It seems that community is swelling with fatherless children. I don't speak of only those who have no fathers in the house. I speak of a growing number who have a dad present; yet he isn't a father in the home. He is distracted by or obsessed with other important issues in life; but has little attention for his children.
The Gospel story known as the Prodigal Son offers a quick glance at a few in a family. A younger son who is sinfully rebellious, an older son willfully stubborn, and then there is the father of both. Take a good look at the loneliness of the father regarding his two boys.
One is missing. The father is left with heartache.
While the younger is gone, it appears the older brother is in good sorts with his dad as they work the farm. When the big sinner returns, it is at this point that the older one ratchets up his pouting. From yet another angle, the father is rejected by a child.
In both scenarios, the father suffers heartache and break.
Note that the father did not react as was the pattern of his sons. When rejected by either boy, he neither indulged in drunken sin nor took cheap shots at the rest of the family. He stuck by his role regardless of painful rejection momentarily inherited from both sons. The father remained the father of the story.
It seems important to notice that when each son was in deep and poor behavioral mode, the father did two important things. First, his eyes were always looking for, as well as after, both boys. He wasn't distracted from them. And second, his arms were opened wide for both. He seemed to favor neither and treasured both.
Receiving the full force of rejection, this man arose to his role. He lived above treatment received.
In the story of the prodigal, we not only have the visual of what it means to be a father. From his display of God-like love, we learn to be fathers...or mothers...or brothers and sisters...or friends when encountering the same sort around us. And the reason we should/can/will do this is because we are oft times found to be one brother or the other....or both.
Luke gives us one of the greatest insights ever revealed. He shows us in the Prodigal story the vulgarity of gutter life and in the same breath reveals the selfishness of religion. Father had to fight for both. So do we.
In this picture, therefore, we discover we are not like one of the two; but we find ourselves relating to each of the three. May we mature in shifting our poor behavior as found in either son at times to live with new eyes and extended arms like the father. May we be willing to experience the loneliness of hopeful waiting as we battle our way toward home.
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