While the Prodigal Is Away

Prodigals. We all know one. A family member wandering far away. A spouse who wants out of the marriage you want to save. A rebellious son breaking his mother's heart.

We all wonder what we can do to bring them home.

How we can reach out.

If we should reach out.

Jesus' three stories of lost things found, recounted as single "parable" in Luke 15, feature three lost things found -- a sheep, a valuable coin and a much-loved son.

In the first two stories, Jesus tells of the enormous effort of the shepherd and the woman as they persevered until they found what they were looking for and called for friends and neighbors to celebrate with them. "In the same way," said Jesus, "the angels in heaven rejoice when one sinner repents."

But the third story is different. It too involves a lost thing, but not an animal or an inanimate object: it is a son. And unlike the shepherd or the woman, the father doesn't go searching for his lost son. He waits for him to return and welcomes him enthusiastically.


It may be that the prodigal's father provides us the clearest example of how what to do about the prodigal.

1. What the father didn't do is counterintuitive. After two stories of strenuous effort to find and rescue what was lost, Jesus features what may look like a passive father: he didn't go after his lost son. Not knowing how the story would end, the father declined to pursue his wayward son and instead waited patiently for his return.

We can only speculate what might have happened if the father had put together a posse to go fetch the boy. But we've seen enough interventions on reality TV to know how angry and self-deceiving the prodigal can be when confronted with the truth about himself.

No, Dad never went after his errant son. He wasn't there when the son came to the humiliating end of himself, when he composed the apology speech he would give to his father. This was a realization he had to come to on his own. And his father could do nothing to bring about that awful moment.


2. But just because Dad didn't chase the boy doesn't mean that Dad was idle. Jesus tells us that he saw his son "while he was still a long way off." I know, it could have been a coincidence. The father might have just been glancing up at that moment and just happened to catch sight of his son. But I've always thought that this father was anything but passive. I think he had been looking for his son to return since the day he left. I've imagined that Dad never just glanced at the horizon, he studied it long, he studied it longingly.

And as soon as he saw his son, he ran. Dignity and retribution never crossed his mind. At that moment, the fact that his son had disgraced him in the community, the fact that a third of his estate had been wasted on prostitutes and liquor... none of that mattered. All that mattered at that moment, when he saw his son, was that his son was home again.

What did it take for Dad to maintain that kind of emotional equilibrium the whole time his son was gone? The waiting soul is fertile ground for bad seed. Cynicism and bitterness had sprung up to contaminate the brother's soul, but Dad's heart was still open to forgive and restore. There were no "I told you so" speeches, no demand for restitution; he didn't even let his son finish his apology. There were no mixed feelings here, only grace and rejoicing love.


So what do we do for our prodigals? Do we reach out to them? In our hyper-connected world we have that capability: the Facebook message, the text message, the email. Perhaps we do reach out, but we never coerce or pester. We never try to do the work that God's Spirit alone can do -- change a heart.  

So what do we do?

1. We pray that they can come to the end of themselves soon and without life-destroying consequences.

2. We trust God to do His work in His time in the hearts of people He loves even more than we do.

3. We guard our hearts against bitterness. We stifle the impulse to compose angry "I told you so" speeches.

And we keep the party supplies on hand. No one knows when we might get the chance to use them.