The Prodigal Father Series

FAILURE

The younger son failed in his endeavor to make something of his life apart from his Dad. He wanted to become a big shot. I am sure his original plan was to return to his village someday, but return with money—to pay back his Dad. He wanted to come back with gifts to make restitution for the way he hurt his Dad, His Family, and his Village. But it didn’t work out that way. He spent everything he had, scattering it across the land. He wasted his time, energy, money, talents and resources trying to make a name for himself apart from his Dad. He was a spendthrift and he ended up spent! He spent everything he had trying to accomplish this plan and it didn’t work. Verse 14 tells us: “After he spent everything, there was a severe famine in the land, and he began to be in need.”

Don’t we do the same thing? We leave God to make a name for ourselves, to be popular. We leave God to make a name for ourselves, to make people like us. We leave God and spend all of our inheritance, all of our time, money, talents, etcetera so we can prove to us and others we have value in an of ourselves without God the Father. It doesn’t work though. We are left spent, drained of our resources, in want and need! Our self-worth ends up in the toilet or in famine apart from God!

GO HOME?

You would think after all of this the young son would go home! Wouldn’t you? But he doesn’t, does he? Have you ever wondered why? I think there are two reasons: 1. He doesn’t think he can; and, 2. He doesn’t want to admit he is nothing without his Father.

Why doesn’t he think he can go home? Here’s why. Remember I said that the young song squandered or as the Greek text says he scattered his wealth in a distant country. In other words he lost his inheritance to the Gentiles! You didn’t do that in Jesus’ day! This young boy would never go home because he would be scared of the town’s people. In fact the townspeople would never think of allowing him to return home unless he earned back what he lost. Here is what would happen if a Jewish young man lost his wealth to a Gentile like this young man did.

KEZAZAH

The villagers would conduct a Kezazah Ceremony. Kazazah means cut off. It was a cutting off ceremony. It symbolized that the man who lost his fortune to the Gentiles would be cut off from his people. If the young son decided to return, the villagers would find out very quickly what had happened. Before he even reached the village, the townspeople would take a clay pot and fill it with the ashes of burnt corn and nuts, a pot like this one, only bigger!

The villagers would take the pot and meet the man that lost his fortune to the Gentiles outside the village. He couldn’t come back! They would push him, prod him, make fun of him, maybe beat him up a little bit. Then they would start chanting so and so is cut off; so and so is cut off; so and so is cut off…over and over and over again.

Finally they would take the clay pot filled with ashes and throw it to the ground. It would smash to pieces spilling ash everywhere symbolizing that the one who lost his fortune to the Gentiles was broken, cut off, and dead to the people of the village. He would have to go somewhere else. He was not welcome there until he had earned enough to cover what he lost—which never happened, because the young man would be cut off from his family, his friends, and any resources he could use to gain what he lost!