Third Sunday after Trinity, July 3rd, Year
of Our + Lord 2022
Our Savior’s and Our Redeemer Lutheran Churches
Hill City and Custer, South Dakota
Our Loving Father Luke
15:11-32
In the Name of the Father…
Dad is going to be so mad. My father is really gonna let me have it when I get home.
Have you been there? Most of us have been full grown adults for a long time. But I bet almost all of us still remember that feeling of impending doom, as the guilty party contemplates the encounter that is coming with father. You were “out,” doing something or the other, and you knew full well that something wasn’t pleasing to your dad. Now there’s no hiding the evidence of what you did. You want to come in, to be able to come home. But you are afraid of the wrath of Dad.
Our Gospel today goes by several different names. The most common focuses on the negative: “The Prodigal Son.” Prodigal is an old word that means rashly wasteful, someone who throws away their money, or their life. That’s the younger son in our story, the Prodigal. But he isn’t the proper title character. This story isn’t primarily about him.
Some call our Gospel reading the Parable of the Two Sons. They include the younger prodigal, and the older brother, the mean-spirited, outwardly obedient but inwardly selfish and cold-hearted big brother, who is offended by the father’s generosity. These two sons teach us a lot about human nature and the different ways we sin. But “the Two Sons” is not the right name for this passage either.
The Loving Father. That’s better. Dad’s the main character, and he’s way more interesting. We already know a lot about rash, wasteful sinners. And we already know plenty about self-righteous, spiteful, outwardly obedient but inwardly angry sinners. We have met these enemies, because all too often, they are us. But the father, now, he is a different character altogether.
In case it isn’t obvious, with this parable Jesus
is trying to help us understand His Father, God the Father, using this story
about two lousy sons and their loving father.
I want to be obvious, because I know how hard it can be to get
this.
Believing that God the Father is like the father in this story is difficult. It’s hard, because we are not so gracious. And sadly, it’s hard for many people because their own earthly fathers weren’t like this, at all. Fatherhood is in a shambles in our country. In terms of society, the primary problem in our country is not inflation, or crime, nor is it drugs, health care or social injustice. The primary driver of the societal ills in our nation is the breakdown of the family. And the biggest reason for the breakdown of the family is the failure of fathers to do their job. Our culture has spent 50 years running down fatherhood, and we men are only too willing to live down to the lowered expectations of the sexual revolution and radical feminism. The lie that sex should not involve commitment leads men to be lazy and lousy, and makes everybody suffer.
Fathers fail in many ways. There is the man who does nothing but impregnate the woman, and may not even realize that he is a father. There are fathers who work plenty hard at their job, but are not available to their kids. And we know about the husband and father who appears to be there for his family, but behind closed doors is a dictator and a bully. We are sadly familiar with every variant in between. Every father fails in some way, but today many men are almost complete failures as fathers. And even the best father, who is really trying, still knows the shame of realizing too late that he has failed or even hurt his wife or his child.
Too be sure, many fathers try hard and do a pretty good job. Certainly, if we are going to pin the problems of society on fathers, we also must give credit to the fathers who do rise to the challenge and fulfill this vital calling to the best of their ability. We rightfully thank God for such fathers. The need for loving, unselfish fathers is so great, and there is such lasting joy in being a good father, and such benefits for children, families and the whole society.
But it’s hard. By nature, we fathers are prone to serve ourselves. And failures in fatherhood drive many of the worldly problems in our society. But this is not the worst of it. Even worse is the spiritual cost of bad fathering. Bad fathering can get in the way of saving faith.
Many years ago, Shelee and I met a woman who ran a local charity. She was good at it. We were very impressed with her compassion, and her competence. She knew how to get people to support the needs she was addressing, and she was good at holding the needy accountable too. She was happy to give to people who needed help. She also knew how to give a hand up, how to help people improve themselves and their situation.
You won’t be surprised to learn our friend was religious. She was very interested in Scripture, and talked easily about various facets of Christianity. However, she seemed incapable of joining a local congregation. She attended many different churches, and she loved to talk about faith. But she couldn’t seem to find a church that she could call home. She admired many congregations, but never became a member. She was always a visitor, always an observer, always moving from church to church.
One evening at dinner we found out why. As we ate, the conversation turned to God, in particular to God our heavenly Father. One of us, Shelee or I, don’t remember who, but one of us made some statement about God as our loving Father. To this our friend replied: “Oh, I don’t believe God the Father could ever love me like that.” We weren’t ready for this. Without a lot of tact, I waded in to contradict her. “Oh no, you don’t understand God!”
Surprisingly, despite my rude attempts to defend God, she stayed with the conversation, and went on to talk about her own father. Her understanding of God the Father was warped by her lifelong warped relationship with her dad, who was controlling, domineering, inconsistent and basically mean. Her experience from childhood with her earthly father made even conceiving of, let alone trusting in a loving heavenly Father, seem impossible. And this in turn made it hard to connect to a Biblical congregation, because the Bible talks a lot about God the Father and His love. Which she struggled to believe in.
