“The Love of a Father”
Luke 15:11-32
The Prodigal Son is possibly the most familiar story in all of Scripture. It at least ranks in the top five. Why is that? Could it be because it is such good news for us? The story is told from all different perspectives but I want to concentrate on the Father this morning. Now Jesus told this story in response to a criticism by a Pharisee that he associated too much with sinners. So, he asks and answers the universal question that people have been wondering about since the dawn of time: What is God like? How would you describe God, Jesus? You are his son and he is your Father. Don’t we all wonder what God is like?
We have this judgmental God portrayed in the Old Testament that has carried over into some of the modern day churches: A God who always looks over your back, waiting to catch you in the moment, in the least little mistake. A God whom you fear like an abusive parent who is unpredictable and the child never knows which personality the parent will wake up with this morning: will it be all sunshine or will it be a tornado? Some children live on pins and needles. So do some adults. Certainly God judges us but through the eyes of Christ. Since Christ came, there is a lens through which God sees his creation. It is predictable, not abusive, or trying to catch your hand in the cookie jar, so to speak.
So we could say that some bad theology has remained from the time of the Pharisees to our time: Theology that as I stated before makes us afraid of God, like the little child is at the angry outburst of a parent. The Pharisees ranked sins and the more sin you had in your life the greater the hatred God had for you. I wonder if there were even some sins that banned you from God all together? There were even some professions that banned you from God: prostitution, tax collecting, and being a shepherd. These were viewed as unclean jobs.
So, around these images of an Angry God Jesus says, “Wait a minute, let me correct your thoughts of God.” And who knew better than God’s own son? The Pharisees were just waiting to nail him on his response. They knew the Law, they had the tradition, and they were God’s chosen. Jesus was just this weak little figure that spent his time with sinners and taught slanted theology, but they would give him a chance to speak, if for any other reason, to damn himself even more. How refreshing is the story of the Prodigal Son?
The son represents us in many ways. He is part of a family and has an inheritance, or a vested interest in the family. And one day the son becomes curious. “What would it be like to strike out on my own? To leave the boring fold? To ask for my inheritance and fend for myself in this brave new world? I love my father, but I don’t need him. Therefore, I will ask for my money and be my own man making it in this world on my own.” Isn’t that some of what the son thought? And don’t we have an inheritance with God and human nature tells us to withdraw our funds and fend for ourselves in this world, because we are independent, we don’t need parenting by God, and we can make it on our own.
How sad this must make the Father. He will let us go, but how he knows how much we still need him as a foundation, in times of trial, in times of danger. Any parent knows this. The rebellious child that is 18, can embark on the world, and is free to make their own choices. They may follow in our footsteps and go to college or get a good job – or they may take whatever is left of their inheritance they have received over the years and get involved with the wrong kind of people: Those that you have tried to protect them from all their life. But now it is their life, their choice, their consequences. And like this son, teenagers are not always the best equipped to make decisions without the guidance of their parents or whoever might fill that role. And certainly, God can fill that parent figure role for those who don’t have parents.
Let me tell you about a woman named Karen. Karen's alcoholic and abusive father abandoned his family when she was two years old. Every Father's Day Karen's mother made her write a card to the father she never knew. He never responded. Although he never accepted her, she found a different way to fill the void. She learned at church that God could be her father. Whenever she went out to play on her roller skates, she yelled, "Hey, God! Look at me!" She felt a special awareness of God's presence, as if He were smiling at her from heaven. Rather than focusing her attention on the man who abandoned her, she directed her affection toward God, who is a father to the fatherless (Ps. 68:5). Although she never received approval from her earthly father, Karen found security through her heavenly father. Karen has developed a healthy image of a father even though she was abandoned.
But the son strikes out on his own after asking for his inheritance which you notice the father gives him. He has to learn as painful to the father as this may be. Some of you parents know how painful it was to let a child go to make their own decisions that you knew they would make and also would get them into trouble. But you had to let go. Children have to grow up and face the music at some point, and some of the most well-meaning parents end up with the most rebellious children. Just ask God. We have all rebelled in our own way. But this is the only way we learn as painful as it may be for the parent to watch.
