." Occasionally "Tough Love" takes the form of inflicting pain in order to foster recovery. Sometimes it's a hard, direct word of confrontation; but part of what makes a good father, or father figure, is being strong when being strong is required.
True story number three is about a teenage boy who got caught flipping quarters. Do you remember flipping nickels or quarters in high school? It's a form of small-time gambling. I won't describe how the system works, lest I tempt someone to start flipping quarters after worship! But it's a game where winner takes all. You can either win or lose big.
The teenaged boy in question had been pretty lucky, until one day, two of his classmates challenged him to a game -- and he had no quarters of his own. He did have five or six dollars change left over from a purchase he had made at the local store for his father. He was expected to return the leftover change. Instead he gambled with his father's money -- and lost it all!
Conscience stricken -- and scared -- he had to tell his father. He told his father how awful he felt and how stupid he had been. Miracle of miracles, the father, who didn't gamble himself, and who knew the meaning of "Tough Love," saw how badly his son felt -- and forgave him. Miracle of miracles, he didn't even yell! There was no punishment at all!
But the father's reaction was so astonishing, so gracious, so forgiving, that the son was motivated to do the right thing and pay the money back. That was the last time I ever flipped quarters with my friends or, to my recollection, gambled at all. Sometimes what makes a father is forgiveness: offering understanding and a fresh start to a youngster who has done wrong.
Being there, tough love, forgiveness: all important aspects of what makes a father. Our society ought to hang out a "Help Wanted" sign. Help Wanted: fathers and/or father figures who will be there with tough love and forgiveness for our children and youth.
Maybe those of us who seek to be that kind of father and/or father figure ought to be hanging out our own "Help Wanted" signs. Help Wanted: it's hard to get it right -- the right mixture of presence and discipline and forgiveness. We want to be good fathers and/or good father figures. But it's a big job. Where do we turn for help?
Maybe a start is remembering that God has loved us like a good father. I don't know about you, but I have found, down through the decades, that God has been there for me, often with forgiveness, and just as often with tough love.
God wants to show us what makes a father. God wants to support us in being father figures or good fathers, so God has given us God's word as a guide in scripture: "... Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4 NRSV).
God also has disclosed the nature and character of Christian love: "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. (Love) does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; (Love) does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. (Love) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends ..." (1 Corin-thians 13:4-8a NRSV). Let's let love be our guide.
For all of us, fathers or not, have already received that kind of love from God in Jesus. Can we provide the help our children want and need by turning to God for help -- and passing it on?
Jesus did fathers -- and father figures -- everywhere a great honor by calling God "Father." May we provide the help our children want under the guidance and empowerment of our fathering and mothering God.
Father's Day
The Parable Of
The Prodigal Parent
Luke 15:11-24
The fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke is one of the best-known and best-loved passages in the entire Bible. It contains three wonderful parables that are found only in Luke: "The Parable of the Lost Coin," "The Parable of the Lost Sheep," and the parable I selected for reading on this Father's Day: commonly called "The Parable of the Prodigal Son," "The Parable of the Lost Son," or "The Parable of the Lost Sons" -- for both sons, the prodigal and the elder brother, were each lost in his own way. A college student, by the way, once called this "The Parable of the Missing Mother," because no mother appears.
The main character in this parable is really the father. Jesus begins, "There was a man who had two sons." His focus is on the father. So some prefer to call this "The Parable of the Waiting Father" or "The Parable of the Loving Father." I'll call it "The Parable of the Prodigal Parent" today. The word "prodigal" has two meanings. The most common is "reckless" and "wasteful," as the Prodigal Son was reckless and wasteful. He blew his inheritance. But another, less common meaning for "prodigal" is more positive. It's "extravagant, generous, or profuse." One might say, for example, that someone offered them "prodigal" hospitality: profuse, generous, extravagant hospitality, well beyond what they expected. The father in this story was "prodigal" in that latter way. He offered extravagant, generous, profuse forgiveness and love to his wandering, wayward son.
Of course, the father in Jesus' story is meant to represent God. Jesus wants us to know that God is that kind of "prodigal" parent to us. What are some ways God has extended prodigal -- extravagant, generous, profuse -- forgiveness and love to each of us?
