Parables
“The Prodigal Son - the father”
Prodigal Son
The Father
[Read Luke 15:11-31]
This morning as we consider the Parable of the Prodigal Son, we will be considering it through the eyes of the Father in the story.
And in doing so we will engage with a problem with this parable.
A mystery.
Remembering that the Parable of the Prodigal Son is the third parable in a trilogy – there is an interesting, if not puzzling, development in this third parable surrounding the Father.
In the first two parables, the shepherd and the woman search for what is missing.
The shepherd risks everything to find the one lost sheep. He leaves the 99 sheep in the open country “until he finds it” (Lk 15:4).
The woman lights a lamp, sweeps the house and searches carefully “until she finds it” (Lk 15:8).
However, in this third parable the Father stays where he is.
He does not search.
He waits.
Why is there such a significant change in the telling of this third story?
Much is made of the “searching” in the other two parables.
But in the Parable of the Prodigal Son there is a vacuum.
There is an absence of persistence; this urgent and thorough searching until “he finds it” is not there.
This lack of movement, urgency, persistence – call it what you will – is puzzling.
Especially in the light of the previous two parables.
Why did he not do what the shepherd and the woman do?
A few years ago I spent a week at the Police College at Porirua as a Police chaplain and sat in on some classes that recruits were taking.
In one particular class the instructor read the legislation empowering Police officers to use lethal force to stop an offender.
He then placed a firearm on a table and acted as an “offender”.
He asked the class if they were attending such an incident, and they were faced with the situation of an offender standing there with a firearm on a table before him; at which point would they as an officer fire their own weapon.
And then he began to move in stages and ask “Now?”
If anyone in the class thought they would fire, they were to raise their hand.
So he would reach out for the weapon – but not touch it…
“Now?”
…close his hand around the weapon…
“Now?”
…begin to actually pick it up…
“Now?”
…bring the weapon to an almost firing position…
“Now?”
…level the weapon at the officer…
“Now?”
It was an amazing exercise to watch.
Different hands went up at every point!!
His point was that in such a moment everyone would react differently.
[The application of the legislation is another interesting angle – but that’s another sermon]
So, going back to the Parable of the Prodigal Son and you as the Father.
And in a similar exercise to the story I told about the Police, I have a question for you…
“As this situation with the younger son unfolds, at what point would you move?”
“At what point in this story would you be like the shepherd or woman in the previous two parables and “search” for what was lost? In this case, the son? “Until you find him?”
And note there is a progression; the son is in freefall and is getting deeper and deeper into trouble.
When he got together all he had? (v 13a)
When he set off for a distant country? (v 13b)
When he squandered his wealth? (v 13c)
When he had spent everything he had? (v 14a)
When there was a severe famine? (v 14)
When he began to be in need? (v 14b)
When he hired himself to feed pigs? (v 15)
When he began to wish he was a pig? (v 16)
It’s possibly easy for us to “wisely” say “Well, I would move when I saw the son ‘still a long way off’ at which point I would be filled with compassion and would then rush down the road to embrace him.”
Maybe that’s true – but in the rythmn’s of life I think we can see that we are prone to move a lot sooner than that.
And for reasons which might not be entirely helpful.
Remembering that we are in “character” and are the Father – when and how do we search?
When someone we love is making decisions we know are destructive – when exactly do we move?
When do we search?
When would God want us to move and search “until we find them”?
Two of these parables are about searching and one isn’t.
And the one that isn’t is the one you’d expect there to be urgent searching.
It is a child! Not a sheep or a coin! But a person!
So what do we do?!
We look for a unifying theme in the three parables.
There are several. One, as mentioned, is the theme of “searching”.
Another one is the theme of “home”.
In the first parable the searcher (shepherd) and the lost (sheep) are both away in the country as the sheep is searched for and they return home.
In the second parable the searcher (woman) and the lost (coin) are both at home and the search takes place until the woman and coin are reunited.
But there is a greater theme again of which the themes of “home” and “searching” are just simply a part of.
And to see that greater theme let’s look for the theme of “home” and “searching” in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
In the third parable the searcher (father) and the lost (son) are apart.
One stays home and the other is away from home.
But then the “search” begins to take place.
I’m still working this through – but I think the phrase “until he finds him” (which is in the previous two parables) is in the Parable of the Prodigal Son but it is written differently.
In the Parables of the Lost Sheep and Coin the moment of discovery is not described, but in the third parable it is.
And the moment is very instructive.
In the third parable the phrase “until he finds him” is detailed in two moments in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
The first moment is in verse 17 “When he came to his senses…” and verse 20 “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him”.
When the son comes to his senses he thinks about home and realises that the least in his father’s house is better off than he is in his current state.
And so he returns and the father sees him while still far off and is filled with compassion.
Like the shepherd and sheep; the woman and coin; they are reunited together at home.
The son searched his heart; the father searched the horizon and the theme of home brought the search to a conclusion.
But there is a greater theme which ties all this together.
A greater theme which is over the themes of “searching” and “home”.
A theme which helps define “searching” and “home” and helps us understand when to act like the shepherd and go out into the country; or the woman who searches the home; or the father who waits and apparently does nothing.
It is the theme of “presence”.
The shepherd was “present” in the country searching for the sheep and bringing it home.
The woman was “present” in the home and searched for the coin until it was found.
The father was “present” at home and “present” with the son even though he was in a far off country.
We see this because when the Older Brother is confronting the father, the Older Brother was told “My son you are always with me” (Lk 15:31).
That the younger son was “always with him” was obvious because when the one who had hurt him so grievously returns – he has compassion flooding his being, not bitterness.
Sometimes presence means being with someone, pursuing them, searching for them…
…and sometimes it means staying home and keeping the presence alive by holding that person in your heart.
Not striving – but simply being.
Simply keeping your heart open and free so that “when they come to their senses” and their heart turns toward home – there is compassion and forgiveness waiting for them.
The first two parables set up the themes of searching, home and presence by illustrating them with the sheep and coin.
Then we get to the real live version of a family. The first two parables have their own messages in and of themselves – but taken together as a trilogy they have another dimension and power.
They set us up to see how the themes of searching, home and presence might look within our families, friendships and pain.
The last verse in the Old Testament is in this vein.
"Lo, I will send you the prophet Elijah before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of parents to their children and the hearts of children to their parents, so that I will not come and strike the land with a curse." (Malachi 4:5-6)
“Elijah” did come and the work began of hearts being turned home – to God.
It is fulfilled most fully in Christ.
Presented By: Rev. Geoff New