The Gospel for the Outcast - Encouragement When You Have Lost Your Child
There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.” And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
But when he came to himself, he said, “How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.
“I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.’”' And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
But the father said to his servants, “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” And they began to celebrate.
Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.” But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!” And he said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”[1]
The old minister had completed his last message in the series of revival meetings. Anxious to get home to wife and friends he arranged to transport his bags to the bus station where he would catch a late-night Greyhound bus. Sitting down in the only seat available in the crowded bus, he discovered that he was seated beside a young man of indeterminate age. His face betrayed a hard life, and his clothing likewise revealed hard wear.
As the bus began to roll down the highway the old preacher couldn’t help but notice that tears were streaming down the younger man’s face. The younger man tried to keep his head turned toward the window, but how do you hide the great sobs which convulse the body of the broken-hearted? From time-to-time he would furtively lift a sleeve to his face to wipe his eyes and dry his glistening cheeks. This continued throughout the ride as the bus rolled toward its destination.
Early in the first light of morning, having observed this broken-hearted man throughout the night hours, the old minister spoke: “Son, I’m a minister. I cannot help but notice your tears. Is there anything I could say to maybe help you?”
The young man turned to the old man and said, “I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Gently the old preacher urged the young man by saying, “Perhaps I can help, son. Please tell me why you are weeping so.”
“Well, preacher,” began the young man, “I’ve roamed all across this country for quite a few years. I left home early on. I was wild and rebellious; I wouldn’t listen to my dad and I broke my mother’s heart. I even struck my dad on one occasion and tried to get him to fight me. Finally, Dad had to ask me to leave home. ‘Son,’ he said, ‘you’re breaking your mother’s heart. It kills me to do this, but, Son, you will have to leave.’
“Preacher, about three weeks ago I gave my heart to Jesus. He changed me, but I don’t know what can be done about the past. In any case, I wrote my parents and asked if I could come home, and I’m travelling toward my home. My folks live in the next town.”
The old minister considered what he had heard and then he asked the young man, “Son, how do you know if your folks will let you come home?”
The young man lifted his face as if considering how he should answer the question. Finally, he said, “I wrote in my letter that I would be looking for a sign that I was welcome again at home. You see, our house sits beside the road at the edge of town. In the front yard, right beside the highway, stands an old apple tree. I asked Dad to tie a big white rag in that apple tree if I would be welcomed home. Preacher, I’m almost there, and I can’t stand to look. Would you look and tell me if there is a white rag when we get there? Preacher, would you do this for me?”
“Of course, son. Of course I’ll do that,” said the old minister.
As the bus drew nigh the little white frame house, the minister excitedly spoke: “Son, you needn’t worry. That old apple tree is in full bloom. There are rags tied on every limb and your parents are standing beside the tree waving big white towels. Son, welcome home.”
That is a picture of God ever standing to receive the wanderer. That is our God! Our God waits to receive wanderers, not because of, but God waits to receive us in spite of. Perhaps no more poignant illustration of this divine love has ever been provided than that which Jesus offered in the parable of the lost son.
If the loss of a sheep could not touch the hardened heart of the Pharisees and teachers of the law, if the thought of losing wealth failed to touch the heart of these religious leaders, then surely the loss of a child would touch their hearts. Remember, however, that the focus of the parables has been the joy which should accompany finding that which has been lost. If a shepherd rejoices over a sheep which is found, and if a woman rejoices over a coin which is found, and if a father rejoices over a wayward son who returns to the home, should we not rejoice over a sinner who comes home?
The God whom Jesus revealed must have been shocking to His listeners. Imagine! God actually searches for sinners! And then He rejoices over them when they are found. This third parable continues that theme as the Master directed attention to the seeker, only this time He presents God as always looking and yearning for the lost.
This God whom Jesus presented is not some austere, remote deity unconcerned for His fallen creation. Instead, God is presented as a yearning father who longs for the sinner to come home. Unlike the shepherd and the woman seeking the coin, the wandering boy was brought to repentance and forgiveness by the memory of the goodness of His father. Perhaps the memory of God’s goodness will bring others home.
