The Father - Luke 15

There’s an old story, it went viral on facebook a few years ago - so maybe you’ve heard of it before. It’s about a man who went to church. But that morning he forgot to switch off his phone, and right in the middle of worship, during a prayer when everything was supposed to be quite - his phone rang loudly. And after church was over, the pastor scolded him for not turning off his phone before coming into church. A number of people who had sat near him gave him dirty looks or even commented loudly about how he interrupted the silence of prayer. To top it off, the man’s wife kept lecturing him all the way home about how embarrassing and thoughtless he was. How insensitive and terrible he was. He was ashamed, humiliated. That same evening the same man went to a bar. He was still pretty upset, feeling stupid from screwing up that morning. He was a little shaky, and then he accidentally spilled his drink on the table, and on his lap. Although the spill wasn’t his fault, the waiter actually came over and apologies to the man, brought him some clean napkins to dry his pants, and then the waiter politely wiped the spilled drink off the table. The janitor came and mopped up the liquid that had spilled on the floor, again apologizing to the man for inconveniencing him with a quick mop around. The lady who managed the bar offered him a replacement drink, free of charge and to top it off - the manager, a larger lady with way too much make-up came up and gave the man a big hug saying, “Don’t you worry about it honey, happens to the best of us.” And guess what happened after this fateful day? Well I’ll tell you - that man’s never set foot in a church since that day, but every night he’s down at the bar. I wonder, sometimes, how good are we at actually loving our neighbors? When people in our lives need grace - sometimes Christians are the absolute worst at giving it. 

I had a conversation this past week, and we were talking about Byron Center and some of the outreach events we do and all the different churches. And they commented that sometimes in West Michigan it feels like everybody is already a Christian. And I had to disagree. They’re right, west Michigan is heavily churched, a lot of folk seem to have maybe grown up in the church - but they lost touch. Or maybe they go every Sunday - but it’s just checking a box on the to do list. We are churched - but are we Christian? How many people in our community are actively following Jesus - actually living the way he taught us to live? Sometimes I drive around Byron Center, and we have all these beautiful churches. Giant, gorgeous buildings - sort of the legacy churches of our town - and they all seem to have some sort of steeple, have you noticed that? They’re beautiful, and I marvel at them as I drive by. And there’s nothing wrong with a beautiful building, and I’m sure there’s wonderful people worshipping Jesus in all of those buildings - but I wonder.  I wonder if sometimes Christians get a little too focused on what it all looks like. Sometimes we get too preoccupied with the steeple than the people. Now I don’t know if that facebook story about the guy whose phone goes off in church is a real story - I don’t know if it’s based on a real guy. But I do know it’s a true story. I have people like that in my life. Do you have people in your life who have been hurt by the church? Just two weeks ago I was talking to a new friend, and I noticed she had a cross necklace on. And so I asked her, “hey, i love your necklace, if you don’t mind my asking, where do you worship?” And she looked kind of sad and told me that she used to go to one of those big beautiful churches with a steeple, but at one point she had asked for prayers and was turned away. It was heartbreaking to hear. 

Today we are jumping in to a brand new sermon series, one that I am very excited about. But as we get into it, I want to challenge you to keep the man whose phone goes off in church in your mind. Think about that person in your life who you know who has been hurt by the church, or hurt by a certain church leader, or hurt by you. We are going to tell one of the most famous stories in the entire bible - the story of the Prodigal Son, and as we go through that story I want you to keep that person right at the front of your mind. If you’re taking notes this morning, write their name up in the corner of your notebook. Or maybe you are that person. Maybe you haven’t been to church in a long time, but you’re feeling that tug on your heart to grow closer to God and so you figure - maybe I’ll go to that church in the strip mall, because they look a little different than some of these legacy churches. Maybe you were hurt by a church that was less welcoming than our father in heaven is - if that’s you this morning, I’m so glad you’re here - because this message is for you. 

If you want to open your bibles to Luke chapter 15, like I said before, we are into the story of the prodigal son, and that starts in verse 11. Now I said before that this is one of the most famous stories in the entire bible, but maybe you’ve never read it - so let me give you the TL:DR, you know - the cliff notes version. There’s a man who has a lot of stuff, including two sons. The older son is the goody-two shoes. He always does whatever his dad asks him to do. The younger son is an absolute stinker. At one point he comes to his father and says, “I want my share of the inheritance now.” His Father is heartbroken, but he agrees - splits his property and gives his son his half now. The younger son goes off into another country and throws all the money away. Women and Food, Booze and Parties - absolute debauchery. If you want a mental picture, just imagine any time hollywood portrays the way college students live. (shrug). Then a famine strikes the land, the money dries up, the younger son is destitute. He ends up practically starving to death, working on a pig farm. He’s feeding the pigs the nastiest food, and he wishes he could be eating it - that’s how hungry it is. Then he has this moment where he decides to return to his father’s house. He figures, I’ve ruined everything - but maybe I could still be a servant in my dad’s house. He goes home and dad welcomes him with open arms. Celebrates that his son has returned, throws a big party - but the stories not over. The older brother is ticked about the party. He leaves and is pouting outside the party, and the Father has to go out to him. And so this is the story of the prodigal son. 

