Harbor Church - Mid City

Investigating Jesus: On Lost Sons

Luke 15: 1-2, 11-32 Mid-City May 2, 2010

We’re in a series called Investigating Jesus. And this morning we come to perhaps Jesus most famous teaching that is inappropriately titled, “The Prodigal Son.” See this is a story with 3 central characters—a Father and 2 lost sons. And you don’t understand the story unless you get what Jesus is teaching about all 3 characters. So we’re going to take 3 weeks on this parable and look at each character. This week we’re going to begin by looking at the younger son—the famous prodigal son.

Now, I must confess, as I read this story over the years, I never really thought of myself as the prodigal son. It just wasn’t, in my mind, my story. I was never really the rebellious kid. I didn’t drink until after I was 21 and I was a Christian athlete, which meant that I became the “Just say NO,” poster child. Now I don’t get me wrong, I could have started a franchise of the Elder Brothers R Us Store. And I will tell you more about that next week, but I always read this and, in true elder brother fashion, began to think of prodigals that I knew. This is such a great story for…..If you have already started thinking of the names of the prodigals you know and who this message would be good for, then this sermon is for you. Get ready.

Now, we’re going to read through the story again and draw it out this rich (and radical) story. Here we go. V1-2 Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Now notice that I skipped from v1-2 down to the beginning of our story today in v11. Why? Be v1-2 are what prompted our story. I covered v3-10 2 weeks ago. In those verses, Jesus tells 2 parables about a lost sheep and a lost coin. This story is Jesus’ 3^rd teaching (which is why v11 says, “Jesus continued,”), and this 3^rd parable is, like the first 2, in response to the muttering of the religious folks that he is hanging with the wrong crowd. What Jesus is doing in this parable is depicting in story form the 2 central groups in the audience in v1-2. The prodigal son is a characterization of the the tax collectors and sinners and the elder brother is a characterization of the Pharisees and teachers of the law.

Today, the younger brother. V11, Jesus continued, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, “Father, give me my share of the estate.”

Now those of you, like myself who have grown up in western culture don’t realize how shocking this statement is. Some of you from a more traditional culture do. What the younger son has just done is scandalous. Here is why. In Ancient Middle Eastern culture, a son would never, under any circumstances, shame his father by asking for his inheritance before he was dead.

Here is why. Kenneth Bailey helped a western guy like me get this because he has spent much of his life with non-western people. Listen to what he says, “For over fifteen years I have been asking people of all walks of life from Morocco to India and from Turkey to the Sudan about the implications of a son’s request for his inheritance-while the father is still living. The answer has always been emphatically the same…the conversation runs as follows: Has anyone ever made such a request in your village? NEVER! Could anyone ever make such a request? IMPOSSIBLE! If anyone ever did, what would happen? His father would beat him, of course! Why? The request means—he wants his father to die.

See that is the issue here. The son says, “You are dead to me.” I want your stuff and not you and from this point forward I will treat you as if you are dead and will value only your stuff. You play no role in my life and I am leaving your home.

And here is what is amazing. The father does it. Look at V12b, “So he divided his property between them.” The shamed father doesn’t beat him as Bailey says would be expected in Ancient Middle Eastern culture, but he does as he asks. Now we’ll get into this more in 2 weeks, but for now let’s focus on what happens with the property. The older son would get a double portion or 2/3 of the property and the younger son would get 1/3. To do that, the father had to sell off 1/3 of the property. He did so and gave the money to his son.

Look what happens next. V13, “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country.” Now, let’s stop. The rebellious younger son, full of cash, heads off to a distant country. He leaves home. The Father is dead to him and he has what he wants—the Father’s things.

Now, let’s draw this into our world. As I said earlier I didn’t see myself as the prodigal, that is, until I read Henri Nouwen in college. He has this brilliant little book called The Return of the Prodigal Son based on this parable and Rembrandt’s famous painting of this parable. Here is what I read that helped me see my own prodigalness. (Pg. 37ff)) He says, “Leaving home (like the prodigal son)…is a denial of the spiritual reality that I belong to God with every part of my being. Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home and must look far and wide to find one….Over and over again I have left home.”