The son squanders his inheritance on wild living and ends up indigent feeding pigs. This is one of the worst insults Jesus could make of a fellow Jew in the Pharisee’s mind: To end up with the pigs. There is no worse place. And so after a while the boy comes to his senses and realizes that even his father’s servants have it better than he does. He will prepare a speech, go back to his father, repent, agree to become a hired hand – this will be better than feeding pigs. And so he makes that journey…and just as soon as he rounds the bend…the father sees him from far off.
Is it maybe that the father had spent much of his time on the porch wondering if he might see that shadowy figure rounding the bend? Is it that the father loved his son so much that he didn’t care as much what he had done as who he was to him? Can you see the father sitting on the porch at night with a flame lit, awaiting any sign? Isn’t that unconditional love? Love without conditions. Has that ever really made sense to you? Do you know someone loves you so much that when you go your wayward way they stand watch like a child waiting for his long-lost pet to return? Do you understand that you are a child of God? Who you are matters so much more than what you have done.
And what more does this father do? He runs to meet his child. Now, that is the second thing, along with feeding the pigs that the Pharisees would have trouble with. No one in Jewish higher society would be caught running, much less for this reason, in this fashion. But Jesus did what he intended to do – burst their image of God. Yes, God is holy and removed to a certain extent, but he is more personal than ever, as seen in the sending of his Son. He is involved in this world; he cares about the minor things; he has emotions like we do. And the father embraces his son and doesn’t shout at him but at the servant: “Bring the best robe, a ring, and kill the fatted calf, for my son was lost, and is found.”
What? No discipline? No, “I told you so!” No rejection? Why? God knows we have put ourselves through the ringer enough on this one; we have disciplined ourselves; we have felt the ultimate rejection, and we are the most vulnerable. We have already told ourselves a thousand times what a disappointment we are. We have rehearsed the apology. We have anticipated the rejection. We know all too well our lesson. And this is where our picture of God comes in that we talked about at the first of the sermon. This is not a God who is thrilled to say, “I told you so.” This is not a God who is thrilled to say, “I got you.” This is not a God who takes joy in your pain. This is not a God who is thrilled to say what a sinner you are. Why? Because you already know that, and you already feel the pain. God is just happy you returned, because some people don’t. God pursues, God searches out, God never gives up in his quest for your return.
Can we even comprehend such grace? I don’t know. The Pharisees couldn’t. They nailed that grace to a wooden cross. This grace is not human nature. It doesn’t come second-nature. It is difficult to comprehend. We who have been in the father’s shoes are more like the older son in our way of thinking. You get what’s coming to you. It’ll catch up with you. It may very well catch up to you in consequences you have to pay for your recklessness but that is for another day. Today we are just glad you are alive! We are just happy you returned to the fold! Some people are in constant search for that love.
Dan Jarrell was speaking at a Family Life Marriage Conference when a man came up and handed him a letter. The letter told of this man's lifelong desire to hear his father say, "I love you." His father had died in World War II, when this man was only three years old. His mother had often assured him of his father's love as he was growing up, but it didn't fill the void he felt. One day, this man, now 40 years old, was helping his mother move. She gave him an old Army picture of his father.
The picture suddenly slipped out of his hands and the frame and glass shattered all over the floor. As he picked up the mess, the man noticed a piece of paper wedged behind the photo. It was a letter from his father. He had known that he might die in the war, so he had written a letter to his three-year-old son and hidden it behind the picture. In the letter, the father shared all his love for his son. So at the age of 40, this man finally found what he had spent his life searching for: his father's love.
Friends, it’s time to crack open our Bibles and find the love letter. It’s been waiting here for as long as we have lived. Don’t pass it up. Don’t miss it. God has written it with the blood of His Son. And he will wait on that porch as long as He can, just like the father in our story, until you come home. Amen.
