By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 10th, 2013
“Then the Father said to him, ‘Son, you
are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.’” (Luke 15: 31).
Ed Young tells of a father and mother who
were seated at the dinner table with their 17 year old son. And almost in a casual way, yet very planned
and deliberate - the boy said, "Dad, I wonder if it would be alright if I
used your car tonight. Bill has a date
and I've got a date and we are just going to the movie and if you will let me
use your car - I promise you I'll come straight home and I'll be here by
11:30."
The father glanced at his wife with a
knowing nod and with unspoken communication that takes place across years of a
marriage relationship. The father looked over and said, "I think it will
be alright. But you have to make sure that you'll be home by 11:30."
Now this son eats the rest of the meal
but he is excited. It is the first night that he has gone out in this way. It's
the first time he has been out at night with the car by himself. And so he gets
through eating and he leaves and you can be sure that father and that mother
were restless that evening. They tried to watch television; they walked around;
they read; the telephone rang a time or two and they talked to some
friends - but about 11:15 - they were
really on edge ..... just listening for that car to enter the drive.
The telephone rang. He picked up the phone and a voice said,
"I'm a nurse at the hospital. There has been an accident involving a
member of your family. We don't think it is too bad." The Dad interrupts
and says, "Is he hurt very bad?" "No. We don't think it is very
bad. We think he is going to be alright. He is just shook up a little bit. The car
is fine." And then the father says, "You tell my son that I'll be
down there immediately to pick him up."
The nurse said, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. It's not your son
who is here - it is your father who is here." And that Dad looked at his wife and said,
"It's not the boy Mabel - it's my dad." And then he commented in
almost a haphazard way - "It looks like we've been worrying about the
wrong generation!"
I wonder if it is possible that we’ve concerned
with the wrong generation in this beloved parable. It is not just a parable of one wayward son,
but it’s really a parable of two sons; one younger and the other, the elder. The original title was not “The Prodigal Son”,
but it was titled by Luke’s first words:
“A Certain Man had Two Sons”
(Luke 15:11). Most importantly, it’s not
primarily a story to tell us about these sons, but it’s a story to tell us
about God’s attitude toward sinners; both sinners who have been far away and sinners
who have stayed close at home. Which description
of a sinner fits you? Are you someone
who has been far away from God, needing to finally come home, or are you a
sinner who’s never gone away, but has become hardened, resentful, and cynical
of God’s lavish, extravagant, excessive love?
The point Jesus most urgently
wants to make with this parable is that both of these “sinners” are loved by
the Father. Both of these sons can have all that the Father has. Both of these sons are invited to the party to
celebrate this one who ‘was lost and has
been found’.
In the beginning of my ministry, I
purchased a book on the parables of Jesus by Lloyd John Ogilvie, a popular Presbyterian
minister at that time. The book entitled,
Autobiography of God helped me to
understand how these parables of Jesus are far than moral stories, but they are
‘windows’ to allow us to see straight into the ‘heart’ of God. Ogilvie opened his book of parables telling
about “The Prodigal God”:
“Rivet
your attention on him. Don’t take your
eyes off him. Observe his actions and
reactions. Listen to him, fell his heart
break, sense the depth of his relentless love.
He is the central character of Jesus’ greatest parable….The Father. The spotlight is never off him. He is at the center stage the moment the curtain
goes up. He dominates every scene even
when he’s offstage. The two sons are but
supporting characters, vivid contrasts to the Father. Change the scenery and his gracious love
still thunders through. He speaks both
when delivering his eloquent lines and when he silently waits. Who is the father? Jesus hoped we’d ask. The father is God; and God is the real
prodigal. This is the parable of the
prodigal God! (Autobiography of God, by L. J. Oglivie, Regal Books, 1979,
p. 9).
According to Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary,
when used as an adjective the word ‘prodigal’ means, “spending
money or resources freely and recklessly; or wastefully extravagant”. The synonyms paints the full spectrum of someone
who is lavish - profuse - extravagant - wasteful – a spendthrift or squanderer. We can understand how this could be applied
to the wasteful and reckless younger son, who took his inheritance and
squandered it in self-indulgent living.
But who would dare refer to God as a wasteful, or as someone has
suggested, one who is a loony over love?
