Luke 15:11-32 June 27, 2004
The Compassionate Father
Verses 1-2 1Now the tax collectors and "sinners" were all gathering around to hear him. 2But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."
Our image of God speaks directly to our behavior to others. The Pharisees were arrogant and judgmental – Jesus does not go after their character, but their understanding of God’s character.
The story of the prodigal son or compassionate father speaks against lies that we might believe about God that would cause us to have wrong attitudes and to act wrongly toward others and ourselves.
Wrong images of God
The impersonal force of the universe
The tyrant – Zeus – someone we slave for out of fear of that ever-present lightning bolt
The harsh judge – meting out sentences for wrongs done
Santa Claus – a repository of gifts, with little accounting for our lives
Most of us need a revision in or image of God – & in that new understanding of who God is we receive healing in our inner being, in our relationship with each other and in our relationship with God.
Read the story
The picture that we have of God in this story is much richer than I can bring out, but I want to draw out a few points.
The God Who Runs
Jesus paints this picture of a father waiting desperately for his errant son to return. He is gazing at the horizon every chance he gets to see if his son is returning, and when he does see his son, before his eyes know it is him, his heart does, and he does as most undignified thing for a wealthy man – he runs to him. In this culture you did not run if you had wealth and rank – you paid someone else to run for you! But the Father is desperate to see his son return. And he runs to him.
God is not a cold, calculating engineer of the universe who set the whole creation in motion, and now sits back and watches it work, tinkers with it every once in a while, like I do my bike to make sure it’s shifting okay. No, God is passionately involved with his creation, and he is passionately involved with us – he is our father, not our engineer.
Jesus tells two other stories to correct the Pharisees’ image of God before he gets to the story of the Prodigal Son. In one, God is a shepherd who has 100 sheep and when he puts them in the fold for the night he finds that one is missing. He leaves the 99 in the fold and searches for the lost one. When he finds it, he hefts it up on his shoulders and brings it home and rejoices with the other shepherds that he has found the one lost sheep.
In the next story, God is poor woman who had ten coins – drachmas – a day’s wage, and she loses one. She gets out the broom and a lamp, sweeps the whole house clean until she has found the precious coin, and rejoices with her friends when she finds it.
Jesus is telling the Pharisees, “You might see sinners and tax-collectors, the scum of the earth, God sees the lost sheep, the precious lost coin, the lost son… And look! They’re coming home! They’re being found! REJOICE!
The father in the story doesn’t stop at running to the prodigal son, he runs out of the party to draw the older brother in. Jesus is telling the Pharisees that God does not just run to the prodigals, he is running after them as well.
Our God is a God who runs, he is a God who searches. When Adam and Eve sin and turn away from God, what is God’s first question to Adam? “Where are you?” “My child has left my presence! Adam! Where are you?”
Some of you here might think that you are searching for God, but God is searching for you!
The God Who Forgives
We so much want to have a formula in which we say the right words, or do the right ritual actions and God forgives us. We create prayers to repeat after the preacher, we formulate penance prescribed for each and every sin – and if we don’t have a priest to formulate the penance for us, we “self medicate” and make some sort of formula ourselves to gain God’s forgiveness.
This story blows any formula out of the water. The son has gone over his repentance over and over again in his mind as he makes the journey home. "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." When he finally gets home he doesn’t even get the whole confession out and the father has already forgiven him.
We must get this – God wants to forgive us for everything that we have done wrong, he desperately wants to restore our relationship with him, he wants to remove any barrier that will separate us from him. The father is so quick and ready to forgive – the son does not have to force his hand, he is hand is already there. When he says 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” I think that he already had the best robe stored in the son’s closet, he had the signet ring on the dresser, he had the shoes by the bed. The special occasion that they were fattening the calf for was this special occasion! God is so ready to forgive us.
God did not wait until we came and asked for forgiveness to make a plan for our salvation. He didn’t say “oh, they would like to be forgiven, I guess I better send my only Son to die on the cross for them so that they can be made clean!” No, the scriptures say “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
I’ve been to evangelist crusades where the evangelist is inviting people come down to the front to accept God’s forgiveness, and they’ll say “just step out from your seat and walk down that aisle, God will meet you half way.” Beyond offending my reformed theology sensibilities, I want to say, “he won’t meet you half way, he’s right in the chair beside you saying, “can I forgive you? I really want to forgive you! Will you receive it?”
Our God is the God who forgives. “I am the God who forgives your sins and remembers them no more.”
The God Who Embraces
For some of us, we shape our image of God from our earthly fathers. And for some of you, your father was distant, never touching, or the most common touch that you felt from your father was a smack, or worse.
