The Father’s Unshakeable Bond - A Deeper Dive
Message Recap
This week we take a break from our current sermon series If You Love Me, and consider the parable of The Prodigal Son. The story is a study of the extravagant grace extended by a godly father to a disrespectful and foolish son. What an appropriate topic for Father’s Day, where we honor all fathers and their roles in our lives.
The Prodigal Son is one of the most well-known parables Jesus used to teach his followers. It is a simple story. A father’s youngest son asks for his inheritance while his father is still alive. The father grants the request. Then, in an act of disrespect and selfishness, the son sells the inheritance. With money in hand, he travels to a distant land where he squanders the wealth. The country then falls into a famine, and the son, now broke, must take a job feeding pigs. Ultimately the son comes to his senses and decides that returning home to serve as one of his father’s servants is a better alternative. While the son is still a long way off, his father sees him and immediately runs to meet his son. The father lavishes his younger son with grace.
At face value, this is a powerful story about poor choices and redemption. But there is deeper meaning when we consider the cultural context. At the time Jesus told this parable, people held family honor in the highest esteem. A son was expected to honor their father and respectfully carry his name. Usually, the distribution of an inheritance occurred after the father’s death. To ask for his inheritance while his father was still alive, the younger son essentially said, “I wish you were dead.” And even though the father had willingly given up a portion of his wealth, he would have still been entitled to the profits earned on the son’s share. Selling the inheritance literally took money out of the father’s pocket.
There is no question Jesus uses this cultural context to drive home his point. The Jewish people listening to the parable, especially the religious leaders, would have understood just how heinous the son’s actions were. Under Jewish law, the son was a sinner who was unworthy of any redemption. Not only had the son violated the third commandment to honor his father, but the very act of taking a job feeding pigs, which were considered unclean, would have incensed the religious leaders. In the eyes of the religious elite, the law was central to a relationship with God.
Given the level of the son’s disrespect toward his father and complete disregard for Jewish cultural norms, we certainly wouldn’t expect what happens when the son returns. When the father meets the son, he is so overjoyed that he kisses his son and gives him three items of significance: his best robe, a ring symbolizing that the son’s place in the family had been restored, and a pair of sandals that people of honor would wear. The father also ordered the fattened calf be killed, so they could have a special feast to celebrate. Even after being disrespected, the father extends what can only be described as radical grace.
The lesson of this story has many layers and can be viewed from each character's perspective. The younger son disrespects his father, is irresponsible with his wealth, ultimately realizes the error of his ways, and returns home a more humble man. The father gives the disrespectful younger son his inheritance early without any resistance, and despite the son’s foolish ways, the father extends grace when his son returns.
Perhaps the better title for this parable would be The Lost Son and The Prodigal Father. The term prodigal is tricky to define. While the definition includes words like wastefulness and carelessness, it also means extravagant and lavish. The father’s grace to his repentant younger son is definitely extravagant. When we think of the story of The Prodigal Son, we tend to focus on celebrating that the foolish and disrespectful young man manages to figure out the errors of his way. But we wouldn’t have the story if we didn’t have a father who extended radical grace to the son who so disrespected him and who was so irresponsible. The father is a godly man.
The biblical role of fathers and other godly men hasn’t changed over the millennia. A godly father mirrors the love and grace shown by our heavenly father, and he extends unconditional love so each child knows they are loved, cared for, and have purpose. The godly father protects their family, and they are willing to make sacrifices for others. They serve as a role model for doing what is right and just.
A godly father extends the kind of love the Apostle Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13:
“4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
Our heavenly Father has given us many examples of the unshakeable bond he shares with his people. Beginning with Adam and Eve, God clothed them and gave them a second chance instead of dismissing them for their disobedience. King David was guilty of adultery and ordering the killing of Bathsheba’s husband, yet God forgave him and called him a man after his own heart. The Apostle Peter had many blunders and flaws, yet God waited for him to mature and used him mightily. Finally, as a tax collector, Paul persecuted the early church, yet the Lord changed him, and the Apostle went on to plant churches and write over half of the Bible.
A godly man doesn’t have to be a biological father to share a fatherly influence. A step-father, an uncle, a mentor, or a friend has the opportunity to extend a father’s unshakeable bond as a man of God. How great is the love of the Father that we can be called the children of God.
What About the Older Son?
There is a third character in the parable of The Prodigal Son that we didn’t discuss. The older son plays an integral part at the end of the story. When his younger brother returns, and a celebration breaks out, the older son is in the field. He hears the celebration and asks a servant what is happening. He is told that his brother has returned and his father has killed the fattened calf because the younger son is back safe and sound.
The older brother becomes angry and refuses to join the party. The father pleads with him to join the celebration. But the older son refuses and complains that while he has done everything right and has followed all of the rules, his foolish, wasteful, and wayward brother enjoys a celebration. In another moment of grace and wisdom, the father explains to his oldest son that the son has always been with him and everything he has belongs to the son.
Instead of gratitude, the older brother reacted with entitlement. And entitled people quickly become bitter if they feel their privilege is threatened. Author Rob Bell writes,
“The eldest son’s problem isn’t that he doesn’t have anything; it’s that he’s had it all along but refused to trust that it was really true. We cannot earn what we have always had. What we can do is trust that what God keeps insisting is true about us is actually true.”
The older brother made the critical mistake of assuming he deserved what had been freely given to him. Just as the father in the story celebrates his younger son's return and his older son's obedience, our heavenly Father’s only desire is to bless. There is nothing we can do to earn the Father’s favor, and we can do nothing to lose it, either.