Luke 15:11-32 June 13, 2004
The Return of the Prodigal
Returning to the Father
Over the Last few weeks we have been looking at this story of the Prodigal Son with the emphasis that we are all called to become the father in the story. But I also recognize that unless we deal with our own prodigal nature or our “older brother” nature we cannot truly become the father. If we step into the father role while still in the unreconciled state of the two sons, we will only lead people down our wrong path, rather than back to the father. Today we are going to look at the Younger Brother, or Prodigal and next week the Older Brother.
Leaving Home
"A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, `I want my share of your estate now, instead of waiting until you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.
"A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and took a trip to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money on wild living.
The Son begins his leaving when he asks for his inheritance before his father dies. It is a hateful request he is saying to his father that he wants him dead.
Kennet Bailey writes:
“for over fifteen years I have been asking people of all walks of life from Morocco to India and from Turkey to the Sudan about the implications of a son’s request for his inheritance while the father is still living. The answer has always been emphatically the same … the conversation runs as follows:
Has anyone ever made such a request in your village?
Never!
Could anyone ever make such a request?
Impossible!
If anyone ever did, what would happen?
His father would beat him, of course!
Why?
The request means – he wants his father to die.”
The Son is saying to the father, the only thing you have for me is your money. He solidifies this statement that home has nothing for him by leaving for a distant country. Where he wastes his money on wild living.
Some of you might relate well to the prodigal – there was a time in your life when you wasted your money and yourself on wild living. For some of you, the wild life might be your greatest temptation and therefore this story relates well to you. But for the rest of us, we never went through this outward rebellious stage, and are not tempted by it, what does the prodigal have to do with us?
I think that we all at some time have left home like the prodigal or have been tempted to do so. Anytime that we go looking to find our life outside of our relationship with God we are leaving home to go to a far off land. By asking for the inheritance and leaving, the Prodigal is saying “I want to have your resources, but not you. We become the prodigal when we want God’s resources without him.
This is what Nouwen writes:
Leaving home is, then, much more than an historical event bound to time and place. It is a denial of the spiritual reality that I belong to God with every part of my being, that God holds me safe in an eternal embrace, that I am indeed carved in the palms of God’s hands and hidden in their shadows. Leaving home means ignoring the truth that God has "fashioned me in secret, moulded me in the depths of the earth and knitted me together in my mother’s womb." Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home and must look far and wide to find one.
Home is the center of my being where I can hear the voice that says: "You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests"-the same voice that gave life to the first Adam and spoke to Jesus, the second Adam; the same voice that speaks to all the children of God and sets them free to live in the midst of a dark world while remaining in the light.
He goes on later to say:
I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found. Why do I keep ignoring the place of true love and persist in looking for it elsewhere? Why do I keep leaving home where I am called a child of God, the Beloved of my Father? I am constantly surprised at how I keep taking the gifts God has given me-my health, my intellectual and emotional gifts-and keep using them to impress people, receive affirmation and praise, and compete for rewards, instead of developing them for the glory of God. Yes, I often carry them off to a "distant country" and put them in the service of an exploiting world that does not know their true value. It’s almost as if I want to prove to myself and to my world that I do not need God’s love, that I can make a life on my own, that I want to be fully independent, Beneath it all is the great rebellion, the radical "No" to the Father’s love, the unspoken curse: "1 wish you were dead." The prodigal son’s "No" reflects Adam’s original rebellion: his rejection of the God in whose love we are created and by whose love we are sustained. It is the rebellion that places me outside the garden, out of reach of the tree of life. It is the rebellion that makes me dissipate myself in a "distant country."
When I was on the board of the Syme-Woolner Neighbourhood and Family Centre, we had a man named Seth on staff to do harm reduction work among addicts and prostitutes. Seth said to me that when social service people speak about people “managing their addiction,” what they really meant was that they could afford it. There are the obvious prodigals – those who are trying to find life in obvious sins, and then there are the rest of us who are able to manage our prodigal nature. We are able to hide it because we leave home and try to find life in socially acceptable ways
How are you prodigal? Where are you trying to find what only God can give you? In your job, calling, abilities, in your family or other relationships is it in some sinful behaivior or in an addiction?
Give time for people to reflect.
Coming to Yourself
"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!
The prodigal began to feel the full brunt on the consequences of his behavior when he ran out of money and the land he was in ran out of food.
There is a certain point in our lives that we realize that all the things that we hoped would give us life, all the things that we thought would fill us up and give us a sense of belonging do not measure up. In fact, some of the things that we might hope would give us life actually bring death.
Jesus says in John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. Many times the things that we think will give us life actually suck the life out of us. It is Jesus who gives life.
At the point of realization we have a choice, between life and death. Do we continue to chase after life where it is not, or do we return home? It sounds like a no-brainer, but if it was then their would be no alcoholics, compulsive gamblers… because each of these people have at some point said to themselves, “this is killing me, I really have to stop this.”
Deuteronomy 30:19-20
This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life.
Even once we come to ourselves like the young son, we might see the reality of our life, but turning around and coming home to God might still be difficult. What might keep us prodigal even after the great “aha?”
