Lent IV - March 21, 2004

Baptism Sunday

“Prodigal Love”

How many messages have you heard preached on this parable of the Prodigal Son?  Maybe for some this may be the first time but I know for many of you it's been a great number of times.  Can I say anything new to you today?  I doubt it but let's just pit in and talk about the people involved and what that may look like for us today.

The resources from Seasons of the Spirit this week say, "This parable is called the story of the prodigal son."  Perhaps another title of the story might be the prodigal father.  A son who rejects his family and wastes family fortune is not news. Neither is an elder son who lives out of his resentment.  However, a father who is willing to risk his prestige, his honour, and a great portion of his wealth in loving a son enough to let him go and welcome him home again -- this is news.  It's good news if this is a story about the nature of God.

In handing over the younger son's portion of the inheritance, the father allows himself to be metaphorically killed.  The younger son lives as if his father were dead.  The fatted calf killed at the son's return would only have been killed for a visiting notable or the wedding of one of the family's children.  Both occasions are crucial ways to confirm prestige in the community. The father gives this up.  Perhaps the most striking element of this story for Jesus' original hearers would have been the ludicrous notion of a father running to meet his son.  Men of wealth and position never ran in public and certainly never ran to someone in a less honorable position than themselves.  The father counts it all as worth nothing compared to welcoming home his "lost" son.

I can say from experience how difficult it was to let my children go out into this world to fend for themselves.  I don't know what it would be like to give them their inheritance because for my children the amount they would receive wouldn't keep them for more than a month max!

We don't know how much this father gave his son but it doesn't seem like it took too long for him to spend it.  He wasn't mature enough to look after what he had and spend it wisely.

The father didn't go off to the other land to bring his son back.  He allowed him to go and grow up, and with that growing up the consequences of that and accepting the responsibility.  To grow up or mature doesn't happen in a day.  It probably didn't happen the next day after he arrived home either.  But he was on the road to taking responsibility for his actions.

It probably took the older brother some time to reach out and accept his brother as well.  How long before this family could be reconciled?  This ministry of reconciliation is a lifetime journey.  To grow up or mature doesn't happen in a day. 

I think it's easy for us to dislike the son who returns home.  He has squandered his money (or his father's money) and we may believe he deserves to be shunned by his family.  Or at least for his family to be not so happy to see him back. It's easy for us to feel sorry for the son who stayed home and worked with his father.  The good son?

As I was rereading the story I realized that the son came home not to ask for a handout, but he was willing to work as a slave to earn money in order to live.  He said to his father "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son."  He recognizes what he has done.  He doesn't even ask for forgiveness or any special favors -- he only asks for a job.

The older son is angry because his brother is getting a party when there has never been one for him.  He's been at home working.  He hasn't asked for his inheritance. Is he upset because he thinks he should be the favored one?  Does this mean his father loves him any less than the son who has been absent?   Is this all about wanting to be the favorite or the one who is loved the best?  It doesn't say that the younger son is going to inherit any more money.  He has spent his, the older son will still receive what is coming to him plus he has had all the years of being with his family and suffered no shame of having to grovel for a job.

Yes, he squandered the money.  Did his father not give it to him freely?  It wasn't as if he stole the money from the family.  What he chose to do with the money has nothing to do with how much he deserved to be loved. Would we not throw a party to welcome home our child?

Prodigal love.  I looked up prodigal in the dictionary and the definition in Webster's Dictionary is "One who is a spendthrift or wasteful".  I thought then that the title for today's message might not fit.  Prodigal love?  Then I was reminded of something that John Spong said when he was here speaking to us and that was to "love wastefully". 

What a concept!  Love wastefully.  I believe that is how we love our children and our grandchildren.  That is the love that God has for us.  Even if we don't say I'm sorry, God is with us and loves us. 

As I was writing this message I was thinking about the fact that today we are celebrating the sacrament of baptism.  Parents bringing their children into this family of God.  Not just Westminster church but the whole community of God.  This is not an easy decision for some people to make.  There are promises parents make on behalf of their children and promises that we make as a congregation to these families. We promise to bring these children up helping them with their faith journeys.  These parents love their children "wastefully".  They don't have to do anything to be loved.

 We are very proud of our children.  Our miracles as we sometimes like to refer to them.  How many of us would accept the return of these if they chose to go their own way.  How would we celebrate if they left and came back?

Maybe to help us understand the father's welcome, we must first understand the son's return.  As I said before, the son has not asked for repentance.  He is not sorrowful for what he has done.  The son is sorrowful for the consequences of his actions.  He is alone and hungry.  Had he been sorrowful he would have returned with some form of gift.  The son comes back hoping to present a bargaining chip.  I don't believe he has realized how his father's heart has been broken or how rejected his father probably felt.

The party was not thrown for the son but for the father to celebrate.  Not to make his other son feel left out but to show the joy he felt at a family reunited. So what does this mean for us?  For me it means that God loves us with prodigal love.  We don't have to earn it by our actions but God's grace is sufficient.

Maybe this story or John Wesley will resonate with you as it did with me on this subject of God's grace being sufficient.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, had a powerful reorientation in his life during his mid-30's.  His Christian life and practice had always been rigorous -- long hours of study and prayer, sacrificial giving and service, and a constant search for some form of discipleship that would make him feel that he was justified in God's eyes.  At a time of deep personal discouragement, he had an experience of grace, and a realization that he was accepted and forgiven by God, not because of anything he could do, but because of God's grace and love.

Wesley later used imagery from the parable of the prodigal son to describe his transformation.  He said that, during those early years, he had always lived with "the faith of a servant."  Just as the returning prodigal imagined that he would have to work like a servant to be welcomed into the father's house, so young Wesley believed that he needed to justify his life in God.  But as he lived in the reality of grace, Wesley came to realize that he could live not with the faith of a servant, but with "the faith of a son."  (Jim Moore from AHA)

Wesley accepted God's love, prodigal love. The unconditional love of the father for both his sons is intended to shake us out of our comfort zone, as all of Jesus' parables tend to do.  This one takes us away from the ease of loving those whom we find lovable and who will gladly return our affection.

Prodigal love goes beyond loving the unlikable.  Prodigal love means loving God's way -- over the top and against all instinct and logic.   Amen