(The sermon began with the Reader’s Theater piece ‘Open Arms’ published by Carson-Dellosa Christian Publishing.)
(Slide 1) What is the most valuable thing in your life right now? Is it is a family heirloom? Is it a treasured memory? Is it your children or your spouse? Is it something that some one important did for you? Or, is it something that some one important taught you?
The fifteenth chapter of Luke is a chapter in which Jesus’ words about valuable things are recorded in three stories. The first story in verses 3 through 7 is about the loss of a valuable investment – a sheep.
The second story in verses 8 through 10 is about the loss of a long held treasure throughout human history – money. The third and final story, our text for this morning, is about the loss of something that is, frankly, for some people less of a loss than money or an investment – a human being.
However, to Jesus it was the most valuable and important story because He came not help us find our lost investment or money but to help us find our way home!
This passage has been called the Prodigal Son for a long time. Have you ever wondered what prodigal meant? According to Webster’s dictionary, to be prodigal means to be ‘extravagantly wasteful.’
(Slide 2) Another title given to this story over the years is ‘The Lost Son.’ This title ties in with the other two stories of ‘The Lost Sheep’ and ‘The Lost Coin.’ (In one version of the Bible I consulted this week the title given to the story is ‘The Parable of the Compassionate Father.’)
But what does it mean to be ‘lost?’ To be lost means to be ‘misplaced,’ ‘gone,’ ‘gone astray,’ ‘off course,’ ‘disoriented,’ ‘confused,’ and ‘baffled.’
Used in the context of our evangelism efforts over the years a person who is ‘lost’ describes a person who has not ‘been saved.’ But, do people who are not Christians believe they are lost, or not?
Here is a short video clip from the ministry of Off-The-Map, whose purpose is to help Christians with some newer and different ways of helping people come home to God. (Slide 3)
What did you think? Are ‘lost’ people ‘lost?’ Remember what Katrina said, to be lost is to not be able to function. That is where the lost son, the impatient and younger son, ended up before he ‘came to his senses.’ (Today we might say, ‘he had to hit bottom.’)
Suddenly, a young man who had much had nothing because of his pursuit (and it is truly no different today) of pleasure and things that we are all lead to believe can really satisfy our deepest longings. His identity was tied into his wealth and his ability to have a good time and make it possible to have a good time. When that was gone, who did he become? He became a farm hand, just like his father’s servants.
Now working on a farm and working with your hands and doing manual labor is important stuff but this son was there not because he was looking for work. He was in a survival mode. He was hungry, he was not at home, he was broke, he was not functioning like he had once function. All of the bad choices he had made, finally caught up to him and he was lost.
However, one day “he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired men have food enough to spare, and here I am, dying of hunger!” (Slide 4) He was hoping that he would be welcomed home.
The title of our summer series is God is. Last week we took a long walk through the gospel accounts regarding the calling of the disciples. What might we conclude about who God is from that episode? Let me suggest this morning that we conclude that God is our leader who calls us to follow Him no matter where, no matter what.
What might we conclude this morning about who God is from the story of what I call the impatient and younger son? I suggest this morning that the most important thing we conclude about who God is from this story is that (Slide 5) God is our father who welcomes us home!
In his book, Mid-Course Correction, Gordon MacDonald, reviews the history of Ancient Israel, and their constant struggle to remain faithful to God. As he does so now at the age of 60 he says, ‘The stories of Israel that I have related in the last two chapters have left me shaken. I have known them all my life – at least I thought I knew them – but now in my older years as I write about them, they enter my hidden life with a brand new force.’
‘No longer,’ he goes on to say, ‘do I read them as biblical adventure. Rather, I read them in a more personal way. I am constrained with alarming frequency (and with deepening humility) to say, “I am Israel. I see myself among the people. I, too, am as capable of growing down as I am of growing up.’” (By growing down he means that we are just as capable of growing immature as we are of growing mature.)
I believe that this honest and gut wrenching statement , that we are all like Israel, capable of both growth and decline, is a part of this well studied Biblical parable about not just one but two sons, who get lost. One finds his way back to the father and ultimately home. The other is about one, (and think about this for a moment) who attitudinally walks out the door.
How do we come home to the Father, God, and how we stay at home and welcome others back? How do we stop growing down toward sin, immaturity, and soul failure? How do we grow up into the maturity of faith that the Bible teaches us to do? How do we allow God who is our father to welcome us back home?