But here’s the thing Jesus tells this story to a very specific audience. Chapter 15 verse 1 and 2 tells us who is listening to these stories. There are two types of people in his audience. The first crowd is sinners and tax collectors. Now think about this, in the story - which character are these guys going to identify with? The sinners and tax collectors are those who have lived life… wrong. They’ve messed up, they are hated in society, unpopular, cast out. They are the very picture of the younger son. But they are not the only crowd listening. Verse 2 tells us that behind the crowd of sinners and tax collectors is a wall of Pharisees and teachers of the law. These are the highly respected, pristine and perfect Church leaders of their day. And they are grumbling about the sinners and the tax collectors. And so we read the story of the prodigal son, which character are those guys? Whether they like it or not, they are the spitting image of the older son! Now let me ask you - which one are you? Which character in this story are you?

[put the rembrandt painting on the screen]. This is a painting called The Return Of The Prodigal Son. It’s a super famous painting done by a guy named Rembrandt back in 1669. For those who can’t see it - what we are looking at is a man in tattered clothing, his hair is thin and patchy, sunk to his knees in front of what is clearly a father figure as the Father bends down to embrace his son. Then off to the right is a very tall, disapproving looking fella - who could only be the older brother, and then there’s a few other characters in the background. Now, let’s leave this picture on the screen for a minute, because I asked you which character are you - and I’m willing to bet, for most of us in this room, or those joining us online, you have been all of the characters at one point or another in your life. A lot of us have had our prodigal moments - where we come back to God in tatters, beat up by the choices we have made. Most of us have those moments - but also, after you have been the prodigal, some of us have also had “judgy big brother moments”, haven’t we? We look at people who are struggling in the same way that we used to struggle and maybe we don’t say it out loud but we think, “Why can’t you get your act together like I did?” And actually what you’ll probably realize pretty quickly in this series is that every week we’re going to look at a different character and what he can teach us about who we are and how we are supposed to live following the way of Jesus. One of the most powerful things about the story of the prodigal son is that we will find ourselves in the mirror every character we meet. Now today, to get us started, we are going to start in an unlikely place - Today, we are going to tell the story from the eyes of the Father. 

Chapter 15, verse 11, [read v.11-12]. Jesus teaching this story to sinners and tax collectors, to pharisees and teachers of the law. He’s talking to both sons, and telling them what they need from the father. And the first thing we see, the first major teaching I want you to hang onto - what we need from God is a love that does not imprison. The son says, “Father give me my share of the estate” - and I wonder how many of us in the room are shocked by the next line, “So he divided his property between them.” What? Why doesn’t it say, “so he spanked his younger son and sent him to bed with no supper” right there? Why doesn’t it say “so the father turned to the younger son and said, “you’re grounded. No cell phone for two weeks?” For those of us who are parents - we can all understand this impulse to try and force our children to stay. To use dominating influence to keep them in line. In fact, this is one of the most powerful questions in the human story - going all the way back to the beginning of the bible. Why doesn’t God force our obedience? In the very beginning, with Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden - why did he put the tree in the garden? Why did he give them the option to disobey? Well let me answer your question with a question. Which would you rather hear from your children? I obey you because you’re bigger than me and you can hurt me. Or I obey you because I love you. What we see from the Father in this story AND from the heavenly father in our lives - is that we need a love that does not imprison. And so, in what I can only imagine is the most heart-breaking experience in his life, the Father lets his son go. The Father’s love is a love that lets the younger son go. His love to is too great to force the son to stay. It is a love that makes room for people to make mistakes. It is a love that is wise enough to recognize that sometimes people need to face the consequences of their own actions before they will come to their senses. The Father’s love is a love that does not imprison.