Who has a problem with that? The
Elder Brother did.
Our text tells us how ‘the elder son’
approached the house and overheard the music, dancing, and joy going on inside. “What’s
going on?” He asked one of the
slaves. “Your brother has come, and your Father has killed the fatted calf,
because he got him back safe and sound” (v. 27). “Then”,
our text says of the Elder son, “he
became angry and refused to go in” (v. 28a). Isn’t it rather interesting, that as we come
to the conclusion of this story, how it is this ‘elder’ brother--the one who
stayed home---the one who was responsible and obedient to the Father---now he
is the one who seems so lost and so far away from home? Ironically, when the story ends, he is the
one demanding everything the Father has, only for himself.
The late Henri Nouwen once wrote that,
as a Christian, he was constantly reminded that he was much more like the “elder
son”, than the younger one (See The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Henri
J.M. Nouwen, Image Books, 1994, p. 68ff). The same is
true about most of us who have grown up in church, who come to church, and who
want what we can get from God. Few of
us have lived lives like the younger son; making life hard on our parents,
wasting our money in wasteful, reckless, spendthrift living. We were taught better than that. Most of the time, we’ve done better too. But all our responsible, righteous living
does not mean that our hearts beat with the lavish love of the Father. Just because we’ve never been away from
home, does not mean we now feel at home in God’s house. We can be lost and out of the Father’s love,
not because we’ve run away, or because God has locked us out, but because we
ourselves have become callous, selfish, hardened, or stubborn toward God’s work
in the world and in us.
For one thing, like the elder son, we
too can be lost in the Father’s house when we let our lives become full of resentment. Don’t you see expression on his face? Can you see it in your mirror, when others, maybe
much less deserving, receive something you wanted for yourself?
Again, Henri Nouwen writes, “Did you ever notice how lost you are when
you are resentful? It’s a very deep lostness. The younger son gets lost in a much more
spectacular way — giving in to his lust and his greed, using women, playing
poker, and losing his money. His
wrongdoing is very clear-cut. He knows it and everybody else does, too. Because of it he can come back, and he can be
forgiven. The problem of being lost in
resentment is that it is not so clear-cut: It’s not spectacular. And it is not overt, and it can be covered by
the appearance of a holy life. Resentment
is so pernicious (underhandedly evil) because it sits very deep in you, in your
heart, in your bones, and in your flesh, and often you don’t even know it is
there. You think you’re so good. But in fact you are lost in a very profound
way.” (From Fear to Love: Lenten Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal
Son, (Fenton, Missouri: Creative Communications for the Parish, 1998), 13-14.
Speaking of anger and resentment as one
of the deadliness sins, Fredrick Buchener wrote: “Of the Seven Deadly Sins, anger is possibly the most fun. To lick your
wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue
the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last
toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving
back--in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that
what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.”
Perhaps this is how we can best
visualize the ‘lostness’ of the elder son, he is “the skeleton at the feast.”
What would bring the elder son
home? What would put flesh back on his
bones? What would enable him to get over
his resentment? With this story of a
Prodigal Father, a Father filled with forgiveness, love and grace, even for the
worst of sinners, this elder son is invited to the party, to give in to love and
to start giving back, not merely holding on.
I love the way professor Tom Long, visualized the way home for the lost, elder
son, with a story from one of his seminary students. This young man and his
father, an inner-city pastor, were jogging in their neighborhood when they
decided to have a pizza delivered to their home. On their way to the pay phone
a homeless man asked them for change. Without a second thought the father
emptied his pockets and said, “Here, take what you need.” Enormously grateful,
the homeless man took every last coin.
But as he turned to go, the father
suddenly realized that he had given away the change he needed to make his phone
call. “Pardon me,” he called to the man. “I need to make a call. Can you spare
some change?” Turning, the homeless man emptied his pockets. As he held the
change out to the father he said, “Here, take what you need.” That’s what you find when you find a
generous, rather than a resentful heart.
When we live like this, holding on to
resentment and holding out on becoming generous with all our hearts, what we
miss out on is the very joy of life. Isn’t
this the other way the Elder son was lost?
He was ‘lost’ at home, even though everything was ‘right’ between him
and his Father, he lived separated from the Father’s joy because things were
not right between him and his brother.
