March 22, 2000
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April 30 Lesson
The Father awaits the prodigal with open arms
___Luke 15:11-32
___11 Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.
___13 "Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
___17 "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' 20 So he got up and went to his father.
___"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
___21 "The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
___22 "But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.
___25 "Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and you father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.'
___28 "The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'
___31 "'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'"
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___Psychologists years ago coined a phrase called "tough love" to describe an effective response for parents grappling with disobedient children.
___Tough love is a love that sticks out the tough times. It is a love that lets others make mistakes because that may be the only way a person will learn. It is a love that waits patiently for others to come to their senses.
___The parent who exercises tough love recognizes the point where additional sermons do more harm than good. This is the parent who makes his displeasure known but allows the child to follow his own course because it is the only way he will learn. This is the parent who allows her child to experience the consequences of sin.
___And this is how God often deals with his children as well. God's love is tough love.
___The Parable of the Prodigal Son found in Luke 15 is told by Jesus in the context of answering the Pharisees' criticisms. The Jewish legalists couldn't understand why Jesus and his disciples associated with sinners and tax collectors.
___Jesus tells a trio of related parables, one about a lost sheep, another about a lost coin, the third and longest about a lost son. His message is that God the Father welcomes wayward children who turn back to him. Though we abandon God for the far country of sin, he stands ready to redeem us when we finally come to our senses.
___Love that lets go
___The father of the prodigal loved his son enough to let him go, even though he knew the son was making a bad decision.
___In Deuteronomy, Jewish law mandates a father must leave a double portion of his estate to his eldest son. So if a man had two sons, he would give two-thirds of his wealth to the older son and one-third to the younger. The Pharisees Jesus was addressing would have known this law by heart.
___The father was required to distribute his estate this way, but he was not required to do it before his death. Yet when the younger son came with his brash demand, the father agreed. He didn't have to agree, though. The same portion of Jewish law also provided for parents of a wayward son to have him stoned by the men of the town.
___Imagine the trouble it would cause to settle an estate before the father had died. The father might have had to liquidate assets since his son wanted money to burn. Accommodating him affected the lives of every family member who remained at home. Yet the father agreed.
___Then the son set off for a distant country. The Greek scholar A.T. Robertson says this phrase means the son burned all his bridges when he left.
___Once on his own, the son squandered his wealth in wild living. This was not just immoral living, but extravagant living. The son was a spendthrift, living a life of sinful excess on all fronts.
___Despite all this, the sin of the son was not that he asked for something from his father. The sin of the son was that he cut himself off from his father's love. Although the father reached out to the son in love, the son broke away. He denied his status as a son.
___We all are like this rebellious son. Although we enter this world under God's care, we turn away from God's plan for us. We determine that we have a better way to live. We tell God his ways are old-fashioned. We rebel.
___And God's love for us is like that of the prodigal's father. God allows us the free will to make decisions, whether good or bad. God's tough love takes a risk on us.
___Trace this story line all the way back to Genesis, where humans were created in the image of God. This image of God gives freedom. God placed Adam and Eve in the garden with unlimited privileges. His one command was that they not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Yet God allowed them to make that choice. God took a risk.
___And then Adam and Eve made the wrong choice. But God's love kept seeking.
___Just like Adam and Eve, just like the prodigal son, our yearning for selfish freedom leads us into the far country of sin. Once on that journey, we waste the precious gifts God has given us.
___True love waits
___As the days drug on, surely the father had to know his son was suffering the consequences of his poor decisions. Being older and wise, he must have known the money would run out.
___The father also must have known about the famine described in verse 14. Imagine his distress knowing his son had likely squandered all his wealth and was stranded in a country where there was not enough food.
___Perhaps the father considered going after his son. Perhaps he thought about timing his search to reach the son just about the time he would hit bottom. Perhaps he thought he might save the son from want by going to get him.
___But the father's tough love prompted him to stay home and wait. He didn't stay home because he didn't care. And he didn't stay home because he lacked the means to search for his son.
___Instead, love compelled the father to wait. The father knew his son would learn no permanent lesson from being rescued. He knew his child must experience the painful consequences of sin to remember its reality. Rescuing the son would have ruined the lesson.
___And what a lesson the son learned. Faced with famine, he hired himself out to slop pigs.
___The Pharisees Jesus was speaking knew what a hideous thing this was. It meant the son had reached the lowest place possible. Self-respecting Jews would have nothing to do with pigs, which were considered unclean animals. Jewish law strictly prohibited eating or working with swine.
___The situation was so dire that the pigs were eating better than the son. The pods referenced in verse 16 probably are carob pods. The fruit of this common Middle Eastern tree was eaten only by animals and the lower classes. But the son couldn't even get enough of this.
___His physical needs brought him to a turning point. He finally "came to his senses." He awakened from his denial of reality.
___Once he realized the consequences of his sin, the son turned in repentance. Regardless of the son's foolishness, we must credit him with having enough sense to admit his mistake and seek restoration.
___Repentance is evidenced by his plan to ask his father to make him like a hired servant, the least of the entire household. Ordinary slaves were more like family members, but hired servants lived on the outside and could be dismissed with only a day's notice.
___Such a turning point from sin is God's hope for us as well. Although God has allowed us to enter the far country of sin, he also lets us stay there until we acknowledge our need for him.
___The first step toward repentance is to realize the sorry state we're in and seek God's help. We must put behind the delusions of grandeur in the far country. We must admit the discrepancy between what we say we are and what we really are.
___Embracing love
___After all this, the father loved the son enough to take him back.
___Imagine the son coming up the pathway, through the town. Others who passed him probably saw only a bum--a dirty, ragged, beggarly has-been. They would see only the mess the son had made of his life.
___But the father saw something different. He saw his son--a person in need of restoration, a child of worth trapped in a worthless shell.
___And so the father ran to meet his son. This is significant because older Jewish men did not often run. It was not proper. But the phrase Jesus uses here is the same one the Apostle Paul uses frequently in his letters to describe athletes competing in the games, runners running a race. At the first sight of the prodigal, the father burst forward in love.
___The father was filled with compassion. Here Jesus is talking about the deepest kind of compassion possible. Outside the parables, there is no other biblical usage of this word to describe the acts of humans. It is a word always used to describe the loving attributes of Jesus.
___The father had been patiently waiting while his son tinkered with the fleeting pleasures of sin. And now, seeing his earnest prayer fulfilled, the father reached out in love to grab hold of his returning son and kissed him over and over and over again.
___Although the son was deserving of a stern lecture and the lowly position he asked for, the father gave him a hearty welcome, marked by three gifts and a celebration. The robe was a long coat, a symbol of wealth. The ring was probably a signet ring, a symbol of legal authority. The sandals signified the son was part of the father's family rather than a slave. Slaves did not wear shoes; children of the father did.
___Homecomings
___The kind of homecoming a prodigal can expect depends on the kind of father he returns to. Jesus uses this story to tell us our Father God is a loving parent, longing to receive his children who turn back to him. Today, God stands seeking all who are estranged from him.
___Many of us as prodigals fear that making restoration with God would be too painful, too humiliating. We think it's too late or we're too far gone.
___The truth, however, is that punishment comes in sin, not in repentance. It is while we are separated from God that we suffer sin's consequences. Upon repentance, God's forgiveness begins. Sin will be judged; repentance will be rewarded. Realizing this, we ought to fear sin more than repentance.
___No matter where you've strayed or what you've done, God stands ready to take you back. Just as it takes one simple step to enter the far country of sin, so it takes only one step to turn around toward God's forgiving love.
For thought and discussion
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