Hmmm. Henri Nouwen sees himself as the prodigal and talks about repeatedly leaving home. What am I missing? See I used to think that to be the prodigal you needed to ditch your parents and take a walk on the wild side. Nouwen says to become a prodigal and leave home means that we deny the spiritual reality that we are God’s. He isn’t enough. God becomes Dead to us. His voice no longer guides you and you become alive to other voice, the voices of parents, friends, colleagues, the media, and his culture. “These voices say, “Go out and prove that you are worth something.”…They reach into those inner places where [we] question our own goodness and doubt our self-worth. They want us to prove to ourselves and others that we are worth being loved, and they keep pushing us to do everything possible to gain acceptance.”

This, my friends, is why I, like Nouwen, am the prodigal and leave home. I listen to the wrong voices. The Father’s voice of love isn’t enough. I need to have the approval of my friends and colleagues I need them to tell me that I am enough.

See I don’t know about you, but this started for me at a very early age. I remember one time when I was roughly 10 and smoke began to fill our house and the smoke detectors all went off and my parents quickly ushered us outside. We thought our house was going to burn down. Guess what I said to my mom. “Mom, I am going back in.” “Why? What did you leave behind?” And I screamed, “My trophies.”

That story is told, with much laughter, often around my house. See the trophies were a way of answering the voices, “See, I am enough. See my accomplishments.” But I am not the only one who seeks trophies in life. We all do it. Academic, social, professional, athletic, etc.. Trophies, credentials, degrees, sales quotas, promotions, having the right clothes. All good things that can become really bad when they become our identity. We must have them.

All of us listen to these voices at some point and wander away from home. Now let’s pick back up with the story and see what happens to prodigals who listen to the wrong voices and find ourselves leaving our spiritual home. V13, “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his field to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.”

OK, there are 2 things that cause this prodigal son to turn and head for home. (1) Consequences: He makes terrible choices, squanders his living, and the Father allows him to experience the consequences of his actions. Remember, the Father didn’t have to sell his land. But did so and allowed his son to experience the consequences of his actions. “Maybe it will knock a little sense into him.” Well, it did for the prodigal son—look at v17, “When he had come to his senses.”

See often times the most gracious thing God can do is let us feel the sting and pain of the consequences of our decisions to wander away from him.

(2) Buried hope of Sonship. Somewhere down deep in his chest he remembers his sonship. Look at v17, “When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men. So he got up and went to his father.” In these 4 verses alone, father is used 4 times and son once. He is remembering that even though he has blown it as bad as you can possibly blow it, he is still a son. Even though he treated his father like he was dead to him, maybe, just maybe, his father will have mercy on him and treat him like a hired hand because of his sonship.

Nouwen puts it this way, “The younger son’s return takes place in the very moment that he reclaims his sonship, even though he has lost all the dignity that belongs to it. In fact, it was the loss of everything that brought him to the bottom line of his identity…he realized that he was not a pig but a…son of his father. Once he had come in touch with the truth of his sonship, he could hear—although faintly—the voice calling him the Beloved and feel—although distantly-the touch of blessing.” (pg 49)

For Nouwen, this sonship is centered in one verse that he repeats throughout the book and it is Mt. 3:17. This is the constant refrain that you here when you are at home in the Father’s house. It is the Father’s voice saying, “You are my Son whom I love, with you I am well pleased.” See we need to hear this over and over again so that our shoulder’s will relax, so that we won’t listen to the other competing voices and wander off again to prove ourselves.

I can attest to this. God spoke these words to me at a moment that I was most prone to wander off. I have told some of you this story, but, just as my mentor tells me the things he really wants me to hear several times, I will do the same for you.

It happened when I playing football at the Univ. of Virginia. It was my senior season and we were playing Auburn. For a boy who grew up in Montgomery, AL, this was a dream. Why? B/c I was an Alabama fan growing up. So, as a kid, I played Auburn every day in my backyard. And I would always make the game winning catch, dragging one toe in the corner of the end zone as time ran out for the winning touchdown. So now, my hated foe, the Auburn tigers, were actually coming to play for in Charlottesville on my home turf. It was the first game of the season and it was played on a Thursday night on ESPN in front of a national audience. And we showed up and Auburn has amazing fans. They showed up in C’ville on Tuesday in their RVs and we had nowhere to put them. They have this community that just goes from game to game. And so as our bus pulls up to the stadium their fans are lining the streets and kicking our tires and chanting these annoying chants.

