God's Parable in the Two Sons and Us--- Luke 15:11-32

 Luke 15:11-32  The Compassionate Father

I came cross this illustration from the idea of doing things together as a Church and this helps illustrate it.  This fits the idea of the Compassionate Father in our reading today.

No One Completes the Journey Solo

The migration of the monarch butterfly is an amazing story, a lovely little creature who blesses our gardens and forests in the summer. Every autumn, millions of monarchs from all over the eastern United States and Canada migrate thousands of miles to a small handful of sites in Mexico where they rest for the winter. Then in the spring, they begin their return trip to the north. The amazing thing is that no individual monarch ever makes the trip to Mexico and back.

A butterfly that leaves the Adirondack Mountains in New York will fly all the way to Mexico and spend the winter. In March, it begins the trip northward, but after laying eggs in the milkweed of Texas and Florida, it will die. Those butterflies will continue northward, laying eggs along the way until some of them, maybe three or four generations removed from the original, make it back to mountains of New York. But when August comes, they will head south, aiming for the exact place their great grandparents visited, a place they have never been. 

Sue Halpern says: "The monarchs always migrate in community and depend on each other. Although a single monarch may make it from New York to Mexico, it is the next generation who completes the journey." 

Now here is the word for the church. She says: "No one completes the journey solo. It is only as a community that we discover the fullness of God's plan for us." 

John E. Harnish, Collected Sermons, www.Sermons.com

What stood out for me in this Prodigal Son illustration of Jesus was a few things. First look at the reason our Lord spoke this in the first few vs of Luke .

1. The publicans and sinners were drawing near to hear Jesus.  The Pharisees had a problem with that.  Sound familiar?  To reply Jesus gives the story of the 2 sons, but first he speaks of the lost coin,and  the lost sheep. There is joy in heaven, vs 10 over one sinner that repents.

This is a very big problem for most churches.  They get into a mind set that only certain types can be allowed into the fellowship.  Look who just sat in my seat !  Look who does not know our rules...I remember we had a controvery about the kitchen and who could do what.  Notice these are ways of excluding those who do not know the rules....

We had other controveries and you know what they were and what they were about....hymns , theology, etc....instead of focusing on what was the important thing.  People need God and they need Him now.  We should not have made man made rules to force people to do things our way.  ( my thinking is that all the hymns are there for us and the theology should not divide us but join us together.....)

Most churches say they are accepting of all, but that is usually not the total truth.  Jesus would rebuke our need for control and say that we should be looking at the one who needs our help and assistance.

2.  I have read this story of the 2 sons many times and have preached on it before, but one thing stood out to me.  I am not sure I can explain this, but here it is...vs 20.

Did the Father receive the son because he repented or did something else happen first?

Before the son repented after  the Father saw him afar off.  "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."

Henri Nouwen in his excellent book on The Return of the Prodigal Son says this,"  For most of my life, I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried to hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life---pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures---and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate (waste)myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.  Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not, ' How can I find God?',  but 'how am I to let myself to be found by Him?'"  

3. Finally how does this apply to those who we know that are lost in the mire of the sin they find themselves in?  What we have done has not worked.  We are to be like God and have compassion for them, see them afar off . "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."

Does this mean we excuse their sin and misbehavior?  No.  We are to meet them in the middle---or to be going to meet them with the intention of forgiveness .  Matthew 5 :23 " If you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift at the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come offer thy gift."

How appropriate for the Lord's Table and we come knowing we must forgive those who have offended others and us.  We cannot come in hate.  We come in love for God and for our brother or sister.

Amen.