See Father Run

July 26, 1987

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Scripture: Luke 15:11-24

It’s too big to handle with any kind of completeness. I know that. There’s simply too much there to get your arms around, or for mere human words to encompass. No preacher in the world can do it true justice. To try to preach on the Parable of the Prodigal Son, I think, is sort of like standing at the foot of Mt. Everest, with rope and pick-axe in hand, looking up at the vast expanse of rock and snow above you.... or like being handed a brush and palette on the first day of art class, and told to reproduce the Mona Lisa.... or like being asked to go into a corral of unbroken stallions, armed with only a chair and whip, and instructed to break them for a hayride tomorrow night.

J. Wallace Hamilton, the greatest preacher in the history of the Florida Conference, did, in fact, write a whole book of sermons on the Prodigal Son story, and entitled it, “Ride the Wild Horses.” Even he couldn’t tame it completely. It’s that big.

There’s enough material here, enough physiological, sociological, and spiritual material in this one story so that a preacher probably could wring 50 or more sermons out of it and still not squeeze it dry.

It’s been called “the gospel in miniature. It’s been called the most exquisitely crafted story ever written. There’s not a wasted word, not an excess syllable in it from start to finish, and I suppose it would be next to impossible to imagine a more poignant image of God than the picture in this story of the Father running up the road to throw his arms of love and welcome around the neck of that boy. If you’ve ever had a child of your own, you know. “This my son was dead and is alive...” I can hardly quote it even from this distance without feeling the goose bumps run up and down my spine.

I know I can’t do justice to it. The story itself is its own best interpreter. But there’s no way you can talk about the parables of Jesus, as we’ve been doing this summer and leave this one out. We’ll do the best we can, and if we don’t finish it today---because, of course, there are really 2 main parts to the story---we’ll come back later and do what more we can.

Maybe the best approach is to see it as a series of unfolding scenes.....Scene I is the Father’s House, where there are many rooms. The cast of characters is 3, A Father, an elder brother, and a younger brother, plus servants who fill up the background. If there were other people living in the house, we’re not told about them.

Picture it, if it will help, sort of like the Cartwright family in the old T.V. series “Ponderosa.”[1] I’m not suggesting that God should be thought of as Lorne Greene writ large, but, interestingly, the word “ponderosa” is a Spanish word, and it carries the connotation of weighty, large, expansive, which is also the essential meaning of “prodigal.” Prodigious is the cognate form, and it means, not wasteful, as we often think, but abundant, overflowing, extravagant, expansive....

We usually misapply the modifier, give it to the wrong character. Prodigal is a more appropriate adjective for the Father than for the son. The parable really is a story about God’s prodigious grace..... ponderosa.

In the beginning, though, back at the Ranch, the younger boy had no inkling for that... Raised in grace surrounded by it, saturated in it, he had no appreciation of its buoyancy. Like many another young man spreading his wings, all he felt was the tightness of the rules imposed on him, the do’s and don’ts of the House, the structures of the Father’s regulations... Despite everything he had, the blessings, the benefits, the built-in advantage of being a child of the King, he felt “boxed in.”

Oh, he knew his Father loved him, but why did he have to be so hard on him? Why couldn’t he give him more rope? Frankly, the Old Man got on his nerves sometimes, the old Geezer.... Why can’t I be more independent? Why can’t I have a car of my own? Why do I have to come in at a decent hour, as He calls it, on Saturday night? IT’S NOT FAIR! How can Pop be so arbitrary as to forbid my seeing R rated movies, or going out with the gang to J.J. Whispers?[2]

That’s how the younger brother thought, and I’m not quoting now from creative imagination. I don’t have to. I’m quoting from memory. Some of you could do the same, for the Bible is more than just a history book.

Actually, nothing new about any of this. It’s not only contemporary, it’s as old as humankind itself. When Adam and Eve were “children” in the original Father’s House, that Garden, the Ponderosa called Eden, Paradise...they also balked at the strictures of the Father, remember?.... the limiting “thou-shalt-nots that are always there, that HAVE to be there as reasonable boundaries to keep life from falling into chaos. THE RULES OF THE FATHER IN THE HOUSE, LIKE THE PROHIBITIONS OF GOD IN THE GARDEN, WERE NOT CAPRICIOUSLY IMPOSED OUT OF SPITE, OR SOMETHING.... They were put there in love, as something solid to push against, to help children grow toward maturity. Wise parents always do that. That those loving guidelines were recklessly ignored is the tragedy of the Garden of Eden, which is not a story about 2 people, but about ALL people.

The younger brother in this parable, of course, knew nothing of that. He didn’t know he was replaying an old, sad song. He thought he was the first person ever to feel so intensely about freedom. To him freedom meant, simply, doing whatever you want to do, a pretty paltry definition of freedom.

