“I wish you were dead,” blurted out the young man [I will call him Jacob]. “Why son?” asked his dad. “I’m tired of living by your rules. At least when you die, I’ll get what’s coming to me and can do what I want for a change.” The next day the distraught father having done everything possible to help his son arranged a financial transaction, and gave him the money he would have received as an inheritance. His son hung around a few days, but the money did not satisfy him. “I want to be on my own, and get away from dad’s influence. I don’t need him! I’ll move, in fact I’ll move as far away as possible where he cannot find me.” Jacob packed his bags and headed out with no plans of returning.”
This scenario presents every parent’s worst nightmare. “Where did we go wrong?” was the first question I heard when counseling parents facing similar situations. Jacob’s parents were financially secure and raised him in a godly home. However, the reality of this sinful world, despite parents’ best efforts, children sometimes forsake their mom and dad’s love and Christian teaching and go it alone living by their own rules.
For the first months, Jacob reveled in his new found life of freedom. He rented a beautiful house, hosted parties every night, and met more new friends than he could count. “I knew the old man’s way of life wasn’t for me.” However, it became obvious he learned nothing about finances from his dad. The rent for his house, bills for food and liquor, and the cost of extravagant clothing drained his funds. Making it worst, the nation’s economy collapsed leaving him broke, homeless, and hungry in a foreign land. Surely, out of all those new friends someone would help him! His so called friends had no interest since he no longer hosted parties. He was starving. Desperate, the one job he found paid him enough for a few breadcrumbs each day. The work was hot, dirty, and in fact nasty. He worked on a farm slopping pigs. For this Jewish young man, no job was more degrading than working with pigs.
You may recognize this as an application of the parable Jesus told of the lost son in Luke 15. In the Jewish context, asking for your inheritance equated to wishing your father was dead. His father was under no legal or cultural obligation to give him anything. Nevertheless, the father turned over his son’s portion. Sometimes children put parents in the position where their only choice is releasing them to go it alone. The father in this parable represents God the Father. God gave us a free will and if all His efforts of loving us and caring for us fail, He will allow us to go it alone.
At first, sin feels good bringing enjoyment. Yet, the pleasures of sin take you far enough to leave you trapped. Then the fun is gone. Jesus used several colorful words. ‘Squandered’ describes the winnowing of grain and means he wasted his money like the chaff blowing away in the wind. ‘Riotous or loose living’ indicates he went to the limit of sinful excesses. Literally, the word indicated he went beyond the point of saving. By giving this parable, Jesus assures us no one is beyond God’s ability to save. The key for the son as with people today is choice. “When he came to his senses (v17),” he remembered his father and the fact he did not have to go it alone. He made a choice, got up, and returned to his father.
As he approached home, his father saw him and ran to meet him. In the first century, it was shameful for a man to run because he must pull his tunic up around his waist so he would not trip. For a man to expose his bare legs was degrading and disrespectful. So why did the father run and shame himself? When a Jewish son wasted his inheritance living with the Gentiles, the community rejected him. If he tried returning home, the leaders would run out before he reached the village and preformed a ceremony breaking a large pot and shouting he was no longer welcome. This father ran and shamed himself so he could reach his son before anyone in the community preformed the ceremony thus ousting him from the village. Jesus shamed Himself by hanging on the cross naked thus providing a way back home.
In this parable, Jesus addressed the Pharisees and scribes who complained about Him welcoming sinners. Jesus painted a vivid picture in words. Anyone who has worked with hogs understands the stench from pigs reeks and lingers a long time. Already shamed from running, this father embraced his ceremonially unclean, filthy, foul-smelling son and welcomed him home. Through this parable, Jesus pictured the way the heavenly Father receives His wayward children when they return. It does not matter if they are spiritually unclean, filthy, and foul-smelling.
Going it alone will eventually lead you to the pigsty in order to bring you to your senses. Yet, the Father waits for His filthy, foul-smelling children’s return home. To those in the pigsty, come to your senses, and go home.
Sustaining Word for the Week: You do not have to go it alone any longer. The Father waits for your return. He will welcome you home and restore you as His child. The choice is yours.