Anyway, the game. I was playing at strong safety and the first quarter was going pretty well and we were up. And then, in the second quarter, I was assigned to cover their best receiver, a guy by the name of Karston Bailey, in man-to-man coverage. And so he went deep, running a post-pattern over the middle. And there quarterback, named Dameyune Craig scrambled and heaved it deep. And I thought, “Here is my chance—I am going to pick this off.” We were running step for step and I jumped and tipped the ball and landed face down in the grass, facing the Auburn band, and as soon as I peered up I saw them striking up the band, “Da, Da Da.” And I looked and saw Bailey trotting into the end zone with the ball in his hands. At that point, this was my moment of greatest failure in life, in front of a national television audience. The moment I had dreamed of all my life ended up radically different in reality. And so when I started walking over to the sidelines you would have thought I had suddenly contracted leprosy. None of my teammates were around me: why? (1) B/c they knew I was about to get an earful from coach. (2) they knew I was being singled out on TV. So, after I get cussed out, I am sitting on the bench, alone. Most alone I’d every felt. And then came one of the spiritually defining moments of my life. A voice said, “Stephen, You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

One thing was for sure—this wasn’t the voice of a UVA fan. And I looked up and said, “But Father, didn’t you see what I just did.” Oh yes, I did, and you’re enough. I love you b/c you’re my son, not for what you can do for me or for the ways that the world is or is not impressed with you. Now, my son, go play in light of this love.” And now I could really go play some football.

The prodigal got the same reception after his poor performance. Look at what happens in v20, ¹"²⁰So he got up and went to his father. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.^[b]'  ²²"But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. ²⁴For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.”

The Father is filled with compassion, runs to him, flings his arms around him, and kisses him. And the father bestows sonship on him by grace upon grace upon grace. He throws a party, the family ring, shoes, the best robe (which would have been his robe). And then he says something really interesting in v24, “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again.” Here, we have come full circle. Remember, when the son asked the father for his inheritance, he was saying to him, “You are dead to me.” Now, the father acknowledges that a death did in deed take place. But how can their relationship be resurrected?

Here is one of the shocking conclusions to the parable. The only way prodigal sons can be welcomed back home is if Jesus becomes the prodigal son on our behalf. Have you ever thought of Jesus as the prodigal son? Almost feels heretical doesn’t it.

But listen to Nouwen, “Seeing Jesus himself as the prodigal son goes far beyond the traditional interpretation of the parable. Nonetheless, this vision holds a great secret. I am gradually discovering what it means to say that my sonship and the sonship of jesus are one, that my return and the return of Jesus are one, that my home and the home of jesus are one. There is no journey to God outside of the journey that Jesus made. The return of the “prodigal becomes the return of the Son of god who has drawn all people into himself and brings them home to his heavenly Father. As Paul said in Col. 1: 19-20, ¹⁹For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

Think about how radically different Jesus is from the prodigal his whole life. Unlike the prodigal son, Jesus didn’t demand his Father’s inheritance, but instead he gave his inheritance up, freely, that he might welcome us into his inheritance. Unlike the prodigal son, Jesus never left home. He listened to one voice his whole life—His Fathers.

Then, on a Friday, everything changed. The true son became the prodigal son on our behalf. Yet, even then, when all of our prodigalness was placed upon him, he still tried to go home. But rather than experiencing a Father filled with compassion and lavishing grace upon him, Jesus experienced the full consequences of our prodigal behavior. He was dead to the Father.

But 3 days later the Father resurrected the Son. And think of the joy in his heart when he, like the Father in our parable, ran to His Son and shouted v24, “For this Son of mine was dead and is now alive again.” See, my friends, the only way for prodigal sons like you and I to come home is by faith in Jesus, the true Son who became a prodigal son on our behalf and can lead us home.

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