Maybe they discussed it together, Father and son... Maybe it was a discussion topic at the dinner table. The elder brother probably threw in his 2 bits worth. Maybe they argued.... We’re spared the family squabble details in the recounting of the story. Enough to say it came finally to a head. I guess I see the boy, intense, driven, determined to taste life, to see for himself, to try his wings....and the Father, wise enough, and big enough not to humiliate him by pulling rank. It’s the way of God, always, even when our own best interests are at stake.

I don’t know whether the young man looked back over his shoulder at the Father’s House as he went whistling down the road with his inheritance jingling in his pocket, but I’m absolutely sure the Father was watching out the window as he disappeared, and I’m sure that from that moment on not an hour passed when there wasn’t a prayer on the Father’s lips for the welfare of that boy.

Scene II shifts to a lavish apartment in a place called “the far country”. What a pad! See a young man living it up.... I mean, STYLE.... dressed fit to kill—Pierre Cardin neckties, Gucci loafers, Ralph Lauren Polo Cologne.... People turn around in the street to look at him when he zips by in his BMW. He has hot dates coming out of his ears.... a full calendar, a Diners Club card, a glorious life.... He has developed a taste for culture, a scorn of plebeian art. He appreciated the rich things, knows the right people.... He’s made countless friends, or at least acquaintances. He’s making an impression, the envy of everybody, a SUCCESS... outwardly.... yet some depend more and more on them. He collects not for need but for show. He becomes a user, a consumer, an exploiter.

He even begins to treat people as things, and want to add them to his trophy case..... The more he has the more he craves, the more he craves. the more restless he becomes, the more restless he becomes, the harder he drives..... It takes more and more to satisfy him.

His sense of gratitude is first dulled, then stifled. He forgets completely that everything he possesses is there because of his Father. He wouldn’t have any of it if it hadn’t been for Him. (You want a good stewardship illustration? A tragic one, but a powerful  one---- There it is, in that lavish apartment in the far country...outwardly sparkling, inwardly empty... It’s like Oscar Wilde’s famous dead mullet on the beach in the moonlight— “It glitters, but it stinks.”)

For, you see, he forgets the source of his bounty. It isn’t that the things themselves are bad. After all, they came from the Father, but as he used them, or misuses them, they become his undoing. He uses them simply for himself, without consideration of the Father or anyone else. How many times do you suppose that story has been replayed in the history of the world? This old Book is more than a book.... It’s a mirror.

Finally, inevitably, the roles of the one in charge and the one who serves are reversed. What an irony! The things themselves take over the driver’s seat, and the person becomes the passenger..... Starting out to be free, the boy has become a slave. He’s trapped. He has to have more, he has to be entertained, he can’t stand to be alone...and on and on it goes. That’s how freedom looks outside the Father’s house---bound to a lifestyle, compelled to feed one’s desire, tied to the need for ever greater accumulation.

It may appear luxurious when viewed externally, but the son, like Marley’s ghost, feels the weight of the chains of his confinement. Who cares? All those new-found friends and acquaintances? No. Only the Father, back at the House, who watched him go away.

Scene III requires an intermission to change the props. It’s a radical change. From lavish apartment to pig pen. The whole thing has fallen apart. The inheritance runs out and so do the friends..... No money, no influence, no influence, no credit, no credit, no lifestyle.... Gone... a thing of the past. We’re talking Depression now, Deep Depression, apples on the street corner, box cars, and hobo camps. When a man’s hungry, he’ll resort to almost anything. For a Jew to work in a pig pen had to represent the ultimate desperation. Don’t think that point was lost on the first hearers....

But there he is, reduced to that level, so that even the swill--- Are you familiar with the pig pens?---- even that has a sickening attraction.

He’s really lost his freedom now. From emotional slave to literal slave...at the bottom. Anxious to be his own master, he now works for a master, who doesn’t give a hoot about his pedigree, or his parentage, or his previous glittering past.

And you see—this is what it comes to. WE ARE ALWAYS SUBJECT TO A MASTER. No choice about that. IN FACT, WE’RE ALWAYS SUBJECT TO ONE MASTER. It takes a while for many to learn that. Some never learn it, but that doesn’t negate their bondage. We all have one thing, or Someone who controls us....

We’re either subject to God, and then we’re in the Father’s House, possessing the freedom of the children of God..... or we’re subject to our urges, to things, to our dependence on others, to our fears, to our worries, to our hormones.... You can’t have it both ways. Jesus said it when he said, “You cannot serve God and Mammon.” Luther in a brilliant insight talked about human life as a battlefield between two masters. We’re not masters as this younger brother wanted to be. We’re only battlefields between the real masters. The only true choice is whether we want to be a child of the Father, or a servant to Mammon...... AND THE ONLY WAY TO BE A TRUE CHILD IS TO BE WILLING TO GO HOME AS A SERVANT.

It finally came to the boy in the pig pen. It took a desperate situation to bring him to the realization. The parable describes it with the simple statement, “he came to himself.” That’s a beautiful phrase, I think, and so like Jesus to say it that way.