The story continues, [read v.13-16]. Now we’re going to get into more of the younger son’s story next week - but I want to keep our focus on the Father today, so let’s keep going. [read v.17-20]. The son tried it his way, didn’t work out so well, and so he’s coming back home. Now let’s make this a little bit real life for you guys. Have you ever had a delicious opportunity to say “I told you so” to someone? Like, you told them not to do it - they did it anyways, it blew up in their face, and you don’t even have to say it, you can just kind of give ‘em the eyebrows and the head tilt? You know what I’m talking about? [do the “i told you so” eyebrows]. Now let me ask you a different question: how many people in your life are afraid to come home, because they assume you’re going to say “I told you so.” I remember a few years ago, I got a call from a gal who needed some help with rent. She said she was homeless, and in need. Now it’s not just “yes” or “no” for me, when the church tries to help someone - I want it to be more wholistic, I want to know the whole story. So we’re chatting about her situation and I find out she’s a high school kid and her parents live in town. She has been couch surfing from house to house because she felt like she couldn’t go home. And suddenly I realized that it’s not that she had nowhere to go - it’s that she had places she was afraid to go. I can’t go home because I KNOW what they will say. They will say “I told you so.” I’ve had people who assume that of me. Friends and even family members who have gone through hard things, and they didn’t reach out, or even they hid it from me, because they assumed that I would start with judgment. They thought, “he’s that judgmental church guy.” They assumed I would start with “I told you so” and to be honest, I don’t know - maybe I would have. But that’s not what the Father does. The son assumes, “this is going to be bad, he’s going to disown me “- but his desperation is so strong, he decides to come home.

Verse 20 it says, [read v.20-24]. The Father runs to the son. And this shows us the second feature of the Father I don’t want you to miss - the Father has a love that initiates reconciliation. He does not wait for the son to come all the way home. He does not wait for the prepared apology. He does not wait, but instead he runs out - he initiates reconciliation. And actually, there’s even more to the story that maybe you didn’t know. I just learned about this as I was preparing for this message. Apparently, back in Jesus’ day there was a Jewish ceremony that was used to formally declare someone as cut off from their community. What they would do is when the person arrives to the town, they would take a clay pot and smash it at his feet. It was called the “Kezazah Ceremony”. It was a public act of shame and rejection. The Father, running out to meet his son, was very likely cutting off this rejection ceremony. He runs out to meet his son BEFORE they can smash pots on his feet, before he can be rejected. Because the Father has a love that initiates reconciliation. Not only that, but think about this. How could he see the son coming from a long ways off? The only way is if he was scanning the horizon with hopeful expectation. He is watching, he is initiating, he is holding off shame and rejection. Now ask yourself, is this how we treat people who have hurt or abandoned us? Is this how we treat people who are far away from God in our lives? God our Father has a love that initiates reconciliation.

But there’s one more piece to the story I want you to see. After the Father runs out and meets his son. He sweeps away the son’s pathetic apology attempt, wraps him in an embrace and calls for his cloak. Verse 22, [read v.22-24]. The Father shows us a love that does not imprison, a love that initiates reconciliation, and then maybe most importantly - a love that CELEBRATES. Now if you’re a legalistic church boy like myself (or the big brother), you might look at this story and think, “THAT is not fair.” Clearly the Father is not taking this seriously. He must not understand how bad the sins of the son are, if he’s offering a celebration, if he’s offering this EASY grace - but look closer at verse 24. The Father says, “this son of mine was dead, and is alive again.” You see, here’s where it unravels for a lot of us. This is a story about grace, but most of us want to be people of karma. Karma is this idea of balance, right? If you do a little bit of bad, you need to do a little bit of good to balance it out. If you do a lot of bad, then you need to do a LOT of good to balance it out. So this son, when he comes back - we want to see some groveling!

Now to show you what I’m talking bout, I’ve put some tape on the ground here. I don’t know if you can see this - but there’s a piece here, a closer piece and a farther piece. And a lot of us think of it this way - you did a bad thing, you dug a small hole, you need to step over that hole. Jump to earn your forgiveness. Now what the son did was REALLY bad, he dug a HUGE hole - from here all the way across to over here. And we say, “if you want to fix this - you’ve got to jump all the way from here to there.” And if there is someone who wants to find another way, we think, “well they must not take this seriously. They must not know how big the hole is, they must not know how much it hurt when they walked away.” We look at a God who would celebrate sinners and we think - he must not really understand sin. Now, let me ask you - how many of you think you could make this jump? I measured it, it’s about 8 feet. Some of you are pretty athletic, maybe with a running start - you might be able to get across that hole. 