When things are not right between us and
others, the prodigal Father, this God who is even a bit loony over love,
invites us all to come to God’s party of grace and restore the joy in our
lives. Do you have the joy?
A few years ago, some members of a
church went on a mission trip to Central America, to Nicaragua. For three weeks they lived in the homes of
Nicaraguan Christians. They worked with
them, studied the Bible with them, ate with them, and worshipped with them. The American Christians were very impressed
by many aspects of the faith of the Nicaraguan Christians, but most of all, by
the great sense of joy these people had in their worship and in their lives. These Nicaraguan Christians were very poor.
They had no color televisions, no SUVs, no computers, no cell phones. All they had was Jesus, and their worship was
free, spirited, and full of joy. The
American Christians came home wondering if we were missing something. Where,
for us, is the joy, where is the great joy of our faith, the great joy of
worship, the great joy of being in the house of God? ( From a sermon by Tom Long, http://day1.org/471-is_there_joy_in_gods_house).
In this parable, of not just the
prodigal son, but of the prodigal God, Jesus would like to tell us where the ‘joy’
is. Jesus says the ‘joy’ of life and
the ‘joy’ of God’s house is when we come to the party that welcomes all kinds
of sinners---not just the most obvious sinners, but even the most resistant sinners---the
most unobvious sinners just like us.
For you see, as Henri Nouwen rightly said, “resentment and joy cannot coexist”. You cannot have the fullness of joy in God’s
house, if someone is holding out on forgiving, accepting, or enjoying the
gracious gift of the Father’s love.
However you interpret this parable, beyond
all private interpretations about who is a young, wasteful, immoral prodigal,
is this only one who is lost in his own house.
The elder brother is the ‘last man standing”, who is stubborn,
resentful, and a party-pooper. It is the
Father who leaves the party and goes out into the field seeking the elder,
responsible son. He is the real ‘party
pooper’ who is trying to steal the Father’s joy. However, the Father is not angry with them,
but he begs, pleads and invites them to come in the house of joy, of dancing,
and feasting on the Father’s extravagant love.
But will this elder son come in?
Will he come to the party? Will
he forgive his brother and accept the Father’s invitation to come to the
party? Or will he be the one son, who will
be lost forever, and never, ever really be found? Jesus did not answer that question, because
only you and I can answer it.
Here this final story: A woman was reminiscing about her father. She
said that when she was young, she was very close to her father. The time she
experienced this closeness the most was when they would have big family
gatherings with all the aunts and uncles and cousins. At some point, someone
would pull out the old record player and put on polka records, and the family
would dance. Eventually, someone would put on the "Beer Barrel
Polka;" and when the music of the "Beer Barrel Polka" played,
her father would come up to her, tap her on the shoulder and say, "I believe
this is our dance," and they would dance. One time, though, when she was a
teenager and in one of those teenaged moods and the "Beer Barrel
Polka" began to play and when her father tapped her on the shoulder and
said, "I believe this is our dance," she snapped at him, "Don't
touch me! Leave me alone!" And her father turned away and never asked her
to dance again.
"Our relationship was difficult all
through my teen years," she wrote. "When I would come home late from
a date, my father would be sitting there in his chair, half asleep, wearing an
old bathrobe, and I would snarl at him, "What do you think you're
doing?" He would look at me with sad eyes and say, "I was just
waiting on you." "When I went
away to college," the woman wrote, "I was so glad to get out of his
house and away from him and for years I never communicated with him, but as I
grew older, I began to miss him. One day I decided to go to the next family
gathering, and when I was there, somebody put on the "Beer Barrel
Polka." I drew a deep breath, walked over to my father, tapped him on the
shoulder and said, "I believe this is our dance." He turned toward me
and said, "I've been waiting on you."
(Also from Tom Long’s, There is Joy in God’s House, Day1.org).,
Standing at the center of our life is
the God who says to us, "Everything I have is yours. All that I am is for
you, and I've been waiting on you."
God is waiting, not only on the sons and daughters who have lost
everything, and need to be saved, but God is also waiting on the sons and
daughters who have lost nothing, except the very love the Father has that could
bring them so much joy, if they would only come to the party. Will you come? Amen.
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