I shall not soon forget the image he presented, this father of the bride. He had smiled all through the vast and elaborate preparations for the wedding; his daughter was a kind of elegant princess, he knew it, she knew it, everybody knew it – and so the princess must have a grand occasion. Too many invitations were sent out for the wedding service to be accommodated in the little church where I was interim pastor, so we moved to the much larger Baptist church down the road a few miles. Too many people were coming for mere family or even a small catering business to take charge of the reception. It had to be held at a hotel dining room, where it in fact took over for the evening the entire dining facilities of the establishment; they closed their restaurant to the public and made it exclusively available to this bride. And daddy smiled through all of the planning, all of the fussing about which color scheme to use and what menu to serve.
But when we all arrived at the reception banquet we were all greeted by father, still smiling to be sure, but with the pickets of his jacket and the pockets of tuxedo trousers emptied, pulled out to their full extent ••• empty. Empty as a wino's bottle, empty as a politician's rhetoric, empty as my head on Monday morning ••• and he stood there and grinned like an ape and greeted several hundred guests, having reached into the pockets until they were now utterly, totally empty.
But you see, it is the task of fathers to do that. Fathers are generally the folks who are called on to reach into the pockets and to provide. Most of us grumble a little about it and do not make quite as much a display as my friend did because we do understand, however reluctantly, that that's a part of what being a father is all about. We reach into the pockets, we pay the bills, we provide.
Oh how the Lord does prepare me spiritually for my sermons! I planned this topic some while ago, but spent most of the week, as you know, trying to represent you at the Southern Baptist Convention, and so I left off completely preparing the message until I got home. Well, thank you, Lord, for the bill for twenty-seven hundred and forty-three dollars for room and board and tuition for my son's next semester. Honestly, that university is so efficient they get the bills for next semester out almost before they get out the grades for this semester. So believe me when I tell you that I know whereof I speak … a father's role is to reach into the pockets (or in my case, into the bank's pockets for a loan) and to provide.
And not only to provide, but to smile while doing it. Ouch. But you know what? That’s the way it’s meant to be. Reaching into the pockets with a smile on your face. That’s the way it’s meant to be, because our Father God is like that. Reaching deep down, emptying ourselves, that’s what we need to do, because that’s what our Father God does for us. And we can learn from Him just how to do it.
You know the Scripture as the story of the prodigal son. And so it is. We will deal with him next week. But theologian Helmut Thielicke tells us we might just as well call it the parable of the waiting father. After all, he says, it is the father who is the central character of the story; it is the father who sets the temper of the parable. And it is the father at the beginning and the end who is the one who determines the outcome. The parable of the prodigal son? Today at least, let's see it as the parable of the waiting father, the spending father, the reaching down into the pockets father.
May I refresh you on the outline of the story? Our Lord asks us to imagine a father with two sons, the younger of whom looks up over the eggs and grits one morning to say, “Dad, I’m splitting. I am now a man, a great big grown up man, and I want what is mine. I am leaving, I am going to where it is perpetually summertime and the livin' is easy. Give me my share of the cash.” And where you and I might have countered by raising an eyebrow and querying, "where do you get this mine stuff?”, the father that Jesus tells us of simply pays it out and waits, reaches into his pockets and waits.
You remember what happens; you remember how this son spent it all in what the scripture calls riotous living – always wondered exactly what was hiding behind that phrase – and when he had spent all – poignant phrase, always wondered what feelings were hiding behind that one – when he had spent all, begged to come home. And the story tells us of a waiting father, his pockets pulled all the way out, empty, totally empty, but running to meet and to embrace his son.
There is more, much more, but it'll have to wait. That's why I'm doing three sermons on this story. Today, the waiting father, reaching into his pockets, empty, but with a full, full heart. That's who God is. That's who we are to be … fathers especially, but Christians in general too.
I
I notice, for one thing, that when you reach down into your pockets and give, you take a good deal of risk. There seem not to be any guarantees of success. You cannot say, well, if I just make all the right moves and pay all the right bills and choose all the right schools, my boy, my girl, will turn out all right. When you dig down into the pockets and give, as a father must, as a Christian will, you take risks. Even God, the waiting father, takes risks.
I am intrigued with the lean, spare language in this parable. Jesus has the younger son say to his father, "Father, give me the share of property that falls to me." And he, that is the father, divided his living between his sons. No argument, no questions. Why, if I had been that father, I would have said, "What are you going to do with this?" I would have said, "The share that falls to you -- son, in case you haven't noticed, this old corpse is still breathing. If it had been me, I would have cautioned, "Now, you know, you have to make this last the rest of your life. Put it in a savings account, take out shares in Jerusalem Federal Savings. Invest it in tax-free Roman provincial bonds – I hear Pontius Pilate wants to build a new aqueduct." I would have been scared out of my shoes by this demand.
But the father, says Jesus, divided his living between them. Digging down into his pockets, he took a risk. No strings attached, no lectures on prudence, no self-serving sermons about control … but trust and risk. Fantastic, isn't it?
Fantastic, yes, but, you know, that is exactly what God does with us. That is precisely what God the Father has done with every one of his children. You and I are placed on this planet and we are given all sorts of resources. God has held back no good thing from us. And he entrusts us with it, he takes risks with it. Think of it: this is God's universe, this is God's world, but you and I, his children, have said to him, “I want mine now. I want things and I want power, I want what is mine to do with as I jolly well please.” And He's given it to us, He's done it. The cattle on a thousand hills are his, but He allows us to slaughter them for hamburger! And what a risk he takes to let us have it; why, you know we are just about smart enough to blow up the whole thing and to destroy this beautiful blue marble and ourselves with it. But God in giving it to us has taken a risk. Reaching into his pockets means taking risks.
