“Our Forgiving Father”—Luke 15

Part 2: Leaving Home

Welcome: Thanks for reading my Passion Week blog series as we reflect together on Our Forgiving Father. Today in Part 2, we see that we’re all Prodigal Sons or Prodigal Daughters. However, there’s hope—when we put our ear to the chest of Christ we hear the heartbeat of God—the heartbeat of our Forgiving Father.

Part 2: Leaving Home: Luke 15:1-2, 11-14

The opening of Christ’s parable in Luke 15 is delightfully conventional, even to the point of being childlike. “There was a man who had two sons.” It’s almost as if Jesus begins His story with the words, “Once upon a time.” What happened once upon a time to this father of two sons?

“Father, I’m Leaving You!”: Luke 15:1-2, 12

Jesus begins the action with the youngest son’s demand. To us the words seem innocent enough. “Father, give me my share of the estate.” To the father, the words are radical—suggesting heartless rejection.

Jesus tells it all so simply and matter-of-factly that it is difficult to realize fully that what is happening here is unheard of: hurtful, offensive, and in radical contradiction to the most venerated tradition of the times. Kenneth Bailey, in his penetrating explanation of Jesus’ story, shows that the son’s manner of leaving is tantamount to wishing his father dead. Bailey writes:

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?” “Impossible!” “If anyone ever did, what would happen?” “His father would beat him on the head, of course!” “Why?’ “Because the request means that he wants his father to die.”

The implication underlying the son’s request is simple. “Father, I cannot wait for you to die. Get out of my way, old man! Drop dead!”

Can we imagine the pain? Some parents today with teenage or grown children have faced just such hurt and humiliation. There can be no greater pain than the ache in our soul when the child we love says those dreaded words, “I hate you Mom!” “I hate you Dad!” Or perhaps we know the pain from the other side. In a moment of bitterness and rage, maybe those death words slipped out of our mouth. “I wish you weren’t my parents!” Or worse, “I hate you!”

Having wished his father dead, this younger son wastes no time collecting his new-found wealth and travelling to a distant country. In our culture, this seems harmless enough. A recent survey of Americans found that 67% of us no longer live in the same state in which we were born. Not so for this young man and his father. In their day, moving away from the family home was a sign of tremendous disrespect. This loving father now feels the same agony as the parents of a runaway child. Such a homeleaving produces immense sorrow and shame in the heart of the father.

Awayness

To understand the father’s pain and the son’s shame, we must place ourselves in the social context of Christ’s parable. In Luke 15:1-2 we read, “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘this man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” The religious leaders of the day are complaining because Jesus does not keep respectable company. He welcomes sinners! He receives and accepts them.

In response, Jesus tells three parables, each portraying the same theme. The portrait Christ is painting impresses upon our senses the truth that sin is awayness. The son moves away from the father. Nothing breaks the heart of God our Father more than His children moving away from Him spiritually.

Why do we all need forgiveness? Why do we all “have it comin,’” as Clint Eastwood says? We all have it comin’ because all of us like sheep have gone astray. All of us, like the prodigal son, have gone our own way. We have chosen to leave our Father and live on our own.

The Rest of the Story

Like a lot of things in life, it gets worse before it gets better. Please join me for Part 2, where we hear the words every sinner speaks to God the Father, “Father, I don’t need You!” Some of us say it in overt rebellion, while others of us say it with cloaked self-righteousness. But we all declare our independence from God.

Join the Conversation

Why do we insist on awayness—on running away from our Father’s home, our Father’s heart?