The Ninth Sunday after Trinity.
The Collect.
|
G
|
RANT to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do
always such things as are right; that we, who cannot do any thing that is good
without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Gospel Text for today’s sermon comes from the 15th chapter of St. Luke,
verses 11-32. For the benefit of those who will be reading these notes instead
of hearing them, I will include the entire text by individual verses in the
body of my sermon rather than print the entire text at the beginning. We all
have Bibles, so perhaps this will simplify our understanding.
Here is another of my favorite passages of Holy Scripture. It is the
third series of Parables in this chapter that address “lost” things – the first
is one lost sheep out of one hundred (Vs. 4-7). The sheep might be compared to a
baby Christian who has not gotten his roots deeply set in the Word of God ere
the winds of doubt and temptation assail. He has little vision to see the road
ahead, and wonders off from following the Shepherd. Once lost in the rocky
crevices of the mountain plain, he is terrified and begins to bleat. His
Shepherd is the Good shepherd and He never loses a single lamb placed in his
charge. The second example is that of a lost coin – one silver coin out of ten –
that a lady misplaces. All those who are lost without the church are precious
to the Lord. The lost have no conscience of being lost. They are as good as
dead – just like the silver coin. They cannot even bleat for the Good Shepherd
for they are “dead in trespasses and sins.” That lost coin can in no wise find
itself, so it is like the sinner who is without hope unless he is found by the
good woman (the Church).
Now the third example is you, and me, and all who call themselves
Christians. Do not make the mistake of assuming, ladies, that this Parable is
just about some errant son – it is about the errant daughter as well. If we
belong to Christ, we are all equally the sons and daughters of God the Father.
I understand this parable quite well because I have traveled the same road that
the Prodigal traveled and, thank God, I have also returned by way of that same
road. I have wasted my substance in riotous living, found myself alone and
devoid of a friendly soul, wandered to the depths of the pig sty, and then,
thank God, came to myself and arisen and returned. If you are honest with
yourself, you, too, may have done all that the Prodigal did unless you are a
very unusual son or daughter of Adam. The prodigal, unlike the lost sheep and
the coin, knows his Father well, has a conscience to think, and goes into a far
country away from his Father with intentional resolve.
Let us go back in time to that day when Jesus, confronted by the
murmuring scribes and Pharisees, looked deep into the hearts of all men and
spoke this Parable. His mind could see every human heart and every prodigal
that had ever lived, or will ever live. Being the Master of all Truth and
Wisdom, He condenses all of those prodigals into a single account, so much more
accomplished at the art of example than any Shakespeare that ever lived – or any
other. “A certain man had two sons.” (Luke 15:11) This is every
man – every father, but especially, God the Father. The two sons are you and
me, and every daughter that has seen the light of day.
The man is a good Father, and He loves His sons dearly. The younger son
is a rebellious boy, just like you and me, who resents the authority of his
Father over him. “And the younger of them
said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.”
(vs. 12a) The boy believes that he deserves a reward for which he has never
labored or sacrificed. He believes the wealth of his Father falls to him simply
by accident of birth. How many of us cry for the blessings of God, but deny His
Sovereignty over us? I venture to say everyone who hears this sermon does so to
some extent. The Father looks at His willful son with love and disappointment;
but His disappointment does not abate His love for his rebellious son. “What
can I do to awaken my son to his great need?” the Father must have asked.
Surely He could have denied the boy’s request, but would that have awakened him
to his dire shortcomings, or simply hardened his heart in the matter?
“And he divided unto them his living.”
(vs. 12b) God the Father has no obligation whatsoever to bless us,
but He chooses to do so. This old Hebrew father has no legal or ethical
constraint to grant the boy’s request, but he grants him his prayerful request
knowing that the boy will fare badly on his own. Why? Because the only way that
we can have our dull eyes opened, often, is by having all, losing all, and then
coming to our right minds. It is coming to the last rung on our ladder. So what
does the son do?
“And not many days after the younger son
gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there
wasted his substance with riotous living.”(vs. 13) This son was
in a great hurry to get out from under his Father’s thumb. “And not many days after” he gathered up
his newfound wealth and left his Father, his brother, and all that was his
Father’s. That is what we do when we have known God and, yet, embark off on a
far journey to satisfy our own lusts and desires.
“And when he had spent all.” The
only thing we own in this world is what our Father has given us. We have no
wealth of our own at all since ALL belongs to God. When we strike out away from
our Father’s House, we will soon expend the daily Manna He gives and exhaust
ourselves in barren places. “And when he had
spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.”
(vs. 14) Wherever we go away from God, it is a ‘far country’ of unloving
strangers. Whenever we obey our own wills and not the Will of the Father, there
will result a famine in that land to which we have fled. The want for bread is
not nearly so dreadful as the want for spiritual fellowship with our Father. A
famine of the word, as Amos says, is far more severe than a famine of bread and
water. (Amos
8:11-12)
If we take a chunk of our Father’s money and go out to a far country – say, Las
Vegas – we shall have many friends as long as the largesse remains; but once
gone, so are all of the doting friends. Their faces now become sharp and
condemning. Just as sodium is never found in its pure form in nature, but
always joined to some other element, so the son who is not joined to his
Father, must join himself to others – others who only use and do not care for
him. “And he went and joined himself to a
citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.”