That boy wasn’t himself when he was squandering the Father’s resources indiscriminately. He wasn’t himself when he was trying to impress everybody, buy acceptance and recognition. He wasn’t himself when he was reeling through the night, or shivering in the cold, or wallowing in the mud with the pigs. HE WAS HIMSELF WHEN HE REMEMBERED TO WHOM HE BELONGED.

I don’t know whether it came to him with a flash of insight. Maybe it was a gradual awareness. The stench of that slop might have hurried it along. No doubt disgust played a part in it. He looked at the dirt beneath his fingernails,. and in his heart. He looked at what he’d had and what he’d done with it.....

But I think most of all he looked and saw in his mind’s eye the face of his Father as it was when he left, and he knew the Father was waiting for him.

Isn’t repentance always that way in the New Testament? THIS IS GOSPEL... It’s less a turning FROM, than a turning TO.... less a disgust with the past, than a beckoning of the FUTURE, less repudiation than a recognition, less abandonment than an AVOWAL... LESS A NEGATIVE THING THAN A POSITIVE THING, less a giving up something than a claiming something, less a leave taking than a reunion......

When the New Testament speaks of repentance, it’s always with drum rolls and cotton candy in the background.... the singing of the innumerable angels, unrestrained celebration. How did Jesus put it? Not “repent or burn in hell”....but “repent for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

That’s the dynamic here. A lost boy, at the end of his rope, remembered the face of One who loved him, and wanted more than anything to go HOME. “I will arise and go to my Father”, the parable puts it....and the celestial choir began to warm up. Scene IV--- Like Pizza Hut, or Charles Kuralt [3].... on the road.

What kind of reception could he expect? What kind of greeting, if any, could he anticipate? What could he say? What can you ever say to those you’ve hurt, taken advantage of, exploited? Is there any remorse more painful than that?

It may well be more difficult sometimes to ask for forgiveness than to forgive, just as it’s often more difficult to receive than to give. Many have found it so. I think the surest sign of the genuineness of the boy’s repentance is that as he walked up the road in the gathering dusk, with both homesickness and guilt churning in his stomach, he knew what he had to say----

He knew he could not come with a proposition, or a bargain...that was out. He knew he couldn’t come with a flock of excuses. He certainly couldn’t say, “Look, I learned a lot out there in the

cold, cruel world. I’ve paid the price, I’m grown up now, and I have a right to your acceptance.... That’s not how true repentance talks.

He knew the only thing with integrity he could possibly say was the simple, unadorned truth--“Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. ”I have no claim whatsoever but your bare mercy. When you’re ready and willing to say that, Home is not far away.

Now...are you ready? The marvelous thing is that he never had to say it. He did say it, later, the Record shows, but he wouldn’t have had to. Here’s the miracle.

THE FATHER ALREADY KNEW---  Before he was in hailing distance of the house, not at the front door, not at the gate, not even in the driveway leading to the gate, but way down the road, the Father had already seen him.... He recognized his walk, even though it was obscured by the filthy rags, knew his heart, and was out there, running as fast as his old legs would carry him, to grab that boy in a bear hug.

This is the part, I confess, that’s too big for me. Have you ever waited at a train station, or at an airport terminal for a child to come home from another country?

I think it’s the only place in Scripture, right here, where God is portrayed as running. In Paradise, the Garden of Eden, back in Genesis, there’s a scene where God is pictured as walking... in the garden in the cool of the evening..... BUT THIS IS BETTER. This is GOSPEL.

HERE IN THE COOL OF ANOTHER, UNFORGETTABLE EVENING, GOD RACES... Can you see it?... RACES WITH EAGER, OUTSTRETCHED ARMS OF REDEMPTION TO CLUTCH HIS BOY TO HIS BOSOM.

It says, doesn’t it, something very wonderful about the heart of the ultimate reality. God will never make us come home. He really won’t. We can stay, if we insist, as long as we want in our pig pens.... But He’s always out there, on the road, every road, looking for us, in his track shoes.

Somebody has said, “There wasn’t just a little candle burning in the window of the Father’s House in the boy’s absence.... THERE WAS A SEARCHLIGHT.” That’s the eternal greatness of the God of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Well, how do you wrap it up? Still another half to go. There’s another brother yet to deal with.... Stay tuned for the next exciting episode.

I guess, though, in all seriousness, the point of the parable, the theme of at least the first part really is.... PONDEROSA--- prodigal, expansive, extravagant.... NOT the boy.... He finally learned... but the Father. That’s what Jesus was talking about. The prodigious love of the God who finds us.

Have you let Him find you yet? Hear the music, the festivity. Smell the barbecue cooking. See the robe and the dancing shoes.... It could all be for you. You see, there’s a homecoming for everybody, because there is a HOME.

--

[1] This Western TV show was called Bonanza and the name of the ranch where the family lived was called “Ponderosa.”

[2] J. J. Whispers was a very trendy nightclub in Winter Park in the 1980s and 90s.

[3] Charles Kuralt was an American journalist, best known for his “On the Road” segments, considered by many as heartwarming and nostalgic vignets on the CBS Evening News.