Sermon: THE PRODIGAL JESUS – March 14, 2010

Sermon:  Audio Portion Not Available

Scripture Reading: Mark 14:53-65

Feeling footloose and frisky, a feather-brained fellow forced his fond father to fork over the family finances. He flew far to foreign fields and frittered his fortune feasting fabulously with faithless friends. Finally facing famine and fleeced by his fellows in folly, he found himself a feed-flinger in a filthy farmyard. Fairly famished he fain would have filled his frame with the foraged foods of the fodder fragments left by the filthy farmyard creatures. ‘Fooey’, he said, ‘My father’s flunkies fare far fancier.’ Frustrated by failure and filled with foreboding he forthwith fled to his family. Falling at his father’s feet, he floundered forlornly. ‘Father, I have flunked and fruitlessly forfeited family favor.’

But the faithful father, forestalling further flinching frantically flagged the flunkies. ‘Fetch forth the finest fatling and fix a feast.’ But the fugitive’s fault-finding frater frowned on the fickle forgiveness of the former folderol. His fury flashed.

But fussing was futile, for the far-sighted father figured, such filial fidelity is fine, but what forbids fervent festivity? The fugitive is found! “Unfurl the flags, with fanfares flaring! Let fun and frolic freely flow!” “Former failure is forgotten, folly is forsaken! And forgiveness forms the foundation for future fortitude.” (The Prodigal Son Parable in “F” found floating around on the internet)

The letter “f” is the first letter of the character we look at today from the Parable of the Unprodigal Son.  The “f” stands for father.

The main theme of the parable has to do with the father’s love.  The main question asks the listener if they will respond to the invitation to participate in that love. The brothers initiate the question from two different places in life.  For whatever reason, both had been unaware of the gracious love of their dad.  In the end, the younger son who broke his father’s heart was the one to discover the immensity of his father’s love.  The older brother, from beginning to end, missed it.

Jesus tells the story of a son demanding his inheritance early and then running away from home.  His listeners, especially the religious rulers, were horrified as the boy committed one of the most despicable acts of disrespect any son could commit.

Jesus knew their thoughts on this disgraceful act, but also he also knew what they would be imagining concerning the reaction of the father.  Any good, honorable Jewish father would deny the request.  The normal response would be, at the very minimum, a hard slap across the face or some sort of public shaming. At the worst, according to Old Testament law, the son could be stoned to death.  A next step would be a publicly disowning of the boy. Oftentimes a family actually held a mock funeral for a child who disrespectfully abandoned home and family, declaring that child dead to them.

The Pharisees listening to Jesus tell the story were shocked to hear there was no such response.  Both the son’s request and the father’s relinquishment of inheritance with no response of anger and punishment were appalling.  Then it gets worse.  Instead of the father writing off his son as good as dead he expectantly prays for his son to change his mind and come home.  Day after day, he searches the horizon for the boy’s return.

Much to the disappointment of the Pharisees, the father’s prayer is answered.  The son comes to his senses.  He returns home.  Now what is the father going to do?  Surely, somehow, now he will save face.

Before we go on, we need to make a little shift in our own imagining of the scene.  I have always pictured the father and his family living in a mansion in the middle of acres and acres of Dakota farmland.  I imagined the spotting of the son on the horizon and the meeting between the two as a fairly private affair.

That would not have been how those listening to Jesus’ story back then would have imagined it.  People didn’t live out in the expansive country separated from their neighbors by large sections of land. The people lived in communities for protection, traveling out from those communities to their fields.  What they would have imagined is a father watching the horizon from his housetop and the spotted son walking, not towards a solitary farmhouse, but towards a village.  The return would be very public.

Already concerned about the shame the father has placed upon himself, the Pharisees expect that with the whole community watching, the father would save face with an honorable response to his son’s return.  The son might be expected to bow low and kiss the father’s feet in humility and disgrace.  More likely, the father would not even come out to see the son.  He would send a servant to inform the son he was not welcome or that he must first sit outside the father’s mansion for several days.  During those days he would suffer ridicule and abuse from the passersby who would be sure to give the son the “what for.”

The only question for the legalistic Pharisees was how and how much the father would shame and punish the boy to save his own honor, and give the son what he deserved. So what happens?

A dad and son listened to their pastor deliver a sermon based on the story of the prodigal. When the preacher got to the point where the father raced out to meet his returning son, he said, “Throwing wide his arms, the father said….” Before the preacher could finish the line, the boy sitting by his dad spoke out loud enough for everyone to hear, “YOU’RE GROUNDED!”

Actually, that was not the father’s response.  Before the son reaches the village, the dad runs out to him and before the son can get out a decent apology the father throws his arms around him in a great big hug and yells instructions to his servants to begin a welcome home party.

The Pharisees gasp in horror as once again the father shows no sense of honor.  No self-respecting, older Middle Eastern man would ever run.  Not only that, but the father touches – he hugs – a filthy, ragged son who smells like pigs.  And to top it off, the father offers no sentence of punishment. It is the son who should have been shamed.  It is the son who should have humbled himself.

Why would the father be so adamant in searching the horizon for his son day after day and why would he be so adamant in getting to him before he reached the village.  Is it possible he wanted to make sure that before the son received the insults and questions of the community he would know that his dad loved him?  Is it possible, before such public ridicule took place, the dad wanted the community to know just how much he loved his son.

It was an incredible act of mercy.  The father left his home and outside the walls of the city, he humbled himself and took upon himself the shame that rightfully belonged to his son.  Sound familiar?

There is no doubt that as Jesus shares this parable he is describing the incredible love of God, the Father.  However, considering the fact that Jesus and the Father were one, in this parable Jesus is also describing himself and his ministry.

As the father carried upon himself the shame of the sinful young man, so the son, Jesus, came to carry upon himself the shame of all sinners. Jesus walked the path of the prodigal so that no one could ever say he is unable to identify with him or her.  Jesus left his home just like the younger son, removing himself from the presence of his Father.  Jesus traveled to a far country, just like him.  Jesus lost everything he had, coming to the end of his life in great suffering and much humiliation.

Paul writes to the Philippians, “[Even] though [Jesus] was in the form of God, [he] did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And, being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross. (Philippians 2:6-8 NRSV)

The younger son took all that was coming to him.  Jesus gave up all that was his.  The younger son selfishly wasted all he had on himself.  Jesus allowed anything he did have to be taken from him.  When the younger son hit rock bottom with nothing, he repented, returned home and fell on the mercy of his father.  When Jesus hit rock bottom he went deeper still, separating himself completely from the life and love of the Father, taking upon himself the sins of the world and its consequence, walking through death and hell, making a way for everyone to come home.  It is a story like no other.

Henri Nouwen writes this in his book based on this parable: For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God.  I have tried to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life – pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures – to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself.  I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.

Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me.  The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by Him?”  The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?”  God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home. (The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri M. Nouwen, p. 106)