Hindsight

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is one of Jesus' most popular but there is a major problem with it.  It seems, to those who want to make this parable a child rearing self-help book, that Jesus is saying you don’t have to face the results of bad decisions.  That children don’t have to face the consequences for their irresponsible behavior!  If the father forgives everything then why should a daughter try to act in a responsible way?

Let me address that in two different ways.

#1.  The Prodigal Son is not a parable about how to be a great father!  Jesus wasn’t holding a parenting seminar on the side of a hill.  Luke 15:1-3 says that not only were the Pharisees and Scribes there but also the tax-gatherers and sinners.  They were all gathered around Jesus to hear what he had to teach that day.  As you can imagine, Jesus is addressing two fundamentally different groups: the super self-disciplined/self-righteous religious Marines called Pharisees and the super self-indulgent/Woodstock hippies called sinners.  Jesus is explaining why both groups are in desperate need of God’s grace. 

We are all so in need of grace but we have this self-examination blindness.  I never see my sin in as negative a way as I see your sin.  Your sin is blatant, repulsive, and frankly, you should be more intelligent than that.  I find it unbelievable that you’d say what you said, or act the way that you act!  I evaluate you with brutal self-righteousness.  It’s like the four blind men encountering an elephant.  One man grabs the trunk and says the elephant is like a snake.  Another grabs his leg and says the elephant is like a tree trunk.  On and on it goes because the elephant is so enormous that sight challenged people can’t picture all the elements that comprise one elephant.   They can’t get the full picture!  Neither can we.

The Prodigal Son is a parable about how great is the grace of the Father!

The grace of God is composed of His Infinite Acceptance eternally welded to His Unconditional Love. 

 

#2. There is one important parenting lesson we can learn from Jesus parable:  Sometimes your kids need to learn real life lessons that only the school of hard knocks can teach them.

This is a very important point.  Mainly because I have had in my life some situations of sin that I would simply categorize under the heading of, Tangible Examples of Ed’s Stupidity.  Are you with me?  Can you identify?  So, here we go:

“Tangible Examples of Ed’s Stupidity.”

·      When I was 12 a friend of mine and I made gasoline trails in the garage with a paint brush and then set them on fire.  It fits the category.

·      When I was 13 we put .22 caliber bullets in a vise and hit them with a hammer and shot them into the wall of the garage.  This is a category poster child.

·      When I was 15 I dove into the river without checking to see how deep the water was.  Should start a whole new category.

·      When I was 16 I jumped out onto a small rock 6 feet from shore at the edge of a large waterfall because I THOUGHT looking down would be a great angle for a picture with my camera.  Added to my category.

·      When I was 23 I replaced the alternator in my car without disconnecting the battery, which sparked the casing with the cable and blew out a diode.  Now when I turned on the car the alternator was putting out a hyper amount of amps.  In turn, when I turned on my headlights and blew up (not blew out, literally blew up) all the lightbulbs in my car including the dash lights! 

Notice all the examples are from long ago and far away?  I’m vainly trying to protect any kind of negative impression you might have of my 55 year old intelligence.  Believe me, I could give you some current examples--but please don’t send me your examples of my stupidity!  I know they are legion!

I’m so thankful for Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son.  It tells me that through the grace of God I can recover not only from my stupidity but from my sin and self-righteous stupidity. 

The grace of God is composed of His Infinite Acceptance eternally welded to His Unconditional Love!