In the first place, God loves each of us enough to give us our freedom. God is not a clinging, controlling parent, but a liberating, "letting-go" parent. It's amazing how much freedom the father in the parable gave his child. Surely the father knew his son well enough and understood the temptations of big city life well enough to realize there was a pretty good chance his youngish, immature boy would get into big time trouble -- which he did.
The father could have ordered his son to stay home on the farm. In the ancient Near East, fathers had that sort of power. Still, the father loved his son enough to trust him, to let him go, either to succeed or to fail on his own. God is like that with us. As someone has said, we have each been given a precious inheritance. We have keen minds. We can use them or waste them. We have wonderful bodies. We can keep them fit or abuse them. We have the gift of life itself. We can use our time wisely and productively, or waste it.
Most of us have received the gift of religious faith, very often passed on to us by our mother or father. As a matter of fact, the importance of fathers as passers on of the faith is often overlooked. We can live that faith -- or not. God loves us enough and trusts us enough to give us freedom: freedom to do well, or freedom to make mistakes.
Robert Raines is a well-known United Church of Christ preacher and poet, associated with the Kirkridge Retreat Center in Pennsylvania. Raines writes in his book, A Faithing Oak about walking along a country road with his son. They go by a "No Trespassing" sign. The boy sees it and asks, "Dad, do you suppose anywhere in the world there is a sign that says 'Trespassing'?" Then father and son go on to play a game. They turn "No" signs in "Yes" signs. "No Trespassing" becomes "Trespassing," "Private, Keep Out" becomes "Public, Come In." "Stop" signs become "Go" signs, "No Parking" goes to "Parking," "Danger" to "Safety."1
By the way, there's power in turning a negative into a positive. Reminds me of the true story of the Protestant church and the Roman Catholic church in upstate New York, that were situated in such a way that their parking lots abutted. The Protestant church was much smaller, and their parking lot much smaller than the Roman Catholic church's. Some of the Protestants took liberties parking on the fringes of the Roman Catholic lot and then walking over to their own sanctuary for worship. The Roman Catholics put up lots of signs that said "Parking for members of St. Joseph's Parish Only." The "No Parking" signs were ignored. So, one Sunday when the Protestants were in worship, a group of their Roman Catholic neighbors wired on a bumper sticker to the back bumper of every car in the lot. The bumper sticker was positive. It read, "Proud to be a member of St. Joseph's Parish." After that Sunday, the Protestants stopped parking in their lot!
Raines was amused at his son's train of thought, turning negatives into positives. He reflects that God is like that. God has placed a "Yes" sign, a "Go Ahead and Give it a Try" sign over most of our lives. To be sure, there are "No Trespassing" signs: "Thou shalt not murder," "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not bear false witness," "Thou shalt not commit adultery": the Ten Commandments. These are restrictions God has established for our good. Still, for the most part, God has given God's children freedom to explore and enjoy God's creation. God is "prodigal," profuse, generous, extravagant in the freedom God gives.
There's a second thing Jesus teaches us about God through this parable: God is the kind of parent who waits patiently for us to come to our senses. It has been noted that chapter fifteen of the Gospel of Luke is about lost things. But there's a lot of difference between a lost sheep and a lost coin and a lost son. As Bible scholar, William Barclay points out, the sheep got lost through sheer foolishness. The coin was not lost through any fault of its own. Someone misplaced it. The son, however, "deliberately went lost, callously turning his back on his father." But the son, unlike the sheep or the coin, also has free will and intelligence and can return on his own. The father waits patiently for him to come to his senses and come back on his own.2
There are consequences in life, costs for our decisions. Sometimes we may wish God would be like an indulgent parent, following after us and cleaning up after our messes. Maybe you've heard the story about the mother who wanted very much to encourage her teenage son to clean up his room. He was always leaving socks, shoes, papers, food, all over his bedroom floor. She talked to him about it. She lectured him about it. She pleaded with him. It made no difference. His room was still a mess.
Finally, she decided she would clean his room herself, but charge him a quarter for each item she picked up off the floor. By the end of the week, she had picked up twenty items and gave him a bill for $5. He reached into his wallet, pulled out a $10 bill, handed it to his mother, and said, "Keep the change, Mom. You're doing a great job!"
