The Missing Conclusion
Sermon, June 18, 2000 (Father's Day)
Text: Luke 15:25-32
19th century English poet Percy Shelley was an accomplished poet who wrote enthusiastic, impulsive poems noted for their lyricism and romanticism, but they weren't exactly noted for advocating, ah, traditional mores. Throughout his brief life
(he drowned a few days before his 30th birthday) Shelley lived a rather amoral lifestyle. He rebelled against what he perceived to be the overly restrictive, judgmental mores of religion and English politics; he championed libertine thought and lifestyle. He was a devout atheist (which is not an oxymoron, by the way...but that's another sermon). One of his first tracts was published during his studies at Oxford, entitled "The Necessity of Atheism." Shelley was reportedly greatly influenced by his acquaintance with the British philosopher William Godwin. Who was William Godwin? For seven years, William Godwin was a minister, a clergyman. By 1785, however, he had rejected his faith and had become a militant atheist. In 1793 he wrote his best-known work, The Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and Its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness, which promoted his theories of philosophical anarchism, libertine independence, and theological nihilism. He basically found all forms and degrees of control from without intolerable, both religious and political. He expressed deep contempt for restrictions placed on one person by another or by a government or by a religion. Not surprisingly, William Godwin, like Percy Shelley, was pretty much a hedonist, as well.Another result of their acquaintance was that 22-year-old Percy took an interest in Godwin's daughter, Mary. Mary's mother had died shortly after she was born, and it seems that Dad was, to put it politely, less than the ideal father. In the year 1814, Percy Shelley left his wife behind in England and "toured" Europe with William Godwin's daughter ... Mary was the ripe old age of sixteen at the time. Two years later, the body of Percy Shelley's wife was recovered from a lake in London; it was an apparent suicide. Percy Shelley and Mary Godwin were married shortly thereafter ... she was now eighteen years of age.
Two years later, at the age of twenty, Mary Godwin Shelley wrote her first novel; many of you may have guessed by now that the novel was Frankenstein. The work was an immediate critical and popular success, a remarkable accomplishment for a twenty-year-old. Do you know, however, what motivated her work? It seems that, at first, as a teeny-bopper, sophisticate wanna-be, Mary was enamored with the poet Percy Shelley's lifestyle, and she went on to become an enthusiastic participant in his sexual libertinism and the loose libertinism of their circle of friends and acquaintances. But she became increasingly disenchanted and disillusioned by it all, especially when she saw the consequences of all this amoral, unnatural behavior -- the illegitimate children, the wreckage wrought in the lives of those affected, the suicides. She probably felt much, much older than her twenty years. Most of all, Mary Shelly was struck by the stark disparity between the casual, light-hearted and irresponsible way these people could bring life into the world ... after all, procreation happens with depressing regularity in this sort of loose living ... and the sad and miserable consequences that flowed from these irresponsible actions. She embodied this disparity in Dr. Frankenstein's monster. As the monster himself puts it to the mad doctor -- "How dare you sport with life?" Dr. Frankenstein brought life into this world to satisfy his pleasures, his maniacal drives, his ego needs ... but he gave little thought to the needs and necessities of the very real life he was creating. This newly-created being was given no foundation, no stability, no home, no moral instruction, no devotion of a father or mother, no family structure, no religious training, no roots ... nothing! The indirect polemic of Shelley's novel is that creating life, siring life, entails devoted, dedicated, selfless, responsibility. To sport with life is not only tremendously selfish and shortsighted, it is unthinkingly cruel for all involved, and the consequences can be incredibly destructive to society ... in the end, the life Dr. Frankenstein irresponsibly sired eventually destroyed everything Dr. Frankenstein loved and cared for.
Today I'd like to tell you about another motherless daughter from near the turn of the century, Sonora Louise Smart Dodd, of Spokane, Washington. In the year 1909, she campaigned for a Father's Day celebration after listening to a church sermon on the merits of Mother's Day. Her father, William Smart, a Civil War veteran, was widowed when his wife (Mrs. Dodd's mother) died in childbirth with their sixth child. Mr. Smart was left to raise the newborn and his other five children by himself on a rural farm in eastern Washington, which he did for the next twenty-one years. It was after Mrs. Dodd became an adult that she realized the extent of the compassionate strength, devoted selflessness, inexhaustive patience and dogged graciousness displayed by her father in the raising of his children. This man was a father ... unlike Dr. Frankenstein, he knew that creating life, siring life, entailed devoted, dedicated, selfless, gracious responsibility, no matter what life's circumstances might bring his way! Mrs.
