"fathers"
Dr. George Sinclair, Pastor
1 Kings 19:1-4 (5-7) 8-15a; Ps. 42 and 43; Gal. 3:23-29; Luke 8:26-39
June 20, 2010
“There was a man who had two sons.”
Parables are not titled. Some study Bibles give them titles: The Parable of Talents is a famous example. The Parable of the Good Samaritan another. My New Oxford Annotated Study Bible uses these titles but Matthew, Mark, and Luke never titled their work nor did Jesus. The Oxford Study Bible titles the parable we read moments ago The Parable of the Lost Son. You can see why the editors chose the title. The parable is about a lost son and it follows two other parables about things lost—lost sheep, a lost coin. So we naturally think lost son.
How many sermons have you heard about this lost son, the Prodigal? I’d wager a few and perhaps some other sermons about the elder brother. Some interpreters suggest the parable should be more properly titled, A Parable of Two Brothers. I could make a case for that. The Bible is chocked full of brother stories—Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob-Esau, Joseph and his brothers, David and his brothers—I could make a case for A Parable of Two Brothers.
Titles make us focus. They give us clues about what to look for in a story or a sermon. It’s Father’s Day and my sermon is titled Fathers, so you expect to hear a sermon about fathers: the fatherhood of God, human fathers, something about fathers.
Titles get us in the neighborhood of an author’s intent. And that can be a good thing, but it can also be a distraction or it can narrow our focus in such a way that we miss other aspects of a story. In fact, I’ve read books, as I suspect you have, that were actually mis-titled. They promised one thing and delivered another. “The Art of Cooking,” for example, might more aptly be titled, How To Gain Thirty Pounds in Three Months Without Really Trying.”
I don’t want to take issue with the esteemed editors at Oxford—well, actually I do—but I wish they drop titles to parables, or, at least in the case of Luke 15 that they would consider a different one. How about The Parable of the Indulgent Father? Or perhaps The Waiting Father, or The Compassionate Father, The Crazy Heart Father or The Pleading, Generous Father. All of those titles work. And they shift our focus from the son or the brothers and what they do or don’t do to the father and who he is and what he does or doesn’t do. I doubt the scholars at Oxford will take my suggestion, but I’ll at least make my case with you this morning and invite you to hear Jesus’ parable in Luke 15 from the father’s perspective.
“The younger son said, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.”
I don’t know what to call this father. Indulgent seems too critical but it does fit. This father acts recklessly. Fathers are supposed to be wise. They know best. The father in this parable takes leave of his senses. And fathers do that—I know I have, more than once. I’ve made decisions and done things against my better judgment. Some of those decisions have felt indulgent. The word has a bad rap especially among Protestants. We got up in arms over indulgences. You can’t buy your way out of hell or into heaven. Indulgences reduce grace to nothing. So, we have a knee-jerk reaction to the word. But sometimes, the word fits.
To indulge is to practice leniency. If someone indulges us, they cut us some slack; they give us time, maybe room to grow, to get better, to improve or to change. Indulgent parents put up with moody children. We humor them, yield to them, pamper them, even spoil and baby them. Sometimes parents need to indulge their children and maybe that is just what the father of the prodigal is doing. He consents to his son’s request, no strings attached. “Here’s your money. Take it.”
Actually, the text is silent about the father’s intent. We don’t really know why he gave the money. Was it an experiment, an exercise in learning? “Maybe junior will grow up. I’m going to cut him some slack. Give him his inheritance and see what he’ll do?” The text is silent about the father’s motive and equally silent about his emotional state in providing it. Did the father give the money happily, begrudgingly? Did it come with a warning? A Promise? We simply don’t know: “Give me the share . . .so he divided his property.”
Fathers don’t always know best. Fathers take risks. That’s the nature of things. Fathers can’t and don’t know in advance how their decisions or their non-decisions will work out. On the front end of this parable, we don’t know if the prodigal’s father is making a wise choice or a miss-guided one. Is he showing strength or weakness? Does his decision signal that he’s given up on the boy or that he’s trying one more time to bring him around?
We’ve heard this parable a thousand times so we know the boy’s going to waste the father’s gift in “dissolute living,” which means exactly what you think it means. But on the front end, from the father’s perspective, we don’t know how things are going to play out. The father only appears indulgent because things go badly. Had they gone well, at least initially, the father would look like a genius. “Ah, I knew all along the boy would be alright. I knew what would happen. I knew when I advanced him the cash he’d blow it and then come to his senses.”