God gives us our freedom, but God is not overindulgent. There are consequences in life, and we often reap what we sow. The prodigal son abused his freedom. He squandered his inheritance. His father didn't try to protect him from the cost of his actions. The law of consequences kicked in and he ended up feeding the pigs. That was about as low as a Jewish boy could go.
If and when we abuse our bodies, or abuse our minds, or use and abuse other people, or trespass where God has clearly put up a "No Trespassing" sign, God doesn't shield us from the consequences of our actions. God lets us experience the consequences so that we might grow. As the prodigal son grew, he eventually came to his senses.
There's one more thing in this parable. When his son came to his senses, and turned again home, his father welcomed him back unconditionally. Consider all that that prodigal father did for his repentant and returning son. The father sees him coming from far off. He runs out to embrace him. The son starts to confess. But the father stops him short. The father doesn't scold his son. He doesn't give him a lecture. There's no hint of "I told you so."
Instead, the father says to his servants, "Quick, bring him the best robe." The father was cloaking his son in honor. "Put a ring on his hand." The ring was the family crest, a welcome back into the family. Then, "Put shoes on his feet." Slaves walked barefoot. But sons wore shoes. Finally, "Kill the fatted calf." In the ancient world, there was no refrigeration, no way of preserving meat. So, living animals were selected and set aside to be fattened up for special meals. In Jesus' day the average person only ate meat about once a week -- or on special occasions. Obviously, the father was planning a big, festive celebration. This should have been good news for everyone (except the fatted calf).
Did the boy really deserve that kind of reception? There will be some, like the elder brother, who would say a resounding "No!" The boy squandered his inheritance. He made a mess of family life. He upset his father. It doesn't seem fair.
But, as Jesus said, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Matthew 9:13b RSV). That's a good thing, because all of us are among the unrighteous. None of us will ever be good enough to completely please God. We are not saved by our virtue. We are saved by our faith in God, and by God's grace.
God, our Prodigal Parent, loves us enough to give us freedom to make mistakes. God, our Prodigal Parent, loves us enough to wait patiently for us to come to our senses. God accepts us back with unconditional love when we return, and lets us start over. In the world, we may be tempted to judge and punish the prodigal son or daughter. But God, the Prodigal Parent, throws a party on their return. The children and young people in our lives need that kind of love from those of us who are fathers or grandfathers or father figures. We also each need that kind of love ourselves. Let's thank God that God is a Prodigal Parent and live in such a way that God's prodigal love becomes evident in our lives.
____________
1.aRobert Raines, A Faithing Oak (New York: Crossroad Publications, 1984), p. 14.
2.aWilliam Barclay, The Daily Study Bible, The Gospel of Luke, Revised Edition (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), p. 214. This book was first published by The Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh, Scotland, September 1953; second publishing, February 1956, p. 214.
"Dear Old Dad" was seen to be better at discipline, at teaching the value of money and work, and at teaching his children to respect authority. By contrast, today's fathers ranked high in spending time playing with their children, helping them in school, and providing emotional support.
But it struck me that all these characteristics: discipline, teaching the value of work, money, and respect for authority, plus playing with children, helping them in school, and providing overall support -- all these things are important.
That raised the question in my mind, "What makes a dad?" It seems to me it is easier to become a father (most of the time, becoming a father is no great trick); it's easier to become a father than it is to be one. What are the characteristics of a good father -- or father figure (for not every child has a father in the home, but most children have father figures)? What makes a father, or father figure, "good"?
Together we could probably come up with a long list of "good dad" characteristics. This Father's Day, let me lift up just three. I'd like to do so by telling stories: true stories. For as Jesus, the Master Storyteller, knew so well, stories have a way of reaching us -- and sometimes changing us -- on a subconscious level.
True story number one was told by a professor at seminary. His five-year-old son became suddenly ill -- very ill. They didn't know it at the time, but the little boy had Kawasaki Syndrome, a puzzling and potentially life-threatening collection of symptoms.
He hurt all over and cried constantly. His parents brought him to a hospital and stayed with him in shifts, day and night. One night, after the boy had been crying for hours, the distraught father asked his son if there was anything he could do to help him feel better.
The son asked his father to climb into the crib with him. So this Ph.D. Theological School Professor, tried. He found he couldn't fit in the crib. Instead he took his son out of the crib and rocked him in his arms.
