March 18, 2007
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
It’s a familiar sight for the father with his family at a restaurant to sit near the outside so that he would pick up the check. Although this father cringes at the idea of ordering sweetened drinks for $4.25 a shot (a raspberry/lemonade at Cheesecake Factory) when tap water with a piece of lemon is free; it’s okay! Nevertheless, after the food has been consumed including desserts and after dinner coffee, the prodigal father pays the bill.
The word, “prodigal” has two meanings. The most common is “reckless” and “wasteful,” as the Prodigal Son in our parable was reckless and wasteful. He blew his inheritance. But a second, less common meaning for “prodigal” is more positive. It’s “extravagant, generous or profuse.” It’s someone offering “prodigal” hospitality, well beyond what was expected.
The Parable
The context of this parable is that tax collectors and sinners were coming to listen to Jesus. The Pharisees and scribes reacted to the presence of these people with concern that Jesus dared to associate with them. Jesus didn’t send these people away. He was practicing prodigal hospitality.
This parable is so familiar to us that I’m afraid that you may think that you have nothing more to learn from it. My hope is that each time we come to a text; we do so at a different point in life, and consequently, may hear familiar words in fresh ways. These parables of Jesus are always sneaky. Clarence Jordan said a parable is like a Trojan Horse; it looks harmless, you let it in, and then—Bam! It’s got you. How might this one get us today?
The story is about a man with two sons. The younger son asked for his inheritance so that he might make it on his own. In that age it was not uncommon for an elderly father to divide his property among his heirs and to retain the right to live in the home. According to Deuteronomy 21:17 the first-born would be entitled to a double portion of what is given to the younger son. In such a scenario, the sons obtain the right of possession but not the right to dispose. In the story, the younger son actually seeks full possession and full control of his portion. So the generous father lets him have his portion.
The younger son loses it all and is reduced to the worst of conditions. He was left to feed the pigs which meant that he couldn’t observe the Sabbath since he was in contact with what was considered unclean. He was hungry and couldn’t bring himself to eat the food the pigs ate. He comes to his senses recalling more pleasant days under the roof of his father and seeks to return to his father’s house content to serve as a servant.
With his prepared lines of confession in his head, the son returns home. But before he even had the chance to apologize, his father saw him in the distance and ran toward his son, put his arms around him and kissed him. As soon as the son shared his regrets, the father brought him a robe, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. He ordered the fatted calf killed so that they can have a party. We see a prodigal father who lavishly, generously paid the bill.
Modern Prodigals
In the AARP magazine (American Association of Retired Persons), it reports that modern prodigal sons and daughters returning to their parents’ home are becoming a norm in our culture. “Since 1970 the number of adults ages 25 to 34 living in a parent’s home has ballooned by more than 50%, to 39 million…” Some causes given in the article for this change are economic factors such as low starting salaries, the cost of housing, rising educational expenses, expectation of entitlement among young adults, and the ease of obtaining credit cards.
Suggestions of how to deal with modern prodigals are not as extravagant and full of grace as the father in Jesus’ parable. In contrast with the father who asks no questions, simply welcoming the younger son home with open arms, today’s parents are advised to make certain that the financial situation is laid on the table, and that the parents work with the adult child to help him or her to become independent.
One of the stories is Russ Smith age 19 who left his mother’s home in Virginia for Utah because he heard there were jobs there. He held a number of menial jobs such as working as a ranch hand, waiting on tables, and sorting cans. Making ends meet were difficult so from time to time he sought aid from his mother in paying his rent, the car payment, and food. His mother sent him enough to solve his problem but purposely never enough to get him home!
Honestly, I don’t agree with this position and these ideas. As parents we often set up larger and larger goals in life for our children and no matter what they do they constantly feel a sense of failure. Where is the grace in parents today? If we can have the same grace as the father in the parable, our children may also come to their senses and have a desire to come home. When they are armed with remorse, we can put our arms around them and re-established their place in our homes and moreover, in our lives.
Running Father
Nowadays, running is regarded as fashionable and a good form of exercise. But in Jesus’ days men didn’t run; to run was a sure sign you had lost all dignity. How many of us can visualize our fathers running to greet us? But this father, who let himself be taken advantage of, cares more about the boy than for his own dignity. He could have given the boy a thrashing, requiring him to pay penance. But he ran.
A minister tells a story about his oldest daughter Sarah who entered the church talent show. Just four years old, she sang “Somewhere over the Rainbow,” sitting cabaret-style on the piano as the father played the accompaniment. With no bias, the father thought that Judy Garland never sang it better. After the last note, the audience erupted in applause. The father and his little girl took a bow, and then hurried to the side stage where he swooped her up, twirled her around, hugged and kissed her, and said, “Oh Sarah, I love you.”
One of the church members was standing right there, looking at them. She said to the minister, “I wished my father had done that.” A little slow to catch on, the minister said, “You wish your father had played the piano?”
She said, “No, I wish my father had loved me.”
It seems to me that people struggle with their relationships with their dads. I hear it all the time. My dad wasn’t there. Or, when he was there, he just wasn’t there. This goes on and on, long after we’re grown, long after dad is buried and in the grave. And we look for substitutes, father figures, teachers, coaches, bosses, spouses, desperately seeking that blessing, that affirmation, something to fill the gap inside.