But look one more time at verse 24. For this son of mine was… what’s the word there? Dead. Some of you might be able to jump this distance - or maybe you could have when you were younger. But what if you are dead? [lie down]. How far can I jump now? In our lives, we can worship a God of grace or a God of karma. And if you worship a God of karma, and you read this story you might think, “they’re getting off easy. That father, he’s not strict enough. He should make the son earn his forgiveness. Look at that big hole of sin he dug.” But here’s the truth I want you to grab onto this morning. Sin doesn’t dig a hole between us and God. Sin kills us. Karma doesn’t take sin seriously ENOUGH. And here’s why this matters - If you think you are forgiven because of your efforts - because you’re one of the good guys, because you’re better than the younger son - that’s going to get into your spirit and change the way you treat other people. If you think you can jump this distance, then you’re going to live a life expecting other people to jump this distance. But if you understand that sin killed you. You were dead, and the Father has given you LIFE - that is the only way we can embrace a love that celebrates. Because I didn’t earn heaven, I couldn’t make this jump - but the Father comes to us - and welcomes us in - and that’s why we celebrate

Now I hope it’s obvious at this point - there are sort of two layers to this story. First - there is the moment when God is the Father, and we are the son. We come to him dead, expecting smashed jars and shame and i told you so’s - we repent and return to God - and we receive grace. If you are here this morning and you are far away from God - stop trying to jump over the hole. Stop assuming you’re going to hear “I told you so” from God. Come and he will give you new life. You know what, let’s do this - if you are ready to come home to the Father, would you pray with me? And if you have already given your life to Jesus, pray with me anyways. Heavenly Father, we have run away from you. We have chased other things and it has messed up our life. Lord in our own way we are sitting in the pig trough starving to death - but we are ready to come to our senses. We have sinned against heaven and against you, we are unworthy to be called your children - and yet we have heard of the gift of grace, which comes through Jesus. So God we repent of our sins, we pick ourselves up and start limping home. We ask that you receive us today, run out to us Father, forgive us our sins, and wrap us in a warm embrace and invite us home. We are ready to trust in Jesus, to abandon our sins, to walk in his way and serve him all our lives. We ask this in Jesus’ name, Amen. 

So that’s the first layer - God is our father, and we are the son who needs to come home. But that’s just the first layer - God as our heavenly father - but the second layer is that we need to reflect the Father to other people. In this world we are the body of Christ, the hands and feet of Jesus to the people that we encounter in our life. God’s love pours into us - a love that does not imprison, a love that initiates reconciliation and a love that celebrates new life. And so we take that love, that example, and we offer it to others! So let me ask - in what places in your life could you be more like the Father? Can you mirror the love that God has given you to the people in your life? Don’t raise your hands - but, how many of you have a “prodigal” in your life? A child or grandchild or niece or nephew who has ripped the family apart, done something selfish and run off to make terrible decisions far away. And when you think about them, how much does what’s in your heart look like the Father’s love?

It’s not quite the same, but I’ll give you an example from my life. When I was in college, two of my closest friends got married. It was actually my roommate, and one of my best friends - we had a really tight friend group in college, spent all our time together. Even after college, my roommate and his wife and Sara and I - we had all lived in the Chicago area, and we still hung out all the time. But a few years went by, Sara and I moved up to the UP to serve a church up there - and I got word that my friends had gotten a divorce. Now I loved both of these people very much - in college they were two of my closest, best friends. And when I heard about the divorce, I had such a weird reaction. I should have been compassionate, loving - people I loved were going through a terrible thing. But I was just so mad at them. Our friend group was ripped into pieces - we weren’t going to gather all of us together anymore. I stood for them in that wedding, they promised. You promised me that you would love her the rest of your life, and you promised me that you would love him. And I was so mad at them for a while. And I think about it, in that moment, did I mirror the Father’s love? Nope. I think about the Father’s love that does not imprison - would I have loved them enough to let them leave? Nope. Absolutely not - I would have tied them together if I had to. Would I have run out like the Father to keep the pots from shattering? Nope. I probably would have been out there throwing the pots myself. Truth is, that’s a bit of an embarrassing story for me. I failed to mirror the Father’s love - and years later, I’m still trying to heal those friendships I hurt with my anger.

Now I’m sure most of you are better people than me, but maybe…maybe some of you have stories like I do - where we have failed to mirror the Father’s love to the people in our lives. And if you’re like me, we don’t just need the prayer of the Prodigal son, “Father, please let me come home.” we also need the next layer, “Father, help me welcome others home.” I think about that man who went to church and forgot to switch off his phone, but he found kindness and acceptance at the bar. West Michigan has a lot of churches, a lot of beautiful steeples - but how good are we at actually welcoming the people? The love of the Father is not just good news for the brokenness in our hearts - it’s also the answer for the brokenness of all the people around us too. Let’s pray.