We only know that and impose it on the father’s motive or his thinking because we know how the story ends; but from the father’s perspective, when he gives the money, he can’t know how things will turn out. He might have a hunch, a suspicion, but like your stock broker the father knows “past performance is not an indicator of future results.”
Theologically, this means God give us tremendous freedom. God does not control us, impose his will on us, manipulate us, toy, play or otherwise experiment with us. Said otherwise, the future is open. It is not predetermined, which means parents, and I think fathers especially, should realize that children are not pets or projects or pet projects. They are human beings. Agency or freedom is essential to humanity. That does not mean parents abandon rules, guidelines, enforcement or “come to Jesus meetings.” They can’t give up law-giving. Nevertheless, parents must operate within limits—we don’t or shouldn’t over-reach. Rather, like the father in the parable, we do a lot of waiting.
“A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country.”
I wonder what the father did while the son was away? I mean, did he get any reports. Did he know anything? Did he get any word from the “distant country”? Fathers do a lot of waiting and not just when it’s 2am and they’re watching the clock. That kind of waiting too, but there are other ways we wait; like waiting for a child to go sleep or to wake up from a nap. We wait for our children to speak their first words. And when they learn to talk we wait for them to “shut up.” At about age 14 we get our wish and then we must wait for them to start talking again. We wait for our children to “get” their multiplication tables, state capitals, algebraic equations, atomic weights. We wait to see what college our children will choose or not choose. We wait when our children are sick with stomach bugs and worse. We wait when a career stalls or a marriage fails or when substance abuse shipwrecks a life. “The younger son traveled to a distant country.”
What’s a father to do except wait when his child is in the “distant country?” That’s what fathers do. We wait. And waiting is hard on fathers because fathers are fixers. We fix broken toilets, balky lawnmowers, flat tires. Fathers are action-result oriented. Waiting is uncharacteristic of us, maybe beyond our pay grade. But sometimes waiting is all a father can do. Intervention is not an option. Our children travel to the far country. And we wait.
Waiting is a helpless feeling which is why waiting requires not only patience but endurance. With a child in the far country, fathers must patiently endure.
“While he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him . . . ‘Get the fatted cafe . . . and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is now alive; he was lost and is found.’ And they began to celebrate.”
After enduring, The Waiting Father becomes The Compassionate Father, the father with a crazy heart. This father is so crazy he completely forgets to cross-examine his son. “Where have you been? Why did you leave? How could you?” There’s none of that, no trip to the wood shed, no shaming. The son has had shame enough. He has wallowed in the mire. And the father need not remind him. Instead, the father throws a party. He gives gifts—a robe, a ring, sandals for his feet and best of all welcome—“He put his arms around him and kissed him.”
The Crazy Heart Father is not blind to the son’s plight, to his sin or to the danger that once imperiled his life: “This son of mine was dead and is now alive; he was lost and is found!” The father is fully aware that there are things worse than death—lostness being one of them, but that’s not the father’s focus. The father celebrates. The father does not focus on the dark sky, but on the diamonds in his son’s eyes.
Compassion leads to celebration. And celebration discloses the father’s intent. Compassion tells us why he waits, why he endures, why he indulges, even why he is foolish. The father loves the son. Love requires foolishness. Love requires patience. Love requires endurance. Love requires patient endurance. Love doesn’t know everything, it knows one thing: “my son was dead and is now alive; he was lost and is found. Come celebrate with me!”
Alas, our story does not end with celebration. Life is hardly settled, more like a calm between storms or storms between calms. The fact is there are consequences to the father’s celebration: “When [the elder] brother heard music and dancing . . . he asked what was going on.”
The servants answer, “Your brother has come and your father has killed the fatted calf. He got him back safe and sound.” Then he [the elder] became angry and refused to go in.
The father never tires, never tires of his children. As the woman sweeps her house clean searching for a lost coin, as the shepherd leaves the 99 to search for the one, so the father seeks the lost elder brother. Celebration gives way to pleading, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”
Why doesn’t the father give up on the first-born? “Let him pout. Let him get over it. He needs to get over it. He’s always been jealous. Let him stay outside for all I care.” But this father does care. The father who celebrates over one son leaves the party for another. He pleads, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. Come join the celebration.”
Again, the father waits. We’re not told how things turn out. Did the brother return? Did he join the party? We don’t know. We’re left on the doorstep, perhaps in a front yard: “We had to celebrate and rejoice, this brother of yours was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and has been found.” The Pleading, Generous Father waits. Amen.