(v.15) There is no real love among the Godless. This young Jewish son found
himself in the most deplorable of conditions for his faith – feeding the pigs.
I will remind you that the Father knew all that was happening to His son just
as God knows every second of your life, but He lifted not a finger to bring him
home. Why was this? We shall see in due time.
Once famine strikes at the heart, it is unrelenting – never lessening, but
always increasing from misery to misery. “And
he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and
no man gave unto him.” (v. 16) Once we have known God as our
Father, separation from Him becomes unbearable. Our hunger for righteousness
becomes ravenous. God did not put us in this deplorable state: we did it to
ourselves without Him. No man will lift a finger o alleviate the suffering of
the poor in the Far Country of the World. It is a terror to be ravenously
hungry and to know that no man cares enough to give us a crumb from his table.
As the Prayer of Collect truly asserts, “. . . cannot do any thing that
is good without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.” The Lord does not bless us in Far
Countries from Him.
There are five profound matters that come to light which the son acted upon
when he found himself in extreme depravity of soul:
1. HE CAME TO HIMSELF
“And
when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have
bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger!” (v.17) It
is my opinion, and I believe one supported by Scripture, that all who are apart
from God are out of their right minds. The son finally “came to himself” and recognized his total lack
of worth in this “Far Country away from his Father. Everyone who comes to
Christ must first recognize their depravity and great need.
2. HE RESOLVED TO ARISE AND CONFESS TO HIS
FATHER
“I will arise
and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against
heaven, and before thee. And am no
more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.”
(v.18,19) Every repentance of man begins with a resolution to arise.
Certainly, a sinner can sink no lower than he has already sunk. The only way to
move is up toward God and His Savior.
3. HE ACTED ON HIS RESOLUTION
The son did not pay mere lip service to his
resolution – he ACTED upon it! “And he arose,
and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw
him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”
(v.20) Here is a picture of whose beauty I can barely imagine! We know that the
Father is completely aware of His son’s debauchery, yet He never sought to
bring him back. If He had sought the son to bring him back before he had
reached the end of his rope, nothing would have been learned. The Father waited
and watched in pain of soul. Every rebellious sin we commit as Christians is like
another lash over the back of Christ. The son returned! His Father has sat
watching the horizon patiently for days, then weeks, then months, and then the
months turned to years. But with failing eyesight, He watched. Suddenly, a
figure emerged over the distant horizon over which the road wound upon which
his son had left long years before. The figure was dressed in rags, walked with
a stumbling step, smelt of the filth of the pig sty, was bearded and gross of
appearance – no one would have recognized this figure as the handsome young boy
who so proudly marched away on the road of prodigality years before – no one
EXCEPT the Father. His loved told Him who this fellow was at such a long
distance. God loves us so much that He knows and recognizes us even when we are
in desperate sin. The Father could no longer sit and wait. He waited when His
son was going away, but when he was returning, this was a joy to the old man’s
heart. God cares that we are headed in the right direction even if we are yet a
long way off from being at His side. Sin is a DIRECTION and so is
RIGHTEOUSNESS. The Father hugged a filthy, flea-bitten son who stank to high
heaven.
4. HE CONFIRMED HIS RESOLUTION BY CONFESSION AND
REPENTANCE
“And the son
said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am
no more worthy to be called thy son.” (V.21) It is only when we
recognize our unworthiness that we can please God. It is HIS worthiness upon
which we must furl our flags. The Father, just as He knows our hearts, already
knew, without words, the heart of His son. He did not even hear the verbal
confession of His son – the spirit had shouted the news to His heart from afar.
5. HE IS FORGIVEN, RECEIVED, AND RESTORED
“But the
father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and
put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet:” (V. 22) The
Father does not quibble over the depth of our sins and disloyalty when we have
returned to Him with broken spirit and contrite heart. THE ROBE: He
takes that precious, blood-bought Robe of Righteousness that Christ purchased
at our Redemption and covers our filthy rags of sin and pungent odor. That
covering represents forgiveness, justification, and acceptance. “I
will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he
hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the
robe of righteousness.” (Isaiah 61:10a) THE
RING: This is literally a signet ring which conveys the authority of the
Father upon the son. As believing Christians, we too have that authority
conveyed upon us. In labeling sin as sin, we express not our own opinion, but
the law of God. SHOES: I have seen disturbing pictures of late of the
senseless and cruel murder of captured Iraqi soldiers by ISIS. Most were lying
in a ditch to be shot, and shoeless. Why? It has been a tradition as far back
as King Cyrus that the shoes of captured prisoners be taken to prevent their
escape. Shoes are a sign of liberty; and Christ is the Perfect Law of Liberty.
The Father
arranges a feast for all who return to Him in love and repentance. “And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us
eat, and be merry” (v.23) There is rejoicing in Heaven over the
repentance of a single sinner. (V. 7)
“For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost,
and is found. And they began to be merry.” (v.24)
Time does not suffice to bring out all of the beauty inherit in this
Parable, or to expound upon the final verses. That will be food for a later
time. But each of us should read this parable and, in each place the prodigal
is mentioned, insert our own names. It will be an eye-opener.
If you are whiling your days away in a Far Country (no matter how far
away that country is), come to your senses, resolve to arise, then follow up by
arising; return to your Father, confess your sins, and be restored.