Our Heavenly Father is a father who truly embraces – once again, he is so ready to embrace that the son has to say his confession muffled by his father’s embrace!
In Henri Nouwen’s meditation of Rembrandt’s painting of the return of the prodigal, he sees the father’s great red robe with it’s arch-like shape to be a tent inviting the tired traveler to find some rest.
He goes on to write…But as I went on gazing at the red cloak, another image, stronger than that of a tent, came to me: the sheltering wings of the mother bird. They reminded me of Jesus’ words about God’s maternal love: "Jerusalem, Jerusalem … How often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you refused!"
Day and night God holds me safe, as a hen holds her chicks secure under her wings. Even more than that of a tent, the image of a vigilant mother bird’s wings expresses the safety that God offers her children. They express care, protection, a place to rest and feel safe. Every time I look at the tent-like and wings-like cloak in Rembrandt’s painting, I sense the motherly quality of God’s love and my heart begins to sing in words inspired by the Psalmist:
You who dwell in the shelter of the Most High
and abide in the shade of the Almighty-
say to your God: "My refuge, my stronghold,
my God in whom I trust!
...You conceal me with your pinions
and under your wings I shall find refuge.”
Arms of Love
(Craig Musseau)
My heart is glad
That you’ve called me
your own
There’s no place
I’d rather be
Than in your arms of love
In your arms of love
Holding me still
Holding me near
In your arms of love
The God Who Lifts
Max Lucado has a book with the large title “Just Like Jesus” and the small print reads “God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to leave you that way, he wants you to be Just Like Jesus.”
The reason the Son left home for a far off land was to misbehave. And when he comes home, he knows that he is returning not just to good food and a warm bed, but also to the holy lifestyle that his father leads.
God created us to life holy lives, and when we don’t live the way we ought we hurt ourselves, others and we hurt God. Holy living is the way that we were created to live and it is the healthiest way for us to live! To let us continue in our sin and not call us into holiness would not be loving. God invites us in, forgives us, and he also lifts us out of the sin that separated us from him in the first place.
Zechariah has a vision of the high priest in chapter 3 of his prophecy that is amazingly similar to the story of the prodigal:
“Then he showed me Joshua [1] the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD , … Now Joshua was dressed in filthy clothes as he stood before the angel. 4 The angel said to those who were standing before him, "Take off his filthy clothes."
Then he said to Joshua, "See, I have taken away your sin, and I will put rich garments on you."
5 Then I said, "Put a clean turban on his head." So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him, while the angel of the LORD stood by.
6 The angel of the LORD gave this charge to Joshua: 7 "This is what the LORD Almighty says: ’If you will walk in my ways and keep my requirements, then you will govern my house and have charge of my courts, and I will give you a place among these standing here.
8 " ’Listen, O high priest Joshua and your associates seated before you, …I will remove the sin of this land in a single day.
10 " ’In that day each of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and fig tree,’ declares the LORD Almighty."
God takes sin very seriously – he knows it’s killing us and it is his hope to rid us of it. He gives us clean new clothes, and he calls us to keep them clean with his help.
The God Who Celebrates
All three of the stories that Jesus tells in response to the Pharisees’ judgment of the sinners ends in a celebration. The shepherd rejoices with the other shepherds over the found sheep, the woman gathers her friends around to rejoice over the found coin, the father throws an extravagant party and invites the older son to join in.
The first two stories end by saying “I tell you there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent.” “In the same way, I tell you there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
If you are a Christian, God threw a party in your honor when you first came to Jesus. And there is going to be one big celebration at the end – it is called the wedding feast of the lamb! We are invited to a feast in our honor!
This is why I love the benediction from Jude: “To him who is able to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy!” “WITH GREAT JOY!” Not “To him who is able to present you before his glorious presence with quite a bit of fault and with great hesitation”
My kids received their report cards this past week and it brought back a flood of memories for me. Actually, one memory, just repeated each year: “Michael could do so much better if he would just apply himself.” The teacher would call out our names to get our report cards with her most cheery, end of the year voice, … until she got to me – Wilkins, usually last on the list, the cheer left her voice, “Michael Wilkins, I passed you, you need to do better next year.” I think I passed most elementary grades because of perceived potential and not accomplishment.
When the role is called up yonder, Jesus is not going to get to the Ws and say “Wilkins, I passed you (grudgingly), try to do better up here.” No he is going to present me without fault and with great joy to his Father and mine, and then we are going to celebrate!
Do you want to join us?
