Wednesday, October 14, 2009

Lost and Found, Part 31 of 78

TEXT: "But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.' And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him" (Luke 15:17-20).

IDEA: A sense of need can lead to ill-defined remorse which can lead to repentance.

One way that educators do their work today is through “case studies.” Professors and students study actual situations and draw principles from those situations that apply to similar situations they will face.

Jesus gives us a case study in repentance in Luke 15, the story of the prodigal son. He describes a young man who decided he was sick of home and that he wanted to travel to a far country. He got his father to give him his share of the estate. The boy used it to finance his trip.

In the distant city, he squandered his father’s money. When he was out of funds, a severe famine arose in the country. The Jewish boy persuaded a citizen of that country to let him feed pigs and eat some of the pods fed to the animals. That was not enough to sustain him. Hungry and desperate, he sat in pig filth and “repented.” Jesus tells us about his plans to go back home in Luke 15:17-20:

But when he came to himself, he said, "How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.' "

What problems did he have to deal with?

He had to face his father. What might that involve? He will ask to be a “hired servant.” That is not the same as a slave. He could save face and money to pay his father back.

He had to face his brother. He knows that everything left in the estate is legally signed over to his brother. The father has the right to feed whomever he likes until he dies. Whatever the father doesn’t use adds to the capital. He suspects that his brother isn’t eager to see him. As a “hired servant’ he can stay in the village. He won’t have to deal with his brother.

He has to face the people in the village. This could be the most difficult of all.

It is always difficult for an emigrant to return home unless he is a success.

He has offended the entire community by taking and selling his inheritance while his father is still living. He has squandered the money with the Gentiles. His entry into the village will be humiliating, even ruthless. He has insulted his father, sold the family resources, and lost all the money. “The pressures of a community in a tightly knit Near Eastern village have to be felt to be believed.” (Ken Bailey, p. 181)

To sum up: He plans to live in the village as a hired servant. He may be able to fulfill his responsibilities to his father, and the problem of any relationship with his brother is eliminated. He will have to face the mockery of the village as best he can. That is the price to pay.

He plans all this because he is starving in a pig sty in a distant country.

For the rabbis, repentance was primarily a work that someone did to win the favor of God.

Usually the idea of reparations was demanded and a determination to avoid all further sin.

J.D.M. Derrett, a Jewish commentator, in an article on this parable, says that because the boy wasn’t allowed to carry out his plan and make amends, the parable isn’t believable. This is its “fundamental weakness.”

Isn’t that also involved in the way we sometimes talk about repentance? Are we right?