Jesus tells this story, I think for our healing. This story is for your craving to be satisfied. Your seeking is over. God, even now, is running toward you, lifting you, twirling you, hugging you, saying, “I love you.” God, your Prodigal Father runs and throws a party for you.
Extravagant Mayor
It seems to me that we need to give away in order to restore relationships. In verse 11, the father divided his living between them. It’s not that he gave the younger son some cash and hung on to the rest. He gave it all up to his two sons. When the father kills the fatted calf, and gives the boy sandals, a ring, the best robe; whose stuff is this anyway? It belongs to the older son! It’s his! He deserves it! He’s earned it; worked hard for it. This father just takes from the older son, who deserves what is his, and gives it to the brother who lost it all. The principle seems to be that this lost brother cannot be restored until some of the stuff that rightfully belongs to the older brother is given away.
Most of us—we’ve worked hard, we’ve earned what we have. We’ve got a lot of stuff and we deserve it. It is ours! But we need to let go of what is rightfully ours in order to restore that lost brother or sister. We need to part with what is ours not just for them but for our own joy!
Back during the years of the Great Depression, Fiorello LaGuardia was the mayor of New York City. One evening, a bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor walked into the courtroom where they were conducting night court for the poorest ward of the city, and he told the judge that the judge could have the rest of the night off and he would hear the rest of the cases.
Within a few minutes of taking his place on the bench, a tattered old woman was brought before him who has been accused of stealing a loaf of bread from a store. The woman explained that the bread was for her grandchildren. The children’s mother was gravely ill, the father had run off and abandoned them, and the children were starving. She had to steal the bread because she had no money to buy the food they needed.
Considering the extreme situation the elderly woman was facing, the mayor asked the shop owner if he might be willing to drop the charges, but he refused. He insisted that the woman was guilty of breaking the law and she had to be punished. Otherwise, the store owner said, others in the neighborhood would think it would be okay for them to steal as well.
The mayor then paused as he tried to decide what to do. But then he brought down his gavel and declared the woman guilty of stealing, guilty of breaking the law. He looked at her and said, “I have to punish you. The law makes no exceptions—ten dollars or ten days in jail.”
What was that grandmother to do? She didn’t have ten dollars—she didn’t have any money. And if she had to spend ten days in jail, who was going to watch her grandchildren until their mother got better?
But as the mayor was pronouncing the sentence, he was reaching into his pocket and pulled out a ten dollar bill from his wallet. Mayor LaGuardia said, “Here is the ten dollar fine, which I now remit; and furthermore, I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Bailiff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.”
The Bailiff ended up giving the woman $47.50, which was a huge amount of money in 1935, and fifty cents of that amount was from the grocery store owner she had stolen the bread from.
When we let go of what is rightfully ours and give it away to someone who is lost and is in need of love and forgiveness, we restore that person. The father in the parable first gave everything he had to his two sons. But when one was lost but is now found, the father took what belonged to his older son to give to his younger son in order to restore that relationship. Mayor LaGuardia gave his ten dollars and required everyone in his court room to give what was rightfully theirs to not only help this grandmother feed her grandchildren but to restore some compassion in the people’s hearts. Fiorello LaGuardia, the prodigal mayor picked up the check and paid for it!
The Prodigal Father
As we know this is not where the parable ends. The older son reacts with a demand for an explanation. He is offended that his brother is treated with more justice than he. He knew that the fatted calf, that ring, the robe, and the sandals were his. Although this older son never traveled far from home, he was as distance from his father as his brother was based on his attitude. He saw himself as a slave in his father’s eyes. He didn’t claim any relationship to his younger brother and referred to him as “your son.” The older brother was selfish in his own way and though he did not travel to a foreign land, he was as far from his father as was his brother.
Wisely the prodigal father refuses to take sides but loves them both. Just as the father ran to welcome home his younger son, he invites his older son to come in and enjoy the party, to eat of the fatted calf, to be restored in their relationship as a family. We don’t know what the older son finally does. We are left with a cliffhanger. Each of us is left to answer that for ourselves.
There’s nothing wrong with our modern day prodigal sons and daughters to try to make it on their own. They may desire for fortune, success, a good job, a fine home, security and glory. But if we are only seeking after those things, we are far too easy to please. Our dreams and goals are far too weak and short-sighted.
God wants to give us true wealth, genuine intimacy. We were not made for the far country, however, enticing it may be. We aren’t pigs. We are sons and daughters of God himself. We need not settle for less.
God is our Prodigal Father who lavishly, generously, profusely gives his love through his Son our Savior, Jesus Christ.
God our Prodigal Father pays the bill of our sins on the cross with his only begotten Son so that we don’t have to pay it anymore.
God our Prodigal Father out of extravagance blesses us with this church filled with faithful servants who think about the welfare of others before themselves so that surely we are becoming a loving and a more compassionate people.
God sees us in the distance and is running to meet us today.
Let us pray.
Gracious and loving Prodigal Father God, we thank you for your amazing grace and loving embrace. We thank you for running after us when we run away from you. Fill us with your blessings and empty us by using our gifts, talents, and power to forgive others as you have so forgiven us. Teach us, dear Lord, to go from this place with a renewed heart as you taught your disciples and the people about the Prodigal Father who is our Father as well. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.