CYPRESSWOOD CHURCH OF CHRIST

May 14, 2006

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!!!!

KEEP IN YOUR PRAYERS THE FOLLOWING:

Our congregation                                                                 Our nation, military and leaders

Various relatives, friends and co-workers                        James and Leon in the Army

Our students

HAPPENINGS:

May 20^th - Travis and Rose’s wedding at Lake Houston at 1:30 p.m.

Summer Youth Series: (7 pm)

                June 5^th  - Memorial (Zambian Vocal Group)<

LOST SHEEP, COINS AND SONS

(part 6)

“The older brother became angry and refused to go in” (Luke 15:28).

We have been looking at the parable of the lost: a lost sheep, a lost coin, and lost sons.  Jesus has been criticized by the Pharisees and teachers of the law for eating with sinners.  “If only he knew who these people were…”  Table fellowship was very influential in those days and by doing so, Jesus was sending a message to all.  Since the Pharisees didn’t eat with such people, Jesus tells them a parable.  We have looked at the lost sheep, the shepherd leaving the ninety-nine in the open country to go and find the one that was lost.  Who were the ninety-nine representing and why leave them out in the open country?  Then we saw a woman seeking a lost coin in her house.  The third was a young son who took his inheritance and left, wasted it, and came back to a waiting father, who then threw him a party.

This now is where we come to the meaning of the parable, the challenge especially for the Pharisees.  The older brother came in from the field when he heard music and dancing.  He asks one of the “servants” what was going on.  In this case, it probably wasn’t a servant, they would be in the house serving.  This was probably one of the children who would be outside enjoying the music but not allowed in the formal setting.  Don’t forget, this is a village activity that was going on.  The boy tells the older brother that his younger brother has come home safe and sound and your father has thrown a party for him.  The older brother would immediately understand that the younger was accepted and that reconciliation had occurred.  The Greek word in Hebrew would mean shalom, meaning peace and reconciliation.

Angered by this, he refused to go in and join the festivities.  The father has accepted a sinner.  Sound familiar (see vs. 1-2)?  Everything that concerns the property belongs to the older son as part of his inheritance, so that while the father can do this, it does not make the older son happy after the younger son had wasted his inheritance.  If the older son would go in, he would have to serve as the head waiter, showing both respect for the father and acceptance of the younger son.  It is obvious from the response of the older son, he could not accept this; no penalty had been paid for the younger son’s actions.  “For certain types of people, grace is not only amazing, it is also infuriating” (Kenneth Bailey, The Cross and the Prodigal, IVP, 2005, p. 82).

It doesn’t take long for this reaction to reach the father and everyone else; nothing in village life is secret.  What will the father do?  He does the unexpected again!  His great love leads to his willingness to humble himself before all, doing what is shameful in the eyes of the village.  He deliberately leaves his guests to go to his older son, and needless to say, he is followed.  All will be standing listening to the conversation between the father and the older son.  He goes out to appeal to, to entreat the older son to come in and be reconciled.  Once again we see rejected love in rebellious son.  He further insulted his father by leaving any title off when addressing him.  “’O father’ is an essential sign of respect.  The older son chooses to be rude.  The younger son was a rebel and knew it.  His brother is a rebel and does not know it” (ibid. p. 84).  Incredibly he says that he has never disobeyed his father.  He fulfills the letter of the law but breaks a relationship, again something familiar with the Pharisees.  He accuses his father of favoritism.  When he states that he would have a party with his friends, he leaves his father and brother out of it, clearly stating that they are not his friends.  His request is the same as his younger brother’s; “I want mine.”  He so despises his brother that he calls him, “this son of yours,” which indicates that he will not reconcile with him.  He unwittingly acknowledges that his brother’s portion of the inheritance was his to do with what he wanted, yet whines that he doesn’t have the same freedom.  He sees himself as a servant, not a son.  “A servant obeys the law.  A son responds to love.  His choice is law, and his concern is rewards.”  He too needs to be forgiven, though he thinks that the father and brother should ask him for forgiveness.  He misrepresents the meaning of the banquet, which was to honor the father for bring shalom to the family.  It was not to honor the younger son but to celebrate the sacrificial love of the father.  The older son is “consumed with envy, pride, bitterness, sarcasm, anger, resentment, self-centeredness, hate, stinginess, self-satisfaction and self-deception.  Yet he appears to see his actions as a righteous search for honor” (ibid. p. 86).