What makes a father? Sometimes it's just being there. That's a good point for today's dad. Remember that wonderful novel, movie and play, Life with Father? Today it's statistically just as likely to be "life without father." For today more than half of American children will spend at least part of their childhood with no father in the home: more than half! Of the roughly sixteen million American children who live with their mom alone, forty percent haven't even seen their father in over a year!
Even if Dad is physically present, he may be emotionally absent. Urie Bronfronbrenner's famous Cornell University study found the average father spends about 37 seconds a day in conversation with each child. As a father myself, I wonder how much of those 37 seconds are consumed by "Don't do that!"
What makes a father? Sometimes what children need is simply a father or father figure who is there for them: whether or not he actually lives in the home; for a dad may divorce mom but not divorce his kids.
True story number two is about an eighteen-year-old who went off to college. He was a good student and made his parents proud. But one night, his parents got a midnight telephone call from the Dean. It seems there had been a fire in their son's dorm.
The fire raced throughout the building. The boy, realizing the danger, ran up and down the halls, waking up others and helping them escape. He had probably saved the lives of several other students. But in the process he was terribly burned on his back.
Fortunately the damage wasn't permanent, but he had to spend several weeks in the hospital. Then, he took a leave of absence until he was fully well. During that period, the boy returned home. One thing that was required for his recovery was that someone scrub his back daily. The burned skin needed to come off so new skin could grow.
The scrubbing was a painful process and the boy hated it. Of course, none of his family and friends enjoyed inflicting pain. The father took up the task, week after week. It hurt him as much as it hurt his son.
Sometimes what it means to be a father is showing "Tough Love." Occasionally "Tough Love" takes the form of inflicting pain in order to foster recovery. Sometimes it's a hard, direct word of confrontation; but part of what makes a good father, or father figure, is being strong when being strong is required.
True story number three is about a teenage boy who got caught flipping quarters. Do you remember flipping nickels or quarters in high school? It's a form of small-time gambling. I won't describe how the system works, lest I tempt someone to start flipping quarters after worship! But it's a game where winner takes all. You can either win or lose big.
The teenaged boy in question had been pretty lucky, until one day, two of his classmates challenged him to a game -- and he had no quarters of his own. He did have five or six dollars change left over from a purchase he had made at the local store for his father. He was expected to return the leftover change. Instead he gambled with his father's money -- and lost it all!
Conscience stricken -- and scared -- he had to tell his father. He told his father how awful he felt and how stupid he had been. Miracle of miracles, the father, who didn't gamble himself, and who knew the meaning of "Tough Love," saw how badly his son felt -- and forgave him. Miracle of miracles, he didn't even yell! There was no punishment at all!
But the father's reaction was so astonishing, so gracious, so forgiving, that the son was motivated to do the right thing and pay the money back. That was the last time I ever flipped quarters with my friends or, to my recollection, gambled at all. Sometimes what makes a father is forgiveness: offering understanding and a fresh start to a youngster who has done wrong.
Being there, tough love, forgiveness: all important aspects of what makes a father. Our society ought to hang out a "Help Wanted" sign. Help Wanted: fathers and/or father figures who will be there with tough love and forgiveness for our children and youth.
Maybe those of us who seek to be that kind of father and/or father figure ought to be hanging out our own "Help Wanted" signs. Help Wanted: it's hard to get it right -- the right mixture of presence and discipline and forgiveness. We want to be good fathers and/or good father figures. But it's a big job. Where do we turn for help?
Maybe a start is remembering that God has loved us like a good father. I don't know about you, but I have found, down through the decades, that God has been there for me, often with forgiveness, and just as often with tough love.
God wants to show us what makes a father. God wants to support us in being father figures or good fathers, so God has given us God's word as a guide in scripture: "... Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord" (Ephesians 6:4 NRSV).
God also has disclosed the nature and character of Christian love: "Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. (Love) does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; (Love) does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. (Love) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends ..." (1 Corin-thians 13:4-8a NRSV). Let's let love be our guide.
For all of us, fathers or not, have already received that kind of love from God in Jesus. Can we provide the help our children want and need by turning to God for help -- and passing it on?
Jesus did fathers -- and father figures -- everywhere a great honor by calling God "Father." May we provide the help our children want under the guidance and empowerment of our fathering and mothering God.