I wonder if that doesn't say to us that a part of what we have to do is to trust some risk-taking with the next generation. Maybe that says to us that we've got it wrong when we say to our children, "As long as you live under my roof you'll do it my way." Maybe it says instead that when my son or my daughter is headed down into the far country, I warn them, I teach them, I pray for them, but I do not leash them, I do not control them, I do not even try to protect them. Instead I trust them, even though I do know my trust will be betrayed. But I risk everything; I reach into the pockets and risk everything, so that one day there can be a homecoming.
So many times I have counseled with parents who wanted to choose a Christian college to protect their son or daughter. I tell them that if it is a Christian college, it will expose them to risks, with no guarantees.
Risk: it applies not only to fathers, and to Christians, but it even applies to churches. I visited the church my brother attends in Fort Worth. It's a huge complex of buildings, once glorious, still grand, but surrounded by a whole lot of nothing. The church rises like a castle out of several square blocks of vacant lots, worn-out industries, and highways, and the only dwellings are a few rundown slums whose residents are not likely to be attracted to this kind of sophisticated church. Sounds like a church about to dwindle down, doesn’t it? But they have embarked on a million dollar program of rebuilding their facilities and strengthening their staff in order to become attractive to a wide segment of the city – and it is a tremendous risk. It is entirely possible that that church might out-borrow its capacity to pay off the debt; it is entirely conceivable that having done all that work, no one will come. But, like the waiting father, they know that unless they reach into their pockets and risk, they will never go anywhere.
Playing it safe: that's not God's way, that's not the way of responsible fatherhood, that's not for God's people. We reach into the pockets and take risks, not knowing whether our investments will ever be returned, but waiting as God waits for us.
II
On the other hand, I also notice that the father in this parable reaches down into the pockets of love and of compassion as well as into his pants pockets, and that this is the key to the dynamic of his relationship with his son. It is not only things material that we are to give to our children, it is things spiritual, emotional, relational. Reach down into the pockets of the heart and find love and compassion.
What does the text say? After the younger son wastes it all and turns back home, because as Robert Frost says, home is the place where when you go there they have to take you in, he turns back home and the text says, "While he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him." Compassion and love: it did not matter at that magic moment that all the money was gone. It did not matter any longer that this son had done unspeakable things, you and I might even say unforgivable things, in the far country. It did not matter that the father's reputation had been dragged through the mud; one thing and one thing only counted now, and that was that this child is coming home and a father will reach down into the pockets of his heart and find compassion. A waiting father will dig yet deeper into the resources of his spirit and discover that the reservoirs of love have not run dry. It is not only things material we are to give our children; it is things spiritual.
The other night, sitting in my motel room in San Antonio, flipping through the TV dial in an effort to escape for a while after a long day of conventioneering, I happened on a drama about an aging father and his children. His son was a schoolteacher and not an entrepreneur like the father, and evidently Dad saw this son as a failure. The daughter had long since been written off because she had married somebody of the wrong race and religion; and the drama reached a climax as this father, coming to the end of his life, screamed out, "All I've ever been to you is a checkbook. All you ever wanted me for was to supply your food, your clothes, a roof over your head."
And I could not help but think, what a tragedy! What a travesty of fatherhood – for it is not only that children sometimes think of their parents that way, it is also that parents think they have discharged their responsibility when they have paid the Visa bill. It is also that parents think that their highest duty is to put together a package of clothes and housing and education and all the goodies. But we fail to give the most important gift of all, ourselves. Ourselves and our love, ourselves and our compassion.
Oh, can you catch the spirit of the waiting father in the parable? At one magic moment he is no longer a waiting father but a running father, a reaching out father. When his son was yet a great way off, he saw him, and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. My child is coming home; no matter what he has done, no matter where he has been, I care. I love him. I embrace him. And I want to give him myself.
I tell you, I suspect that many of us are guilty of criminal neglect. We've paid the bills, but maybe we spent so much time pretending that we were working hard to make the money that we avoided involvement with our children. We took care of all the physical needs, but we failed to pray for our children. We sent them off to school or to church or to this or to that, but we did it with a hard edge in our voices that never communicated compassion. We stood with our pockets picked but we did not reach down into the deep, deep pockets of the heart and spend very much love. And maybe we are saying to our sons and our daughters, “Don’t come home. Don' t come home." Can it be that we have said, “You’re no good, you’re ungrateful, don’t come home.”?
The thing is, men and women, you and I have been to the far country too. You and I have wasted what God has given us. You and I have squandered ourselves in undisciplined living. But the waiting Father has been there for us, and he has risked for us. He has allowed us freedom, and has risked the possibility that we might never come home to him.
But I want you to remember just how far God reached down into the pockets of his heart to give us compassion. I want you to remember what it cost our Father God to offer us a homecoming. Do not miss it … while we were yet sinners – that is, while we were yet in the far country – while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
Do not miss it: God so loved, God so had compassion, that He gave, out of the deep pockets of his heart. He gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him might have everlasting life, that whosoever comes home might have an eternal banquet of joy.
Do not miss it: the moment you and I turned toward God in our helplessness he saw us and had compassion and he ran, he ran all the way to Calvary and to a Cross and he embraced us there. And all we had to do was to come home. Come home. With nobody there to say, “I told you so.” Simply love waiting for us. And a Father all smiles, full of joy, reaching into His pockets.