Dodd drew up a petition recommending adoption of a national Father's Day, the Spokane Ministerial Association and the local Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) strongly supported it, and Spokane celebrated the first Father's Day on June 19, 1910. The original date chosen by Mrs. Dodd was her father's birthday, June 5; however, festivities were moved to June 19, as the Spokane council couldn't get the resolution through the required first reading and subsequent vote until the third Sunday in June (probably too many Presbyterians on the council!). The idea caught on across the USA and Canada, and in 1924 President Calvin Coolidge helped promote the idea of a national Father's Day. Finally, in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson signed a presidential proclamation declaring the third Sunday of June as Father's Day; in 1972, President Richard Nixon established a permanent national observance of Father's Day for the third Sunday of June. This day is dedicated to honoring fathers who know (or, who knew) that creating life, siring life, entails devoted, dedicated, selfless, gracious responsibility. Today we salute and honor fathers who, like so many of you men who are here this morning, display the compassionate strength, devoted selflessness, inexhaustive patience and dogged graciousness that Mr. Smart demonstrated in the raising of his children.Unlike Mother's Day, Fathers Day celebrations just never took off in the gift giving department. I recently read that J.C. Penny, Inc. took a survey last year asking its customers what gifts they had given on Father's Day, and the number two answer was ... nothing! The white or red rose is the official flower for Father's Day; Mrs. Dodd suggested that people wear a white rose to honor a father who was deceased and a red rose for a father who was living. In 1924, a Pennsylvanian Sunday School class opted for a different flower: the dandelion. They thought this was the perfect choice because the more a dandelion is trampled on, the more it grows!
The father in Jesus' parable of the Prodigal Son
(which we've been reviewing these past weeks) was certainly "trampled on" by his sons. The one son requests his portion of the family inheritance while his father is yet alive, which, as I pointed out last time, is a deeply insulting and hurtful request, for it carries the unmistakable inference that the son just wants the father out of the picture. He wants only the father's goods, and not the father. He wants what the father can give him; but he wants nothing to do with the father or the father's family or the household obligations of being a son of the father. The father in Jesus parable certainly portrays the characteristics and attitudes of the loving heavenly Father, as Jesus' intended His listeners to understand. But don't miss that the father in Jesus' parable portrays the characteristics of an ideal earthly father, as well! He was "trampled on" by his sons, he was insulted and even humiliated by them, but he lovingly and responsibly and graciously ... and doggedly ... remained their father, and went to extraordinary lengths to restore his sons. Last time we looked at the younger son, whose insults to his father are more obvious; but there are a number of ways the older son insults his father as well. There are several things the older son does, or doesn't do, that would raise they eyebrows of Jesus' Middle Eastern audience; we only have time to look at a few:The older son comes in from working out in the field, and when he learns what is going on (v.27), the older son refuses to participate in the festivities. He refuses to go in. That is a no-no in Middle East culture. Middle eastern custom requires the eldest son's presence at any family celebration; his duty is to welcome guests and to make certain they are attended to. Also, by refusing to go in, he breaks another taboo -- he makes the family argument public, he airs the family laundry. People are present already, people are coming, and all are going to wonder, "Where is the eldest son?" By refusing to come in, he chooses to publicly show his alienation from his father. Note the older son's abrupt beginning--"Look!" (v. 29). This betrays a disrespectful attitude in that he uses no title of respect when addressing the father. All through the story up to this point titles are used in direct speech ... except when servants are addressed! The sudden absence of any title is significant. He fails to offer the proper esteem of a son to his father; he disrespectfully and spitefully addresses the father as he would address a servant. "Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders." Now, "slaving" is hardly descriptive of a warm relationship toward the father. He reflects the attitude of an employee, and a disgruntled one at that. This son may be right in saying he never disobeyed his father's orders, but there seems to be no joy or love for the father in his dutiful obedience.
The eldest son refers to his brother as "This son of yours." (verse 30) rather than "my brother." He, in effect, emotionally removes himself from the family. In verse 29, we see that this son's circle of friends seems not to include the father or his brother or any of the family guests coming for this feast. Emotionally, this older brother's community is somewhere else than at the father's home. And for him, having food and drink so he can have a party with his buddies is an occasion for joy; the return of a brother is not. He does not delight in the things that cause his father joy.
The one real difference between the older and the younger brother in this parable is that the younger brother was estranged and rebellious and left the home, while the older brother was estranged and rebellious in his heart while staying at home and ostensibly living by the rules. How does the father respond? As in the first half of this parable, he has just been insulted by a rebellious son. His judgement and his integrity have been publicly called into question, and his response will be noticed publicly. He would be expected to be furious! He would be expected to send a servant to order the son back into the house, and the son probably would obey. But what would be gained? He already has a servant in the person of this eldest son. He wants a son. So the father once again goes out in grace and love to try and reclaim a rebellious son.
He begins by telling the son what constitutes real joy. Real joy doesn't come from a full stomach and good times with your friends; those things are trivial past times by comparison. Real joy is when lost brothers and sisters are restored to the family, when dead brothers and sisters come to life again, when the children of the father are restored, redeemed and living as sons and daughters, not as grudging servants. This father wants sons, not servants, as does our Heavenly Father.
In both halves of this parable, a son rebels and offends the father. In both halves of this parable, the father graciously leaves his home and endures humiliation in order to restore the sons to the family. In the first half of the parable, the one son is restored. The conclusion in the second half of the parable is missing. We don't know what happens. Jesus intentionally leaves his audience hanging. Will the eldest son remain nothing more than a sullen, dutiful servant, or will he respond in love to the father's grace and love and discover the true joy of being a son? Are there religious people in Jesus' audience who might see themselves in the older son, and be restored to sonship from servanthood?