The Wanderer — There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.” And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.
But when he came to himself, he said, “How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.
“I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.’”' And he arose and came to his father.
Thomas Huxley said, “A man’s worst difficulties begin when he is able to do just as he likes.” How true! We are always heading for trouble when we value things more than people, pleasure more than duty, and distant scenes more than the blessings we have at home. So it was that this young man valued possessions and pleasures more than relationship and responsibility. In an earlier period while teaching, Jesus had warned: Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness [Luke 12:15]. The greedy person will never be satisfied, no matter how much he acquires. A dissatisfied heart leads to a disappointed life. This young man soon learned that you cannot enjoy the things money can buy if you ignore the things money cannot buy.
The distant country is not necessarily a distant place to which we must travel; the distant country exists first of all in our hearts. The distant country can be as near as the street in front of your house if that street leads you to transgress God’s law and to forsake relationship and love. The younger son dreamed of enjoying his freedom without need to give an accounting to either his father or elder brother. He wanted to have his own way without restraint; and so he rebelled against his father.
The young man received his inheritance and as soon as he was able to convert his inheritance into liquid funds, he left home. Full pockets and an empty heart is a recipe for disaster. Cynicism comes quickly to the individual who believes that he or she is loved because of their possessions.
While teaching at the Criswell Center for Biblical Studies, there came to the school a young evangelist named Rick Stanley. At the first, Rick Stanley’s claim to fame was that he was the younger brother of Elvis Presley. Vernon Presley had remarried, and the woman he had married after the death of his first wife (and Elvis Presley’s mother) was herself the mother of two young boys—Rick and David Stanley.
Rick Stanley related that his stepbrother, Elvis Presley, was terribly lonely. Elvis knew that the vast majority of his “friends” were only using him. They thought they might receive something from him, or they hoped to gain their own moment in the limelight, and so they were his “friends.”
Wealth and possessions may serve to curse us instead of bless us if we fail to invest them wisely and if we fail to insure that they are employed to build relationships. So, the young man spent all that he had in reckless living. Neither was life in the distant country all that the younger son had imagined. The money ran out and with it the friends he had acquired along the way. Then came a famine, and with the famine came hard times; and with the hard times came penury and want. Broke and broken, the young man was forced to do for a stranger what he would not do for his father—go to work.
Sin always promises more than it can deliver. Sin promises freedom; but it brings only slavery [John 8:34]. Sin promises success; but it insures failure. Sin promises life; but the wages of sin is death [Romans 6:23]. The young man thought he would find himself; but he only lost himself. When God is left out of our lives, enjoyment becomes enslavement.
Whatever you may think of this young man, remember that he did come to his senses. The Greek in a somewhat literal sense, notes that he came to himself, indicating that he had not quite been himself to this point. Of course, since he had need to come to himself, we know that he wasn’t quite right. There is an insanity to sin which seems to paralyse the image of God within and liberate the animal inside. The young man changed his mind about himself and his situation, and he admitted that he was a sinner. He confessed that his father was a generous man and a fair man and that service at home was preferable to slavery in the distant country.
It is God’s goodness, not just man’s bad feelings, which leads to repentance [Romans 2:4]. Had the boy thought only of himself—his hunger, his homesickness, his loneliness, he would have despaired. His painful circumstances helped him see his father in a new light, and brought him hope. Stopping there, the boy would have experienced only regret or remorse, but true repentance involves the will as well as the mind and the emotions: I will arise… I will go… I will say. Resolutions may be noble, but if we never act on them, they can never bring about any permanent good. If repentance is truly the work of God, then the sinner will obey God and place saving faith in Jesus Christ.
