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6-10-07: Love Without End Amen |
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This is the seventh message on the New Testament theme of love, God’s love and what it means. Last week we talked about this same passage with the idea that God loves and respects us enough to give us the latitude to stray.
God gives us the room to screw up and learn what we have to learn in ‘the world,’ then welcomes us back when we conclude that the lures of ‘wild living,’ as Jesus describes the prodigal son’s choices, are way over-rated.
We see here the very different characteristics of the two sons: one is obedient, dutiful, and respectful. The other is impulsive, needing to experience and experiment. Jesus tells us that both are okay but, again, we’ll have to deal with some of the consequences
But now we’re looking at this parable from a different perspective: the quick but insightful view that we get of the father in this parable. This father was wealthy, fair, and permissive enough to let his younger son take his inheritance and leave. He was also mindful of the older son but able to sensitively correct him when he cried out in anger.
This father is Jesus’ personal model of a truly loving father. Let’s build on this a little bit and forgive me if I take a few liberties, but here we go:
This father trained his kids to learn values he discipled them to embrace what he believed in and what he stood for.
This father trusted his kids, either with responsibilities (like the older brother) or with his money inheritance (the younger brother).
This father allowed the kids to be their own person, these brothers were very different in personality and attitudes. Each one had to learn his own way.
This father risked losing the kids, he let them choose where they would go and how they would live, again trusting that his values would prevail in them.
This father loved his kids, more than they knew. The little brother came home expecting to become just a house servant. The older brother cried out of pain and anger at what he thought was an injustice. The father was exuberant at the return of the younger son, intimate in his reassurance of the older son.
The pride of the Hebrew man was in being a father. The shame and disgrace attached to failing in the paternal role was such that that father would be exiled from the community. When Jesus spoke adoringly of his Father, our Father, his listeners knew the meaning of trust, of compassion, of discipline and of love: these were the attributes of a good dad. For the Hebrew father, the children were the heirs of his physical and financial efforts but also of his spiritual legacy. For the good Hebrew dad, the administration of justice and discipline did not mean a punitive response or abuse - those were forbidden. The honor of the family name was of real significance, but still the father nurtured the each offspring as an individual.
And the loss of a child to death, or a son to battle, was a grief so profound that it wrenched the soul of the father for his lifetime. Think of Father’s love. Father so loved you and me that he gave his only pure son so that the rest of us, sons and daughters, could become full members of the family. That really is love without end, Amen. |