- Pride,
- an idea that strength is being independent from everyone, including God,
- shame…
- thinking that God cannot forgive
Isaiah encourages us to get over these barriers and return home.
Isaiah 1
5 Why should you be beaten anymore?
Why do you persist in rebellion?
Your whole head is injured,
your whole heart afflicted.
6 From the sole of your foot to the top of your head
there is no soundness-
only wounds and welts
and open sores,
not cleansed or bandaged
or soothed with oil.
18 "Come now, let us reason together,"
says the LORD .
"Though your sins are like scarlet,
they shall be as white as snow;
though they are red as crimson,
they shall be like wool.
19 If you are willing and obedient,
you will eat the best from the land;
20 but if you resist and rebel,
you will be devoured by the sword."
For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.
Returning Home
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."
The prodigal returns home knowing that he messed up, and knowing that he will be better off if he could even be hired on to his father’s home. He tries to return as a servant, not a son. There is still some trust in himself – his ability to earn his keep, but the father welcomes him, not as a servant, but as a loved son.
How to return home:
We return to God the same way that the son returned to the father. We admit that we were wrong that we never should have left home – that all that we need in life is found right here at home with the father. We admit that living in a far off land without God leads to death not life. We admit that the things that we have been running after to find life do not lead to life, it is only in relationship with God that we find life.
You might say “I never left home for a far off land, I was born in a far of land…I never left God, my ancestors left him, and they raised me never knowing I had a Father, or a home to return to.” While the prodigal had a home to remember, some of us only have a knowing that the way we are living now isn’t working. You only have an emptiness in your soul that can only be filled with the love of the Father. The road home is through Jesus Christ.
“Father, I’ve done wrong in Your eyes, and in mine. I’ve tried to find life, love and significance away from you. Please forgive me and take me back into your household. Show me what it means to live and be loved. Through Jesus Christ, Amen”
Receiving Forgiveness
"So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long distance away, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, `Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. ’
"But his father said to the servants, `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.’
Wow! The son must have been overwhelmed with the response his dad has for him. You would think that as the son walked home and rehearsed his confession, he would have expected to knock on the door, to be let in to have an audience with his father. But no, the father runs to him and rejoices with his return, refuses to bring him on as a hired hand and welcomes him as his son, back from the dead! That must have been a little hard to handle for the son. Sometimes God’s extravagant forgiveness is a little hard for us as well.
Nouwen writes:
One of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life is to receive God’s forgiveness. There is something in us humans that keeps us clinging to our sins and prevents us from letting God erase our past and offer us a completely new beginning. Sometimes it even seems as though I want to prove to God that my darkness is too great to overcome. While God wants to restore me to the full dignity of sonship, I keep insisting that I will settle for being a hired servant. But do I truly want to be restored to the full responsibility of the son? Do I truly want to be so totally forgiven that a completely new way of living becomes possible? Do I trust myself and such a radical reclamation? Do I want to break away from my deep-rooted rebel- lion against God and surrender myself so absolutely to God’s love that a new person can emerge? Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing. As long as I want to do even a part of that myself, I end up with partial solutions, such as becoming a hired servant. As a hired servant, I can still keep my distance, still revolt, reject, strike, run away, or complain about my pay. As the beloved son, I have to claim my full dignity and begin preparing myself to become the father.
I love the story of Les Miserables – it is an amazing story of grace shown to Jean Valjean. But the sad part of the story is that Jean Valjean never completely receives his forgiveness. He forever feels like he does not deserve the blessings that God gives him. Although he lives a life of purity grace and generosity, he always sees himself as an ex-convict and refuses to receive the blessings God gives him. He even receives the love of his adopted daughter with the remorse of a penitent man, not a forgiven son.
We can do the same. Even unconsciously – about ten years ago I realized that I seldom obeyed Jesus in how he teaches us to pray and call God “Father.” In my prayers I usually called him Lord. When I examined myself on this, I realized that my primary image of God was that of a judge, not father. So I’ve trained myself to call Him Father, and through this my primary image has shifted, and the waiting father in this story is my favorite and primary imager of God.
We cannot completely embrace the love that God has for us as long as we come to him as servants to a master. When we accept our adoption as sons and daughters we can embrace his love and come in and join the party.
Galatians 4:
4But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, 5to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. 6Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, "Abba,[1] Father." 7So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.
Joining the Party
“So the party began”
There is a small paradox in the story – the son repents from leading the party life in a far off land, and when he returns, is forgiven and reinstated, they throw him a party! The amazing thing about God and his forgiveness is that he doesn’t take all the things that we messed up away from us. Mind you, the son was partying in a sinful way in the far of land, but with the father he is celebrating in holiness. If we are trying to find our life in other things like a job, or relationships, or our spouse, when we repent, it is not that God takes these things away, but he puts them in perspective, so that the things that we expected to gain life from becomes just part of the life that we have in relationship with God.
Seek first the kingdom…
Lose your life to save it…
When we allow ourselves to be forgiven and embraced by the Father, we can receive his gifts with gratitude, knowing that they are gifts from the Source of our life, they are not the source of life, but only a part of it.
In the presence of the father, we can celebrate and enjoy the party.
