A PASTORAL LETTER

Dearest family,

I didn’t get quite as far as I wanted to on Sunday but enough is enough! The parable of the two sons, or more accurately, of the father, is such a rich seam of truth in the mouth of Jesus, the perfect Son of the glorious Father. One of the features of the story that we dwelt on was the prodigal’s incompletion of his rehearsed speech. Why did he not present the “hired-hand plan”? What kind of reasons could be given? Was it simply that he was interrupted by his father, otherwise he would have presented all of it? Or was something else going on? The last word of his truncated speech was “son” at which point the father’s heart seems to leap with a cosmic divine “YES!” and the father’s speech now flows spontaneously, unrehearsed. Let the contrast between what they each said sink in to your heart: “I am no longer worthy to be called your son…” (the son), “This son of mine was dead and is alive again…” (the father). I asked you whose perspective you would rather have on your life?

I don’t think that the speech ended early because the son made a calculated decision to do so. The loving, receiving, accepting, welcoming, rejoicing actions of the father brought the revelation of who he the son, truly was, with the equal revelation of who his father was. And what was he? A dead son, who realizes it at last as he is smothered in the embrace of the father, and wetted with the kisses of his mouth. There was no way he could become a live son any other way than this way, being raised again to life by the love of the father. His father didn’t leave him on the hook. It doesn’t even appear as if the confession mattered that much to the father. Don’t get me wrong, I believe everything scripture teaches about the necessity of our confession. But here is a wrench for your theology which may just suggest how huge the compassion and desire of the father is for us, that He seems to run through all the check-points of how you’re meant to approach him according to dutiful penitent custom. What is clear, by his interruption of the rehearsed off-by-heart speech is that his love cannot wait until the ending of the liturgy of confession. He has to have the son now! The son’s confession is almost ignored, certainly cut short, definitely interrupted. The father’s forgiveness preceded the confession. Don’t forget the father had died too. In claiming the inheritance the son had essentially told him to drop dead, to live now as if dead, and of course, in taking the inheritance he took the father’s living, his means of support. Out of his death came the forgiveness, way before the son’s realization of his need for it. Are you getting echoes of the gospel here, of the Father who was in Christ reconciling the world to himself? I’m thinking of Titus 3:4 “When the kindness and love of God appeared…he saved us…because of his mercy…” Does not Romans 2:4 say that it is “God’s kindness that leads to repentance…” Whether we come sinning or sinned against in our brokenness, it seems his fatherly passions and kindness ignore the litany of our worthlessness. We cannot even get the words out. He’s throwing out instructions to ministering spirits left and right and in two sentences, fewer words than the son had planned for the confession, the father has planned a celebration. As one observer has put it: “The father simply sees this corpse of a son coming down the road and, because raising dead sons to life and throwing fabulous parties for them is his favorite way of spending an afternoon, he proceeds straight to hugs and kisses and resurrection.”

You’ve got to get this. The son was kissed before he confessed. There was no negotiation here of his forgiveness and acceptance and restoration: no probation, no trial periods. No wonder penance is so attractive to the flesh that refuses to surrender to the kiss of the father. How can we defy grace with our offers of possible paybacks? We bring nothing with us but our brokenness! Of course we can understand the son’s attempts to manage his own recovery, to try and work the “hired hand” approach. The response of the father seems so indiscriminately gracious that it almost appears indecent, not true discipleship, too loose, too unwise, too unguarded, too naïve - to go straight from the forgiveness of this wastrel to the party? But we need to be shocked once in a while by the outrageousness of God’s grace to us, that we have got so used to confining to our polite theological formulations. Surely a probationary period before the public party would be wise? This would have fit in well with the son’s original “hired servant” idea.

It’s not that repentance is not required, or that coming to one’s senses is not necessary, or that coming to the father is unimportant – it’s just that they are all overwhelmed by the robe and the ring, the sandals and the fatted calf. The robe was the reinstatement of the father’s status and identity to the son. It was most likely one of his best personal robes. Slaves were bare-footed, the sons wore shoes – only free men wore shoes. The ring was the signet of authority to do business as the son of the father. So here is the son, decked out as a son with all the rights of a son. You should know that for a disgraced son like this one, Jewish communities had a very different kind of ceremony to the one the father gave here. Scholars of the customs of the time tell us that it was called the “kezazah” (the cutting off) in which he would have been officially rejected for what he had done. A life-time excommunication and the branding of “REJECTED” would be his sentence. The returning son well might have feared this was what he was walking into. The father’s answer is not banishment but an over-the-top celebration of welcome to which the whole community would be invited – thus the whole calf and not just a few pieces of steak on the barbecue. This is outrageous extravagance but this was the Father that Jesus knew. And speaking of that fatted calf…. It can slip by without notice in our hurry to get to enjoy it at the party. But it is yet another death in a parable full of deaths. Some see this as the image of the sacraments (admittedly it is a calf slain and not a lamb slain) – but the sole purpose of the fatted calf was to die that others may have joy in the father’s house. There is none the less the idea of “blood covenant” in relationship whenever an animal was killed for friends. The refrain is the same: life out of death is what happens when you come to the father’s house.

And another thought about that fattened calf. It was waiting fattened. There was full provision in the father’s house. He had all that was needed for restitution and restoration and reconciliation. He wasn’t caught short. There was no waiting period till joy and deliverance could be really celebrated. But as we were saying, the returning dead-now raised son is given all the rights of the son without even the righteousness of sonship being demanded, without him proving he can be righteous and worthy. His last true self-description was “unworthy”. Some wise and discerning person put it this way: “Reformation is the fruit of restoration, not the price.”

It was because of the father’s compassion that the son was received not because of his confession. This celebration wasn’t the father’s response to the speech. As we’ve established, the speech as rehearsed wasn’t even repentance. We already know how he intended to say it, with what intentions and limited hopes. What cut the speech short? The moment of true revelation and repentance when it was clear that it wasn’t about squandered money but about this broken relationship that could only be restored by the gifts of the father yet again. An 11th century Arabic commentary puts the reason for the “hired hand” bit of the speech being cut off most succinctly: “He did not say this. We say that he did not say this because of what he saw of his father’s love.” It was the outpouring of a heart that, days without number, had been filled with feelings of longing for the lost son. It wasn’t that his rehearsed repentance made the way for him to be received. The love that received him secured his repentance. So he wasn’t even received because of his confession but because of the father’s great love and grace. O what manner of love the father has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God! Being a hired servant was what the son knew best to be, apart from his father’s grace. But hear me: the love of the father will not allow us to be or become what we are not. In any case, his idea that by working he was somehow going to be able to earn to pay back, or save to recover what was lost, was unattainable, impossible. It turns out that just as the father was always the father, so the son, despite all that had happened to disfigure his identity or appear to disbar his sonship, was still a son, was always a son, and would continue to be loved and treated as such.

There is so little acknowledgement of the crucial relationship between our understanding and experience of freedom and our experience of fatherhood. Our freedom is a consequence of our assurance about fatherhood. It is not enough to understand it only in terms of the working of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit reveals Jesus, who in turn is showing us the Father. Neither the Spirit nor Jesus act independently of the will or work of the Father. The charisma is the father’s before it is the Spirit’s. It was the gifts of the father to the prodigal that recovered for him his freedom as a son: like the ring which now gave him the freedom to exercise his authority in the father’s name.

In the fifth message in this series we will begin to look at the elder son and see what further insights we have of the heart of the father. In the meantime, live as an obedient and loving son and daughter of your Father.

Pastorally yours,

Stuart

http://www.christourshepherd.org/pastlet.htm (and follow links to download MP3 audio of sermon)