In greater or lesser measure, each of us can relate to the younger son in this story. Who among us has not made foolish choices—rash choices which imperilled relationships as we bartered the permanent for the immediate? Who among us has not found himself, or herself, yearning after the accoutrements of this world—perhaps even chasing phantasms at the expense of the love of those dearest to us and nearest our heart? Who among us has not at one time or another found our eyes blinded—bedazzled by the glimmer and gleam of the fading façade of this present world. The decay of death and the dust of destruction are shrouded by glitter which to the uninitiated eye appears as precious jewels. The stench of death is masked by the transient aromas of alluring scents which promise more then they can ever deliver. And we are dazzled by the moment.
The Watcher — But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
But the father said to his servants, “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” And they began to celebrate.
But while he was still a long way off… The words lead me into the good company of godly men throughout the ages, to conclude that the father invested time watching for his boy. The father’s heart yearned for his wandering son—and he watched. Then, when his aged eyes saw the answer to uncounted prayers approaching at a distance, the father ran. In the East, older men do not run. Certainly, the old father wanted to show his son that he loved him and to welcome him home; but there was something more in his running out.
The wayward son had brought disgrace to his family and village and, according to Deuteronomy 21:18-21, he should have been stoned to death. Had the neighbours started to stone this younger man, they would have hit the father who was embracing him! What a picture of our God, for on the cross, Jesus embraced this sinful world, including you and me, and He thus protected us from the death we deserved.
Everything the younger man had hoped to discover in the distant country, he found at home—clothes, jewellery, friends, joyful celebration, love, and assurance for the future. What made the difference? Instead of saying, “Father, give me,” the younger man now said, “Father, treat me.” This young man was willing to become a servant, if only he might have a relationship.
The father did not ask his son to earn forgiveness, because no amount of good deeds can merit forgiveness. That word falls so easily from our tongue, but the meaning too frequently escapes us. For-give-ness speaks of giving before a request is voiced. In the usual course of events, we are giving reconciliation and mercy before it is requested. In the distant country, the young profligate had learned the meaning of misery; but back home he discovered the meaning of mercy.
The father fitted the boy with a robe which would serve as proof of his acceptance back into the family. The ring which the father commanded to be placed on his finger was a sign of the boy’s status as a son. The father insured that his son was wearing sandals befitting an heir. Servants did not wear rings and expensive robes and shoes. The feast was the father’s way of showing his joy and sharing it with others.
Had the boy been dealt with as the Law required, there would have been a funeral instead of a feast. What a picture of the 103rd Psalm!
He does not deal with us according to our sins,
nor repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
As a father shows compassion to his children,
so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.
For he knows our frame;
he remembers that we are dust.
[Psalm 103:10-14]
The boy came home in rags; his father not only clothed him but honoured him with jewels befitting a son. The boy came home hungry; his father not only fed him but fêted him. Our God is abundantly merciful, and He always does more than we can ever expect.
The father speaks of his son as having been dead, but now being alive, as having been lost and now found. The same is true for every one far away from God. As sinners, we are dead in trespasses and sins; but in Christ we are made alive to God [Ephesians 2:1-10]. It is a picture of every sinner, and that includes each of us at one time. Whether we are now alive, or whether we are now dead before God, depends upon whether we have come home. Whether we have been accepted into the family and whether we have caused the angels of God to rejoice, depends upon whether we have returned home.
Even now, the question must be raised to each one listening this day. Have you come home? Have you quit the distant country and made the long trek home? Have you ceased from pursuing your futile dreams which only lead to death? Are you now home? There is joy awaiting you upon your return to the Father’s house. Why wait even until the end of this pleading message? Come now into the joy of your Lord.
The Worker — Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.” But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!” And he said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”
A heart-breaking story was once related to me. A fellow elder told me how he had witnessed a fellow minister labouring within the Asian community counted among his children a daughter who had been raised in the Faith. As that child grew to maturity, she proved to be somewhat wild, and in her teen years she turned from following her father’s faith and eventually married a nonbeliever. Of course, she ceased attendance at the services of her father’s church.