The younger son helps us here. Verse 17 is a key verse in this passage. It reveals the turn of events in this young man’s mind, soul, and ultimately, life. Let’s hear it again: “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired men have food enough to spare, and here I am, dying of hunger!”
(Slide 6) I suggest this morning that in coming to his senses the younger son admitted the truth about his choices, accepted the outcomes of those choices, and attempted to rejoin his father.
In admitting, the truth about his choices, the young man, did not blame others for those choices. The first step in getting back in life and moving forward is to stop blaming: others and ourselves for our situation.
Blame is counter productive. It keeps us from taking a hold of responsibility to make changes and move forwards.
What if the young man had said, ‘Well a fine mess my dad got me in! If it was not for his money, I wouldn’t be here!’ (Some people think that way! It’s your fault!) He would have stayed on the farm! He would have probably died penniless and alone.
A key step to coming home is to take responsibilities for one’s life and stop blaming God, others, even the old Devil for the choices that one makes. This the young man does (though we keep in mind survival was foremost in this thinking at the time, ‘At home even the hired men have food enough to spare, and here I am, dying of hunger!”)
He also accepted the outcomes of his choices in admitting his hunger because of his choices. Acceptance is vital in moving forward because denial keeps us from doing so.
Admitting the truth about ourselves is hard at times. We don’t want to face the fact that we may have a problem – with anger, with food, with control, with disappointment, with a lot of things. But if we are going to come home we have to admit the truth.
This the young man did not. He said, in a moment of clarity, ‘I am hungry and I am hungry because of what I have done with what I was given.’ Honesty is essential if we are going to come home to the father.
Now if we admit the truth about our choices and we accept the outcomes of those choices (and sometimes, sometimes, the outcomes are not permanent) we need to do something to help us start making new and better choices that will lead us away from our present situation.
This the young man did – he attempted to rejoin his father. In verses 18 and 19 we hear his rehearsal for how he will attempt to rejoin his father. ‘I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired man.”’
Well home he goes and before he gets there, his father, filled with love and compassion, sees him coming and runs to meet his son. There is a great and awesome meeting between the two and the son begins his statement, (verse 21) ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’ That’s as far as he got because his father interrupts him, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger, and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening in the pen. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’
He is welcomed home…
But there is more to this story that I believe is as equally important and I think may have had a greater impact on Jesus’ audience that we have perhaps ever realized. It is about the second son. Let me simply make one observation from the Biblical text and then a couple of conclusions and we will be finished this morning.
The older son is angry with his father, “All these years I’ve worked hard for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the finest calf we have.”
(Slide 7)Why is he angry? A couple of things come to mind.
(Slide 7a) First, I think he was always jealous of his younger brother. I believe that it is important to understand the serious situation that the older brother was in because of his anger. I think that he secretly wished that he had had the guts to do what the younger brother did – leave home and celebrate! How many times in life have you and I gotten angry about a situation or a relationship or toward a person? And when we finally got honest with ourselves, jealousy of the person, the situation, and the relationship was part of the problem?
(Slide 7b) Second, he had a warped view of his father. I believe that this very responsible man saw his dad not has his dad but as his boss. In fact, in one translation of this passage the word ‘slave’ is used by the older son, ‘These many years I have worked like a slave…’ The younger son also had a warped view of his dad, which caused him to leave and to view him, really out of his shame and guilt, as a potential employer. But the older son was not seeing the relationship in the right way.
(Slide 7c) Third, he misunderstood the father’s purpose in the celebration. It was not to reward the younger son for the way he had lived. It was a celebration for the re-establishment of the relationship between a father and a son.
But the father was in danger of losing his older son not because dad was the problem, it was the attitude of the son, both sons in fact, that was problem. Yet the father, as we see, in his response to the younger son and in his words to the older son wants to have a solid and loving relationship with both of his children.
What then was Jesus trying to say? He was trying to make a point as we read in the opening verses of Luke 15. “Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such despicable people—even eating with them!” The tax collectors and other notorious sinners were like the younger son and the Pharisees and religious people were like the older son. One hung on every word that Jesus said and were hoping that God would take them back. The other group thought that they were right and perfect and had all of the answers. Jesus then told them a story about a compassionate and forgiving father who welcomes both sinners and ‘know it all’s’ home.
(Slide 8) Let us not forgot that no one, no one, including ourselves, are either too bad or too good for the loving and caring embrace and compassion of a God who wants to welcome us home. Amen.
