Dirt Roads & Donuts
Luke 15:11-32
It was big. It was brown. And it was ugly. But to a 12-year-old boy it really didn’t matter what it looked like. Now if the boy had been 16 it would have made all the difference in the world, but when a young man is first learning to drive, he’ll drive anything. I’m talking about my grandfather’s 1972 Ford Galaxie 500. It was the car I really learned how to drive in, and I used to drive my grandfather around the woods of south Jackson Parish so he could “look” at his timber.
My grandfather had rheumatoid arthritis and was unable to drive himself. Actually, he was unable to do much of anything so my brothers and I spent much of our teenage years helping “Papaw” do the things he was unable to do for himself. Driving was one of those things, and he always wanted somewhere to go. His going afforded me the chance to learn to drive at an early age. He would let me drive him around in that old brown car and I loved it.
I remember the first time he let me drive it by myself. I had rehearsed it in my mind how I would manipulate the situation to get to drive. I would offer to take him for a ride if he wanted, and if he were not in the mood to go riding, I would ask him to let me take the car down to the “Snow Place.” The “Snow Place” was not really a place at all. It was only a couple of miles from my grandfather’s house, and it was referred to as the “Snow” place because a family by that name used to live there (you folks who grew up in the country know how places got their names!). I hatched my plan and I went into Papaw’s room, and just like I planned he was resting.
“Papaw, want to go for a ride” I asked?
“No, not now. I’m resting,” came his reply.
My plan is working I thought. Now for the clincher.
“Well, how about letting me drive down to the Snow place and back,” I asked?
“Okay, but be careful, and come straight back,” Papaw said.
I thought I had died and gone to heaven. My first solo trip. I walked out to the car (I should say floated), and with all diligence, backed the car out of the drive. I eased the big brown machine down the dusty road, around the curve, across the “branch”, and finally up the hill to the Snow place. There was a wide fork in the road at the Snow Place, and being the typical 12 year old I was, I could not resist the temptation to “cut a donut” in the middle of the fork. I hit the accelerator and around that big brown car went.
“Not a half-bad donut,” I thought as the car came to rest in the center of the road. And fun, too. Let me try that again. Once again, I stomped the accelerator, and that big brown car did the prettiest dive into the nearest ditch you have ever seen. When my heart got out of my throat, and after I said a few things a 12-year-old should never say, I got the nerve to get out and see what damage I had done. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I discovered there was no damage. I figured no harm, no foul. So I got back in the car to back it out of the ditch. You guessed it! The car wouldn’t budge.
Let me make a long story short. After two hours of sweating (and not a little crying), my uncle showed up. He didn’t say much. He just sort of had this silly smirk on his face. He got in the car, turned the wheel in one direction, hit the accelerator, and the car came right out (it is amazing what a person can do when they know what they are doing). My uncle told me it was time to get in the car and head home.
When I couldn’t stand it any longer, I asked my uncle, “Are you gonna’ tell Papaw,” I asked?
He simply looked at me and grinned. “No. You are!”
Well, I did tell Papaw, and you know what he did? He said he knew. Anytime a 12-year-old takes two hours to go two miles there must be something wrong. He asked me if I learned anything? I said yes, and that I was sorry, and that it would never happen again.
Papaw said, “Good. Now take the car down to the Snow place and turn around and come back.”
I couldn’t believe it! He was trusting me to drive alone again after I had made such a stupid mistake. But I took full advantage of the opportunity.
Now that I am so much older and wiser I look back on that episode and realize that my grandfather was painting for me an awesome portrait of God’s grace. That’s exactly what Jesus was doing in sharing the story we’ve come to know as the story of the prodigal son, but it’s really the story of God’s grace because it’s a story about God (the story does begin with “A MAN had two sons). Yes, we learn a lot about ourselves in the story, but it’s what we learn about God that is most significant, and what I learn is about God’s grace.
I’m not sure we always understand grace when we talk about it—especially God’s grace. What, exactly, is grace? We can say it is God’s unmerited favor. Unmerited means we can’t earn it. It’s a gift from God of His life, his love, his forgiveness, his acceptance. How do we know it’s a gift? It’s in the word itself…the Greek word, that is. Charis is the Greek word for grace, and it is the root for the Greek word charisma, which means “gift.” Grace is, for me, not getting what we deserve. Romans 6:23 says: “For the wages of sin is death…” What we deserve is death. But, the verse goes on to say, “but the free gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord,” which means we get what we don’t deserve. So, grace is not getting what we deserve, but getting what we don’t deserve—life, and that is God’s life. Grace is God giving Himself to us, and when God gives Himself to us we discover three things—grace loves totally, grace accepts unconditionally, and grace restores completely.
Grace loves totally. The father loved the son no matter what he had done. There was nothing that could separate him from the father’s love. I get the picture of an old man going out to the road everyday looking for this lost son, looking one way and then the other, longing desperately to see the son coming home. How do I know? Verse 20. It says, “while he was still a long way off…” Before the son ever made it home, the father saw him coming, and what does the father do? He runs. Forget for a moment that old men aren’t supposed to run in polite Jewish 1st century culture, but he was looking. I also like what it says before he ran… “ and being filled with love…” He was filled with love. Love led the father to disgrace himself by running to this lost son. The son’s place was with the father. The father demonstrates that no amount of distance can ever separate the son from the father’s love. What a lesson we all need to learn. Grace loves totally.
I also discover that grace accepts unconditionally. I like the way Brennan Manning said it: “God loves you as you are and not as you should be because no one is as they should be.” I’m not sure any of us will ever be as we should be. I think this son had a Dr. Phil moment. You know what that is, right? On the Dr. Phil show, the guest will give this long sob story about how everything’s gone wrong in his or her life, and it’s usually everyone else’s fault. Dr. Phil will let them finish their story and look at them and say, “How’s that working for you?”
That’s where the son found himself when he was dining in the pig pen. It says, “when he came to himself.” His plan was to go and confess his mistakes to his father and pray that his father would take him back. Just make me a servant. What he was saying was, “Let me earn my keep.” He goes back, and before he can make his confession, the father falls on him and kisses him. The father didn’t have to hear the confession. He already decided to forgive before the son ever came home. Forgiveness is a decision of the will. Forgiveness is never dependent on confession. Confession is for us. It is our awareness that something is wrong and opens us to receive the gift that’s waiting for us. Grace accepts us unconditionally.
One more thing I see is that grace restores completely. Grace places us back in the proper relationship with the father. The father said let’s party. Bring a robe and sandals, and here son, here’s the ring…it was the father’s signet ring. It was the father giving the son the authority it act on his behalf. It was a complete restoration of the son to the family. You know what? That’s just too offensive to some people! Like the older son. The older son’s reaction? “He doesn’t deserve that!” No, he didn’t. That’s why it’s grace. Too often, though, it’s not about what the other person does or doesn’t deserve. It’s about what I’m not getting. The older son said, “All this time I’ve been here, and you’ve never given me…” Uh! Oh! There it is. The one thing that keeps us from celebrating God’s grace in the lives of others—ME! The older son was really saying, “What about me?” We become offended when God extends His grace to those we feel don’t deserve it. We never quite understand that God’s got enough grace to go around for everyone.
There are a couple of challenges I see. One, we need to accept our own acceptance. We saw this last week with Zacchaeus. We need to quit trying to earn our way into the Kingdom. We need to quit trying to earn God’s grace. Just accept that God loves us, forgives us, and want to be in relationship with us.
The second challenge is to become like the Father. We like to find ourselves in the stories Jesus tells. It helps us identify with the players. We can easily enough find ourselves as the younger son. We’ve all been there. We have, on occasion, seen ourselves as the older son, offended when we don’t understand the nature of the father’s grace, but the real challenge is to become like the father, to love totally, accept unconditionally, and to restore completely those who are lost, those who are broken, those who are in need of God’s grace. Ultimately, it’s a challenge to become like Jesus. This isn’t really a story about God as much as it’s a story about Jesus. Jesus came to seek and save that which is lost. That’s what he told Zacchaeus, remember? He was searching for us, he ran to us on the cross of Calvary, and redeems us, restores us and reconciles us to God, the Father. Our challenge is to become like Jesus.
That’s the kind of life my grandfather lived. He painted me a wonderful portrait of grace. You know, I never cut another donut. At least not in Papaw’s car anyway.