The deacons of that congregation were aghast and demanded that their pastor, the father of this wayward girl, must do something about the situation or resign his charge. Their demands were fuelled in part by the embarrassment felt in the cultural community with which this church was associated; they justified their position with a skewed appeal to the Word. “Your name is known and spoken among the churches of our acquaintance,” they said. “Therefore, you must disown her, or resign your position.”
That heartbroken father, under pressure both from his culture and from the representatives of that culture who wore the guise of guardians of the Faith, publicly declared his daughter dead and renounced his relationship to her. No doubt, the Pharisees and teachers of the law would have been pleased, but somehow the action seems far removed from the heart of God. Somehow, such action, whatever patina of respectability it may seem to wear, is utterly foreign to the actions of Christ. We know that our Lord gladly welcomed sinners. Rejecting one’s child is utterly unlike that of the father in the parable Jesus presented, waiting and watching and longing to receive his child again.
I have also faced the pressure of a pharisaic church. After my son was sentenced to prison, a fellow minister—a Chinese pastor—demanded that I renounce my son. He was embarrassed. Reject him and I would never again hear about the situation. Show him love, and that “godly” leader would insist that I must leave. Saving face before his community was more important than showing mercy. Perhaps it is just as well that that man had no children of his own, since he was so bereft of mercy and compassion. I did leave that church in its bitterness and in its pettiness to slowly die.
I hurt for that Chinese minister, because the pressures to which he succumbed are neither isolated nor unique. There is a certain cowardice motivating pharisaic people. The Pharisees grumbled in Jesus’ day, and they still grumble and justify their charges through appeal to unnamed people. It is reported among the nations, and Geshem also says it [Nehemiah 6:6]. “They said” and “I heard” are still the two biggest liars within the land. Unfortunately, they are spreading dissent even among the churches of this day. Grumbling and muttering still drive preachers to despair and destroy relationships.
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law are still with us. They wear different names in this day, but their attitudes are unchanged despite the passing of millennia and despite the different nations in which they now reside. When our families fail, and they do fail on occasion, let us determine to emulate the Heavenly Father and watch for the erring until they come to their senses in a distant country. Let us demonstrate that we are children of the Living God by manifesting the love of God as sinners come home. Let us determine that we will eagerly seek the lost, search for the wounded and weary, and that we will receive them when they return in repentance and with a humble heart.
I suggest that the focus of the parable should not be on the sons, but on the father. The father had two sons, he loved two sons, and he went out to two sons [Luke 15:20, 28]. God is a both/and, not an either/or God. To embrace sinners is not to reject Pharisees. The offence in 15:1 and 2, witnessed in verses 7 and 10 and voiced by the older brother is the joy, the party, the singing and dancing.
Of course, let the penitent come home, but to bread and water, not grain-fed veal; to sackcloth, not a new robe; to ashes, not jewellery; to kneeling, not dancing. Forgiveness appears to critics very much like condoning. The same father who ran to meet the prodigal came out of the house of feasting to plead with the older son. How gracious and condescending is our Father, and how patient He is with our weaknesses. The father explained that he would have been willing to host a feast for the older boy and his friends, but the boy had never asked! Furthermore, since the division of the estate, the elder brother owned everything, and he could use it as he pleased.
Though the focus is on the father, there are yet two sons. One was enslaved, yet received as a son, the other was a son and yet he lived as a slave. Listen to his complaint. I have been slaving many years for you![2] Who called him to slavery? The father did not wish him to view life at home as slavery and drudgery; he enslaved himself by his attitude.
The Pharisee spirit of the elder brother manifests itself among us when we see worship as duty, service to our brothers as obligation, and our relationship to God as that which steals joy and coerces obedience. I am a Baptist, and I reject any such slavery, taking as my life verse Paul’s declaration: It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery [Galatians 5:1].