The father addresses him as son, a special word that expresses love and affection.  He is saying “My dear son.”  The father makes one correction by saying “your brother.”  The rest of the father’s speech is a defense of joy.  The shepherd did not have to explain his joy nor the woman her joy.  The father here is forced to do so, and in doing this answers the Pharisees complain from verses one and two.  What happens?  Does the older brother slap the father or in some further way shame him?  Does he accept reconciliation and go into the party?  What will the Pharisees do?  The parable deliberately ends this way calling for a decision of the listeners.

We all like this parable especially the part about the younger son coming home and being reconciled with the father.  We like to think that that is who we are.  In a sense it is.  We enjoy this “happy ending” because we see what God has done in Christ to reconcile us.  We like the idea of acceptance and we understand, at least in part, the concept of table fellowship, especially in the Lord’s Supper.  But that is not the end of the parable nor the reason for it, or to say it another way, there is a lot more to this.

We tend to ignore the older brother.  We certainly do not see ourselves has him.  Yet when we read about his actions and speech, I wonder if we are just deceiving ourselves too?  How do we accept sinners?  Have we been willing to be reconciled?  Have we emphasized law over grace.  There are two types of sin in this story; the sin of the law-breaker who breaks a relationship while failing to fulfill the expectations of the family and society.  The other is the sin of the law-keeper who breaks the relationship while fulfilling those same expectations.  We can see the Pharisees in the older son with no difficulty.  Unfortunately, there are too many parallels between the older son and us, and like the Pharisees, we just do not see them. 

The church is a family, not an institution.  God wants reconciliation.  This should be seen in our congregations no matter what someone has done.  Difficult?  You bet, but necessary if we are to be like Jesus in our lives.  It is time for humility and love to be the dominant themes of our fellowship together. 

What else can we learn from this parable?  God grants us freedom to choose.  We don’t often choose well.  Sometimes we choose sin rather than family.  At other times we choose not to accept rather than to forgive.  There are two types of repentance seen: earn one’s acceptance as a servant or accept the costly gift of being found as a child of God.  “Grace is a freely offered love that seeks and suffers in order to save” (ibid, p. 88).  It is God giving us what we need, not what we deserve.  This is a parable of grace!  There is joy seen in finding and in reconciling to the family and community.  We see the costly love of the Father, not just in the parable, but in the cross.  There is sonship “Because you are his sons” (Galatians 4:6).  We see Christ in this parable in the costly actions, whether in seeking or in humility - “rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.  And being found in appearance as a human being, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death -- even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:7-8).  Family and community are important in this parable as it was with Jesus eating with sinners, and needless to say, equally important today among God’s people.  We are not an institution governed by some board of directors but a family that works and struggles together through good and bad times.  The father going out to his sons represents God coming into this world in Christ, what is known as incarnation.  Even more, his actions represent the costly means of atonement, again as seen in humility.  That is followed by the banquet, that table fellowship seen in many texts.  We understand it in the Lord’s Supper, much more than a mere memorial, but rather a celebration of reconciliation to God in Christ.  It is seen in the joy of celebration at the costly efforts in each portion of the parable.  Then there is the future where we will all be gathered around in that eternal banquet with our Father.  What a party that will be!

So we end as the parable does.  What decision will we make?  Will we accept the love of the father and be reconciled?  Will we choose to stand outside in anger because some we do not see as “good enough” have been accepted?  Will we be a repentant law-breaker or law-keeper or will we continue in law breaking and law keeping?  The invitation has been extended, a decision needs to be made. 

What think ye?

                                                                                                                                George B. Mearns