From our friend I learned an important lesson. The worst impact of bad fathering is that it makes believing in God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ very hard for many people. So, because Jesus knows many people struggle with this, He tells us the story of the loving father. Jesus is dying for us to learn just how loving His Father truly is.
There is more in this parable than can be covered in one sermon, but let me just give you a few nuggets of the Father’s love as Jesus teaches it.
How lousy is the younger son? Well, what did it mean when he asked for his share of the inheritance? He was in effect saying he wished his father was dead. Because that’s when you normally get your inheritance, when your parent dies. This is Adam and Eve’s rebellion reaching its depressing conclusion, mankind telling God to drop dead.
And yet our heavenly Father endures our rejection, for the sake of the day when we will come to our senses, and desire to return home. God cannot be mocked, but at the same time, God is love. So, our Father endures our rejection patiently.
When he hit bottom and came to his senses, the deal the prodigal son worked out in his head would have been a very good one. For the father to allow the younger son back into the household as a hired servant would have been remarkably gracious. But the loving father, God our Father, is even more gracious. The father sees his son coming down the road and runs to him. Even in our society a father doing this would be a sign of love. In 1st century Palestine, much more so. No self-respecting head of a 1st Century Middle Eastern household would ever be seen running, even less be seen running to greet such an undeserving son. Think of the images you may have seen of Arab princes, strolling along in their long flowing white gowns and sandals. Now imagine one of them running as fast as he can, down the dirt road, toward a dirty, disheveled young man. Not very dignified. This is a picture of what God our loving Father is willing to do for us.
God the Father would be entirely justified to reject us rebellious children, or at least to set a very high bar for us to get over in order to earn His love again. But the Father is not like that. We are like that, but not God. God the Father loves the world. He wants to save sinners. So, He sent His Son, the One truly and entirely Good Son in all the universe. God the Father gave His greatest treasure, in order to bring us back to Himself.
God the Father sent, and God the Son, Jesus Christ, came. Jesus came and took our place. He hung in our place, accepting the punishment that properly should have fallen on the prodigal son. The punishment that should fall on us. The punishment earned by every wasteful, God-hating act of rebellion since Adam and Eve. Jesus came and paid the full price, through His death on the Cross. Hanging there, Jesus even received the prideful scorn of the self-righteous elder brother. He passively took the scorn of the Scribes and Pharisees and Roman soldiers, as they sneered at this so-called Son of God. Jesus took it all, in order to wash away their sins too.
Jesus has removed your sin and guilt, and now the Father runs to you. He isn’t stewing in His recliner, waiting to hear you pull up outside the house. God isn’t sitting up in heaven, waiting for you to get your act together. No, God is out on the road, looking. No matter how good or how imperfect your earthly father may have been, Jesus is here to tell you that His Father is your eternal, loving, heavenly Father, who is seeking sinners. He is seeking you.
You may run far away, and God may let you go far. He may watch you waste a lot of His good blessings. Because God tolerates these things doesn’t mean they’re not wrong. They are sin. They are among the things that Jesus suffered to pay for. But God the Father’s priority is for you to come to your senses. He wants you to repent, and turn back toward home, to be welcomed by Him. For the hope of saving you, God may let you taste the pig slop that is the consequence of sin, so that you’ll remember your need, and His love. He does all this, in order to take you into His arms. In order to throw a party for you, complete with singing and dancing and a banquet of the best meat, the fatted calf.
The Father is seeking sinners. Surprisingly, by the power of His Spirit, He involves you and me in His search. God made Paul ambassador to the Gentiles, making His appeal to the nations through a former blasphemer, a rescued sinner. God uses me to be your preacher, your called and ordained servant of the Word, called here to get up in the pulpit on Sunday morning and preach Christ for you. And God uses you to give the reason for the hope that you have to the people in your life. God aso uses you to serve your neighbor in need, so they might see Christ in and through you. God uses you to love your children and grandchildren by raising them up in Christ, in His Church, in His Word. There is nothing better than to be involved in God’s ongoing search for prodigals, and in His ongoing ministry to soften the hearts of elder brothers, those members of His household who begrudge God’s generosity and mercy for others.
I wish I could tell you that our friend who so struggled to believe in our loving God and Father finally reached peace with her past, and peace with God. I pray that she has, but I don’t know. We lost contact with her. But I do know this, that God the Father is still after her, and millions of others like her, sending His Spirit to testify about His Son, through the voice of forgiven sinners like you and me. And that is good news, for our friend, for you, and for all people.
The Father through the Holy Spirit is seeking, and delivering His promises, to you. Rejoice in His love, for He rejoices in you, in Jesus Name, Amen.
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