Yet, I have observed too many Baptists who have permitted themselves to become slaves to their own efforts. The elder brother had worked, but his heart was not in his work. Never once had he disobeyed the will of the father, but his obedience was not from the heart. He always dreamed of throwing a big party at which he and his friends could enjoy themselves, but he never once enjoyed the relationship with his father. Ultimately, obedience and labour which does not flow from a loving heart is futile and worthless.
Many of our fellow Baptists work and are ever so careful not to disobey, but their worship and their service is all show. Tragically, they do all their deeds to be seen by others [Matthew 23:5]. Like their spiritual kin in the days of Jesus, they are whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness [Matthew 23:27].
The religious leaders listening to Jesus no doubt realised that he was contrasting them to the sinners with whom he was eating and to whom He reached out in acceptance. They knew Jesus was rebuking them, and His rebuke must have surely stung, for they knew He spoke the truth. Culture-bound, proud, self-centred people cannot enjoy the loving relationship reserved for the children of the Living God; they can only stew and grumble.
The church of this day is called to minister within a culture and in the midst of a people who are increasingly distant from God. Whatever religious roots Canada may have once claimed, the heartwood is dead, the tree is diseased and the fruit is rotted. Increasingly, if the churches of this day should reach out it will be to a people scarred and soiled and sullied by sin. The churches will need to be compassionate to be effective.
I observe that as churches are reduced to social clubs and cultural preserves, the professed people of God are increasingly offended when wanderers attempt to come home via our portals. I suggest that the churches of tomorrow will be clearly categorised as either demonstrating the spirit of the Father or revealing the mindset of the elder brother. The way one will distinguish between these two positions is by observing the people occupying the pews.
In the church of the Father, those occupying the pews will include a sizeable number of people who are not necessarily socially adept or cultured or even acceptable to the majority of mankind. Included among their number will be people at various stages of growth and spiritual maturity, but they will all express the love of God for one another and seek the good of each other. Though the membership will be demanding, the saints in that church will rejoice as God sends them yet other problem children; and because they reveal the Father’s heart, God will send an ever greater number of prodigals seeking to return to a gracious father. There will always be within their midst sinners, and perhaps even tax collectors; and all such people will be welcomed to meet with Christ and to discover His searching love.
In the church of the elder brother, those occupying the pews will be cultured, well mannered and acceptable to the world about them. They will no doubt be eminently respectable, icily precise in their manner of life, chillingly correct in their interpretation of the Bible, and they may even have a veneer of happiness and openness. However, it will be difficult, if not impossible, for wanderers to find acceptance among these paragons of virtue. They will set the barriers as high as possible so that they need not be embarrassed by the wrong kind of people invading their hallowed precincts.
With the passage of time the church of the elder brother will not grow, but will become increasingly marginalised as the members slowly die off. What growth they see will be the momentary inclusion of their own children, until the children are old enough to cut the strings and fly away. With time, as they shrivel and die off, they will unite with other dying groups to give themselves momentary comfort. No sounds of rejoicing will ever shake the rooms, and no sinners will ever be redeemed, and no lives will ever be transformed. Congregants will congratulate themselves that they are keepers of the Faith, but the flame will have long since died away.
I confess that I am concerned that we are content to let the riffraff meet elsewhere. I am concerned that we are content to isolate ourselves from the problems of the world about us, consoling ourselves that there is nothing, after all, that we can do to make things better. The message is not a plea to invade the darkened streets of our town, although should God so lead I would hope that we are prepared to do precisely that. The message is nothing less than a plea to examine our hearts, to expose the spirit of the elder brother and to confront any such thinking. Should I, should we, upon examination, discover such a spirit, I plea with a heart of compassion to root out such attitudes that the spirit of the Father might prevail. In the days to come I want our church to be the former church I described; and though it may have great problems with the people coming to us, it will reflect the heart of God. And the angels of heaven will rejoice, and the Father will smile, and the Lord Christ will laugh with holy joy, and we will honour Him. Amen.
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[1] Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright Ó 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
[2] Holman Christian Standard Bible, Ó 2000 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission.