Luke 15:11-32 May 23, 2004
The Call to Become the Father
“The Return of The Prodigal Son” by Henri Nouwen. This is one of my “must read” books for Christians – I even recommend it for non-Christians. If you haven’t read it yet, read it this summer. We’ll have a little book discussion on the beach at family camp.
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to looking at some things that impacted me from the book. I read the book years ago, but I think that these things are important for us to hear now.
Let’s start with the story
Story of the Lost Son
Jesus told them this story: "A man had two sons. The younger son told his father, `I want my share of your estate now, instead of waiting until you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.
"A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and took a trip to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money on wild living. About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. He persuaded a local farmer to hire him to feed his pigs. The boy became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.
"When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, `At home even the hired men have food enough to spare, and here I am, dying of hunger! I will go home to my father and say, "Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired man." ’
"So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long distance away, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. His son said to him, `Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. ’
"But his father said to the servants, `Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger, and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening in the pen. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’ So the party began.
"Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, and he asked one of the servants what was going on. `Your brother is back,’ he was told, `and your father has killed the calf we were fattening and has prepared a great feast. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’
"The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, but he replied, `All these years I’ve worked hard for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the finest calf we have.’
"His father said to him, `Look, dear son, you and I are very close, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’ "
In the story, you might find that you relate most with the prodigal son, who rejects the father, runs off to spend himself and his wealth in wild living, hits rock bottom, comes to himself and returns to the father repentant.
You might relate well with the older son who has always been the good boy and felt unappreciated, never really knowing the father’s love for you and angry when those who do not deserve it receive it.
You might relate well to the father in the story, especially if you are a parent. Possibly you have a child, or someone you love who has run off to a far off country to live wildly, and you are waiting for their return
Last week I led you through a meditation on who you most related to in the story and what God is saying to you as you are in that place, and then we talked about how, no matter where you are in the story, the end is not to only be reconciled with the father, but the end is to become the father.
There is something easy about continuing to see ourselves as the prodigal returned, or even the older son. That way when we are tempted to run off to wild living or when we are tempted to become judgmental of other’s sins, we can half excuse ourselves by saying “well it’s not surprising that I’m temped or fall this way, I really am the prodigal, or I really am the older brother.” When we live only out of a reflection on these two characters in the story, our only job is to receive the father’s love, forgiveness and embrace. When we recognize the call to become the father, we do not walk away from the need to God’s love forgiveness and embrace, but we are called out to extend that love to others. One of the problems in family life is that we have prodigals and older brothers giving birth to prodigals and older brothers. No one takes up the call to become the father in the story.
This is not some weird new-age idea of becoming God, but it is a calling into the character of the father in the story. Our inheritance as children of God is not just eternal reward, or even relationship with the heavenly father, but we are also to inherit the character of God.
Last week I described this call to be the father in terms of taking responsibility for those around us, and a call to compassion. These two things need to go together. The reason that Jesus told this story, as well as the story of the lost sheep and the lost coin is because the Pharisees were upset that Jesus was welcoming the tax collectors and other notorious sinners. The Pharisees were religious leaders an probably felt some responsibility for those sinners as well as the rest of the Jews, but they had little compassion for them. Their sense of responsibility was probably confined to responsibility to see their sins punished.
I want to take us further into this call to become the father
A Call to Grief
One of our mothers approached me last week and said that she related most to the father in the meditation that I led. Her experience of being the father was that of grieving over the wayward lives of her children.
You do not have to read too much into the story to see the grief of the father. Grief over the lost son – he describes him as having been dead. He felt the sting of rejection as the son left, and the sting of knowing that the life the boy went to was not one that leads to life, but choices that lead to death. You can hear the grief in his voice as he responds to the older son “Look, dear son, you and I are very close, and everything I have is yours. We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!" The younger son rejected the Father’s rule, but the older son rejected the father’s heart. Both broke his heart.
(blessed are those who mourn)
To take the father’s role is to accept grief. When we are made aware of other’s sin, our first response is often anger. Don’t get me wrong, God gets angry with sin, but he is also deeply grieved. We see this grief in Jesus as he is entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday: Luke 19:41-42
41As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it 42and said, "If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace--but now it is hidden from your eyes.
Nouwen says that this grief is a way to the fatherly compassion that we are called into. This is what he says: It might sound strange to consider grief a way to compassion. But it is. Grief asks me to allow the sins of the world-my own included-to pierce my heart and make me shed tears, many tears, for them. There is no compassion without many tears. If they can’t be tears that stream from my eyes, they have to be at least tears that well up from my heart. When I consider the immense waywardness of God’s children, our lust, our greed, our violence, our anger, our resentment, and when I look at them through the eyes of God’s heart, I cannot but weep and cry out in grief: …
…This grieving is praying. There are so few mourners left in this world. But grief is the discipline of the heart that sees the sin of the world, and knows itself to be the sorrowful price of freedom without which love cannot bloom. I am beginning to see that much of praying is grieving. This grief is so deep not just because the human sin is so great, but also-and more so-because the divine love is so boundless. To become like the Father whose only authority is compassion, I have to shed countless tears and so prepare my heart to receive anyone, whatever their journey has been, and forgive them from that heart. p. 128
“Oh break our hearts with the things that break yours” – Kevin Prosch
The call to become the father is a call to grieve over the sin of the lost sons.
A Call to Forgiveness
The father doesn’t remain in his grief. He is not like the parent that says to their wayward child over and over again “you broke my heart!” by which they mean “you broke my heart and now you’re going to pay for it!”
This picture of the father and his embrace of both sons is one of my favorite pictures of God’s grace in the Bible. The younger son comes with his whole, heart-felt confession planned out, and the father doesn’t even allow him to make his speech because he has already forgiven him.
God the Father grieves our sin, they break his heart, but the paradox is he is so ready to forgive us that he even jumps the gun to forgive us before we get all the words out. God so wants our relationship with him restored, that he does all that he can to forgive us of the sin that has so deeply wounded him. As Romans 8:32 say, he did not even spare his own Son! He gave him up so that our sin might be paid for, so that forgiveness could be offered to us and our relationship could be restored.
There are other Christian denominations that call their pastors priests. Part of the job of a priest is to proclaim absolution or forgiveness to people when they have confessed their sins. What Peter tells us in his first letter is that we are all priests – 1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”
It is not that I am the priest, and you are the people, and I proclaim God’s forgiveness to you. We are the priests, the people are out there. We proclaim God’s forgiveness to each other, but we are called to proclaim God’s forgiveness to the prodigals and the older brothers out there as well. Part of the call to be the father in the story is to understand that you are a priest. You are the priest to your family, you are the priest on your street, you are the priest in your office, on your shop floor, in your school. You are there to proclaim the glory of God and to proclaim forgiveness upon anyone who comes and asks for it in Jesus’ name! We are not a community of faith with one or two priests, we are a company of priests of the one and only God!
This is part of what it means to answer the call to become the father.
The difficulty is to forgive when it isn’t just some vague anonymous sin that a friend has committed. The difficulty is when the sin has been against you.
This is what Nouwen writes:
It is this divine forgiveness that I have to practice in my daily life. It calls me to keep stepping over all my arguments that say forgiveness is unwise, unhealthy, and impractical. It challenges me to step over all my needs for gratitude and compliment. Finally, it demands of me that I step over that wounded part of my heart that feels hurt and wronged and that wants to stay in control and put a few conditions between me and the one whom I am asked to forgive.
This "stepping over" is the authentic discipline of forgiveness. Maybe it is more "climbing over" than "stepping over." Often I have to climb over the wall of arguments and angry feelings that I have erected between myself and all those whom I love but who so often do not return that love. It is a wall of fear of being used or hurt again, It is a wall of pride, and the desire to stay in control, But every time that I can step or climb over that wall, I enter into the house where the Father dwells, and there touch my neighbor with genuine compassionate love.
Grief allows me to see beyond my wall and realize the immense suffering that results from human lostness. It opens my heart to a genuine solidarity with my fellow humans. Forgiveness is the way to step over the wall and welcome others into my heart without expecting anything in return. Only when I remember that I am the Beloved Child can I welcome those who want to return with the same compassion as that with which the Father welcomes me. p.130
A Call to Generosity
The father in the story goes beyond understandable generosity. The generosity might be harder than the forgiveness. He gives the son all he asks for before he leaves, then he showers him with gifts upon his return. “Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger, and sandals for his feet. And kill the calf we have been fattening in the pen. We must celebrate with a feast, for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found!!!”
He reminds me of Alistair Sim’s Scrooge when he wakes up on Christmas Day – except that the transformation is not in the father – it is in the son.
It is an amazing picture of our God
Ephesians 1
3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. 4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will-- 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. 7In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace 8that he lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. 9And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, 10to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment--to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.
He is just as generous to the older son, although the older son never realized it. He says: “Everything I have is yours”
This is the generosity we are to have as part of our calling to become the father.
Nouwen writes:
“In order to become like the Father, I must be as generous as the Father is generous. Just as the Father gives his very self to his children, so must I give my very self to my brothers and sisters. Jesus makes it very clear that it is precisely this giving of self that is the mark of the true disciple. “No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.””
We are called to have this generosity with each other, and especially for the poor.
Deuteronomy 15:11
There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land.
To be the father is to be generous.
In the movie, “City by the Sea,” Robert De Niro plays a cop with a drug addicted son. At one point in the movie, the son’s girlfriend comes to see De Niro. He gets angry at her and asks What is it you want from me? Do you want money? Do you want me to fix him? What is it? She says, “I just want you to be his dad.”
When Jesus tells this story, it encourages us with the love that God has for us as the prodigal or older son, but it also calls us to be the dad.
To take responsibility for those God has given us, to deal with them in compassion through grief, forgiveness and generosity.