Father's Day
The Parable Of
The Prodigal Parent
Luke 15:11-24
The fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke is one of the best-known and best-loved passages in the entire Bible. It contains three wonderful parables that are found only in Luke: "The Parable of the Lost Coin," "The Parable of the Lost Sheep," and the parable I selected for reading on this Father's Day: commonly called "The Parable of the Prodigal Son," "The Parable of the Lost Son," or "The Parable of the Lost Sons" -- for both sons, the prodigal and the elder brother, were each lost in his own way. A college student, by the way, once called this "The Parable of the Missing Mother," because no mother appears.
The main character in this parable is really the father. Jesus begins, "There was a man who had two sons." His focus is on the father. So some prefer to call this "The Parable of the Waiting Father" or "The Parable of the Loving Father." I'll call it "The Parable of the Prodigal Parent" today. The word "prodigal" has two meanings. The most common is "reckless" and "wasteful," as the Prodigal Son was reckless and wasteful. He blew his inheritance. But another, less common meaning for "prodigal" is more positive. It's "extravagant, generous, or profuse." One might say, for example, that someone offered them "prodigal" hospitality: profuse, generous, extravagant hospitality, well beyond what they expected. The father in this story was "prodigal" in that latter way. He offered extravagant, generous, profuse forgiveness and love to his wandering, wayward son.
Of course, the father in Jesus' story is meant to represent God. Jesus wants us to know that God is that kind of "prodigal" parent to us. What are some ways God has extended prodigal -- extravagant, generous, profuse -- forgiveness and love to each of us?
In the first place, God loves each of us enough to give us our freedom. God is not a clinging, controlling parent, but a liberating, "letting-go" parent. It's amazing how much freedom the father in the parable gave his child. Surely the father knew his son well enough and understood the temptations of big city life well enough to realize there was a pretty good chance his youngish, immature boy would get into big time trouble -- which he did.
The father could have ordered his son to stay home on the farm. In the ancient Near East, fathers had that sort of power. Still, the father loved his son enough to trust him, to let him go, either to succeed or to fail on his own. God is like that with us. As someone has said, we have each been given a precious inheritance. We have keen minds. We can use them or waste them. We have wonderful bodies. We can keep them fit or abuse them. We have the gift of life itself. We can use our time wisely and productively, or waste it.
Most of us have received the gift of religious faith, very often passed on to us by our mother or father. As a matter of fact, the importance of fathers as passers on of the faith is often overlooked. We can live that faith -- or not. God loves us enough and trusts us enough to give us freedom: freedom to do well, or freedom to make mistakes.
Robert Raines is a well-known United Church of Christ preacher and poet, associated with the Kirkridge Retreat Center in Pennsylvania. Raines writes in his book, A Faithing Oak about walking along a country road with his son. They go by a "No Trespassing" sign. The boy sees it and asks, "Dad, do you suppose anywhere in the world there is a sign that says 'Trespassing'?" Then father and son go on to play a game. They turn "No" signs in "Yes" signs. "No Trespassing" becomes "Trespassing," "Private, Keep Out" becomes "Public, Come In." "Stop" signs become "Go" signs, "No Parking" goes to "Parking," "Danger" to "Safety."1
By the way, there's power in turning a negative into a positive. Reminds me of the true story of the Protestant church and the Roman Catholic church in upstate New York, that were situated in such a way that their parking lots abutted. The Protestant church was much smaller, and their parking lot much smaller than the Roman Catholic church's. Some of the Protestants took liberties parking on the fringes of the Roman Catholic lot and then walking over to their own sanctuary for worship. The Roman Catholics put up lots of signs that said "Parking for members of St. Joseph's Parish Only." The "No Parking" signs were ignored. So, one Sunday when the Protestants were in worship, a group of their Roman Catholic neighbors wired on a bumper sticker to the back bumper of every car in the lot. The bumper sticker was positive. It read, "Proud to be a member of St. Joseph's Parish." After that Sunday, the Protestants stopped parking in their lot!
Raines was amused at his son's train of thought, turning negatives into positives. He reflects that God is like that. God has placed a "Yes" sign, a "Go Ahead and Give it a Try" sign over most of our lives. To be sure, there are "No Trespassing" signs: "Thou shalt not murder," "Thou shalt not steal," "Thou shalt not bear false witness," "Thou shalt not commit adultery": the Ten Commandments. These are restrictions God has established for our good. Still, for the most part, God has given God's children freedom to explore and enjoy God's creation. God is "prodigal," profuse, generous, extravagant in the freedom God gives.
