It's a bit of a stretch, but one might say that Ali wanted the benefits of riding the plane without being strapped in to the obligations of riding a plane...if that flight met severe turbulence or worse, "Superman" would have found out in a hurry just how vulnerable he was! This morning we'll be taking a look at a boy who may have thought he was "Super Son;" this young man who seems to have wanted all the benefits of sonship without being "strapped into" the obligations of sonship. We began our look at this parable from Luke last week. As you remember, there was a man who had two sons. The younger son said, "Father, give me my share of the estate." So the father divided his property between the sons. Now, I'm told there were no laws or customs among the Jews or the Arabs which entitled the son to a share of the father's wealth while the father is still alive. None. This request would be seen by Jesus' original audience as an extraordinary insult to the father, and it would have hurt the father deeply. The implication of this young son's request is, "Father, I can't wait for you to die. I just want what you have; I don't want you. I want the goodies ... all the benefits and blessings of being your child ... I just don't want you. I don't want to live under your roof and I don't want to live by your rules and I don't want to associate with your family, especially my stuffy older brother, and I can manage things just fine if you'll just give me what I want." (Or, to paraphrase the words of Clay, "Super-son don't need no father!"). Again, the son's request is all but unheard of in the culture of that time. Again, it's tantamount to requesting the father to die.

As Jesus tells the story, this young man quickly packs up, and goes far, far away, possibly to get away from the rejection, criticism and condemnation of the home village, and perhaps to enjoy the cloak of anonymity in another place. Maybe he just wishes to put distance between himself and his father, whom he has deeply grieved and offended. He goes off to a distant country, wastefully ("prodigally") spends and squanders all his money, which was half of what appears to be a very sizable estate. This far country then undergoes a famine. The young man attaches himself to an apparently well-off citizen who has food and livestock during the famine. Jesus' Jewish audience knew just how far this young man had sunk when they hear the job he has taken: he is tending pigs. This is a job that would be anathema to anyone of Jewish heritage, as pigs were unclean animals. A Jew in that era would have the same inner revulsion for pigs you or I would have for a dead animal lying on the side of the road; he wouldn't touch one pig, let alone work with a herd of pigs. This young man is obviously at the end of his rope; Superman's "plane" has crashed. As we pick up in verse 16, we find him miserable, broke, starving, living with the pigs and probably like a pig; in fact, he is dependent upon pigs for his income (some of you may be thinking, "I've had jobs like that!"). If Jesus was telling a simple morality story, this could very well be the end of the story, with the moral being "You act like a pig and you will end up like a pig!" For many in the audience, the story could have ended right there!

You see, there were basically three types of servants at that time and place in history and culture: The three types were a bondsman, a slave and a hired servant. 1. The Bondsman. A Bondsman is part of the family estate and almost a part of the family. He is bound to the family, and often marked with a pierced ear carrying the ring of ownership. 2. The Slave. Lower class slaves are subordinate to the bondsmen; they are the servants of the servants. 3. The Hired Servant. The hired servants are contracted laborers. They work shifts, they are free to go home at the end of the day; they are paid. They are outsiders to the home. A hired servant is a free man with his own income living independently of the employer. While he is at work, he is a servant...but when his shift is over, he is his own man. Hired servants come, do their thing, and go their own way at the end of the day. Now, what does the young man plan to say to his father? Verse 18. "I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men." It is quite possible this wily young man may be conniving here...he may be devising a strategy where he can still enjoy some of the benefits the father has to offer, but still keep a safe "distance." As a hired servant, he won't have to live with his brother. As a hired servant, he won't have to always live under his father's rules, he will only relate to his father as a "boss" rather than as a father. This son seeks only to serve "on Sundays and at committee meetings" if you will; he seeks to remain independent, he seeks to remain his own man. As we will see, the father will have none of that. Like the father in this parable, the Heavenly Father wants family members, not part-time servants; He wants sons and daughters, not hired hands...but I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. Again, we don't know this young man's real motivations...Jesus doesn't say. All we know is that the young man is desperate. He is miserable, he is broke, he is starving, he is living like a pig, he is suffering, and however impure his motivations may or may not be, he determines to go back to the father. And when the father sees his son coming, he runs down the road to meet him!

Now the audience is really surprised. What in the world is this father doing? Not only is he openly and publicly welcoming this shameless son, he is running! In public! Middle Eastern noblemen just didn't DO that; it was considered scornful and humiliating for a respectable man to be seen running in public (contrary to the view of our modern, health-conscious culture where our CEO's, our movie stars and even our presidents are often photographed jogging). The middle eastern nobleman with flowing robes never runs anywhere; as one first century scholar-historian wrote, "It is so very undignified in Eastern eyes for an older man to run." Even the great Aristotle once wrote, "Great men never run in public." Such an action on the behalf of this nobleman would certainly draw attention; by drawing such attention to himself in this culturally humiliating way, it is quite conceivable that the father intended to draw the attention of the village away from the son and onto himself. This is an extraordinarily gracious act on behalf of the father. You can now better imagine how the son feels...having steeled himself for rejection, he stares in utter amazement as his father comes running down the road, publicly, toward him. The father makes the reconciliation public; and the son enters the village under the protective care of the father's acceptance. He orders the best robe put on the boy; the father's robe will ensure acceptance by the community...this son is to be part of the family again and is to be treated as such.