My Daughters' Sermons:
Kayla - Letting Go
and
The Prodigal Players 1 – The Prodigal Father
Luke 15.11-32
April 29, 2007
Rev. Matthew M. Fry

As we continue to experience the Word of the Lord together, Let us Pray. Give us, we pray, O God, thoughts higher than our own thoughts, prayers better than our own prayers, powers beyond our biological possibilities, that we may spend and be spent in the preaching and hearing of Thy Word. Amen.

This is the sermon in the series about my daughters, and this one is about how I was overwhelmed by being on the parent team to Kayla this year. And I was immediately drawn to this passage. The parable of the Prodigal Son. This is one of the most preached on, most learned about in Sunday School, most well known passages in all of the New Testament. It is a personal favorite of about everyone I know, self included.

[Audio begins here]

And, from this passage, beginning today, I will preach a three part series on this passage, each sermon focusing on the viewpoint of the three main characters. So this Sunday is the last sermon in the “My Daughters” series and simultaneously is the first sermon in the “Players in the Prodigal” series.

Today is about the Prodigal Father. And remember I got here from Kayla. See, Kayla went through a couple of things this year that were, for Melissa and me, signs of things to come. And I was immediately drawn to this passage. The first thing that Kayla did was go to a roller skating rink. Her first time. She’s got the skates on, and I’m thinking 1981, but she’s thinking here and now. Anyway, we are inching our way around the rink; it takes about 20 minutes to make one revolution. And I keep holding on, cause she clearly hasn’t got this. She keeps saying, “Daddy let go, let go.” So, we are off the oval, she’s in the snack area, and says again, “Daddy, let me go.” So I do what I do, make a joke to the other parents standing around, something like, “All of a sudden I’m in her dorm room freshman year trying to think of excuses to hang around just a little longer.” As the words are just out of my mouth, still lingering, Kayla does a face plant. And to make matters worse, on the way down, she slams her face into a chair, one of those planted in the floor, plastic, hard as all get out, more of a bench than a chair, chairs. She begins to wail, and she spent the rest of our time at the roller rink in my arms.

Letting go isn’t easy, but in hindsight, I’d do it again, because that is what parents do. In fact, we did it again when she started Kindergarten. She took it in stride, we were a mess for about a week beforehand, increasingly worse each day up to the big one. But we put her on the bus, got in our car, and followed to the school. She got off the bus, gave us a hug, and said, “You can go now.” And she loves school, and we love that she has grown.

With those things going on, I was brought to this passage. Hear now The Word of the Lord as it comes to us in the Gospel of Luke. Listen. Luke 15.11-32.

Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout 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 to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up 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 like one of your hired hands.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then 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 slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

The Grass withers, the Flower falls, but the Word of the Lord endures forever…Thanks be to God.

The son comes to the Father and says, “Give me what is coming to me once you are dead.” I don’t know what I would say to that, but I know how I’d take it. The Father is better off to the son dead than alive. Quite a message to give good old dad, don’t you think? ‘I’d be happier if you were dead,’ is not quite the message you’ll see in the Hallmark stores for the upcoming Mother’s Day or Father’s Day card selection. Least not where I shop.

What kind of father is this? Jesus tells this as a third parable in a series to answer the question from the Pharisees about Jesus’ tendency to hang out with tax collectors and sinners. But what father hears that from his child and says “okay, here you go.” I presume that the Father isn’t some sort of idiot; I presume he knows that the son taking his inheritance on the road is a likely scenario. I wonder how long it took the father to place his trust, and to decide to give the son his desire, and to let him go. It doesn’t say whether he agonized over the decision, or whether he contacted his legal team later that day to get the paperwork processed. We don’t know his reasons. Maybe this was a gamble, a hope that the son would see his father’s love and be moved to stay. Or maybe this was the move of a desperate man who didn’t know what to do. But to Jesus, who made up the parable, that isn’t important. What is important is that the Father lets the prodigal go, lets the prodigal make his own decisions.

Whether or not you are a parent, you know that letting someone else you love make a mistake that you have either made or know how to avoid, is one of the hardest things in the world to do. It’s why we give unsolicited advice to people, even people on the street whom we’ve never before met. But boy can we give unsolicited advice to family and close friends. We can give it, but we never seem to want to receive unsolicited advice. That is what makes it unsolicited, people haven’t asked for the advice. But we don’t have a problem giving it anyway, do we?

The father in the story is likened to God the Father, which is why this parable came to mind when dealing with Kayla, who this year has been growing up, and that means in no small part, gaining just a little independence from her parents. In the parable, the Prodigal Father lets the child go. My guess is that this was no easy decision, mostly because the Prodigal Father waits at the end of town in the hopes that his son will one day come back. The Father has to understand that the possibility exists that the son may not come back at all, or if he does, he will come back defeated, or on the other end more full of himself because of some series of victories. The Father willingly gives up control of the son, knowing that only in freedom can either he or his son find any contentment.

It is that way for us as parents. I have this tiny book here, called “Father to Daughter.” It has some pithy advice, but it also has some good reminders. Like this one about raising a teenage girl, (p. 174). “There will be days when you think you’ve raised an alien. Those are the same days she feels she’s being raised by one.” That’s true already for the Fry household. Then there is this one (p. 194). “There will be times when she will knock you over with her selflessness, tenderness, and gentleness. This is the real her.” But this one really caught my eye, (p. 134) “Accept the fact that the loving, tender angel you’ve spent the last decade with may disappear sometimes. She will return.” That’s the hope, sure. But the ability to let go is a difficult task, and one that everyone who has had to let go of someone understands.

If the parable of the Prodigal family as told by Jesus is meant at least in some aspects to parallel the Father in the story with God the Father, then we see a God who lets us go, lets us make our own decisions, lets us take advantage in a sense, the way the son takes the Father’s money and leaves. We see a God who gives total freedom to the children of God, and says, “Even when you tell me that I am dead to you, I will still love you, still hope to see you, still wait at the edge of town for you.” And when the Prodigal comes back, when we come to God the Father, God welcomes us with open arms, not with hostile criticism or with, “Have we learned our lesson?,” or even with “Before you come back, I’m going to need an apology and the reassurance that you won’t do this again,” or “My trust will take a long time to regain.” None of that. The Father is so overjoyed, to use the word that the text uses, that he throws a party.

Of course he does. Anyone who has had to let someone or something go knows what agony it is. To see it rewarded with the return of that which you love is pure unadulterated joy. Nothing but the fatted calf will suffice. It is time, get your party on.

When you or I play the part of the Prodigal, God first off has given us the freedom so to do, has let go so that we can do whatever we want. And then as God has let us go, God has given us grace so that, when we make bad decisions, God does not give us the riot act, does not make us do penance, just throws a party in our honor for the fact that we are back home. To see the joy of the Father as the Prodigal comes back is to understand in part why the Father lets the son go in the first place.

I felt terrible when Kayla smashed her face at the skating rink. But for Christmas this year, her favorite gift was a pair of roller skates, and she is back on the horse again, skating through our neighborhood as much as she can. Fortunately, there is no snack area in our neighborhood for her to fall into. But you and I both know, she is going to fall again. And even though she goes out covered in more armor than a knight in full chain link suit, she will get hurt again. But we’ve got to give her room, got to let her grow into the wonderful young woman that she is already becoming. God knows that it won’t be easy. But God knows that it is worth it. Amen.