There's a second thing Jesus teaches us about God through this parable: God is the kind of parent who waits patiently for us to come to our senses. It has been noted that chapter fifteen of the Gospel of Luke is about lost things. But there's a lot of difference between a lost sheep and a lost coin and a lost son. As Bible scholar, William Barclay points out, the sheep got lost through sheer foolishness. The coin was not lost through any fault of its own. Someone misplaced it. The son, however, "deliberately went lost, callously turning his back on his father." But the son, unlike the sheep or the coin, also has free will and intelligence and can return on his own. The father waits patiently for him to come to his senses and come back on his own.2
There are consequences in life, costs for our decisions. Sometimes we may wish God would be like an indulgent parent, following after us and cleaning up after our messes. Maybe you've heard the story about the mother who wanted very much to encourage her teenage son to clean up his room. He was always leaving socks, shoes, papers, food, all over his bedroom floor. She talked to him about it. She lectured him about it. She pleaded with him. It made no difference. His room was still a mess.
Finally, she decided she would clean his room herself, but charge him a quarter for each item she picked up off the floor. By the end of the week, she had picked up twenty items and gave him a bill for $5. He reached into his wallet, pulled out a $10 bill, handed it to his mother, and said, "Keep the change, Mom. You're doing a great job!"
God gives us our freedom, but God is not overindulgent. There are consequences in life, and we often reap what we sow. The prodigal son abused his freedom. He squandered his inheritance. His father didn't try to protect him from the cost of his actions. The law of consequences kicked in and he ended up feeding the pigs. That was about as low as a Jewish boy could go.
If and when we abuse our bodies, or abuse our minds, or use and abuse other people, or trespass where God has clearly put up a "No Trespassing" sign, God doesn't shield us from the consequences of our actions. God lets us experience the consequences so that we might grow. As the prodigal son grew, he eventually came to his senses.
There's one more thing in this parable. When his son came to his senses, and turned again home, his father welcomed him back unconditionally. Consider all that that prodigal father did for his repentant and returning son. The father sees him coming from far off. He runs out to embrace him. The son starts to confess. But the father stops him short. The father doesn't scold his son. He doesn't give him a lecture. There's no hint of "I told you so."
Instead, the father says to his servants, "Quick, bring him the best robe." The father was cloaking his son in honor. "Put a ring on his hand." The ring was the family crest, a welcome back into the family. Then, "Put shoes on his feet." Slaves walked barefoot. But sons wore shoes. Finally, "Kill the fatted calf." In the ancient world, there was no refrigeration, no way of preserving meat. So, living animals were selected and set aside to be fattened up for special meals. In Jesus' day the average person only ate meat about once a week -- or on special occasions. Obviously, the father was planning a big, festive celebration. This should have been good news for everyone (except the fatted calf).
Did the boy really deserve that kind of reception? There will be some, like the elder brother, who would say a resounding "No!" The boy squandered his inheritance. He made a mess of family life. He upset his father. It doesn't seem fair.
But, as Jesus said, "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners" (Matthew 9:13b RSV). That's a good thing, because all of us are among the unrighteous. None of us will ever be good enough to completely please God. We are not saved by our virtue. We are saved by our faith in God, and by God's grace.
God, our Prodigal Parent, loves us enough to give us freedom to make mistakes. God, our Prodigal Parent, loves us enough to wait patiently for us to come to our senses. God accepts us back with unconditional love when we return, and lets us start over. In the world, we may be tempted to judge and punish the prodigal son or daughter. But God, the Prodigal Parent, throws a party on their return. The children and young people in our lives need that kind of love from those of us who are fathers or grandfathers or father figures. We also each need that kind of love ourselves. Let's thank God that God is a Prodigal Parent and live in such a way that God's prodigal love becomes evident in our lives.
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1.aRobert Raines, A Faithing Oak (New York: Crossroad Publications, 1984), p. 14.
2.aWilliam Barclay, The Daily Study Bible, The Gospel of Luke, Revised Edition (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1975), p. 214. This book was first published by The Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh, Scotland, September 1953; second publishing, February 1956, p. 214.
