First Presbyterian Church
647 East Market Street
Akron, Ohio 44304-1684
330-434-5183

Food for Thought: The Need to Save Face

March 11 , 2007

Dr. Mark Ruppert

Luke 15:13-19

Have you ever heard a statement that goes something like this: if you love someone you must be willing to let them go and if it was true love they will return?  I’ve tried to find what the exact statement is but I think you get the picture.  If you love someone so much and that person, for some reason or another, decides to walk away, are you willing to let them go, feeling that if there was true love to begin with, they will return?  Are you willing to love someone enough to not step in the way of them making their own choices, even if you know that choice or choices are wrong, in order to let them find out for themselves?

During the season of Lent we are looking at the 15th chapter of Luke and the parables about the lost.  We began last Sunday looking at the parable of the lost son, or, as he has been called, the Prodigal Son. 

This younger son has asked for his part of the inheritance.  His father give it to him, and, as verse 13 tells us, “A few days later [after getting his inheritance] the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.”   The words, “gathered all” really means in the Greek, “turned everything into cash.”  

The father loved his son so much that through the heartache of basically being told to “drop dead Dad,” he granted his younger son his wish and loved him enough to let him leave.  Later on we will read how the love of this father embraces his younger son’s return but here, at the beginning of the parable, the love of the father embraces the leaving of his son.  Did the father try and talk his son into staying?  Did the father say, Please, I beg you, don’t leave?”  The spirit of the story is, “Yes, son, go.  And you will be hurt and it will be hard and it will be painful. 

And you might even lose your life, but I can’t hold you from taking that risk.  And when you come back, I am here for you, just as I am also here for you now.” 

That was a pretty risky thing for the father to do.  I don’t know if that would have been my mode of operand, how about you?  I mean how many of us might have begged, pleaded, maybe even put on a show of tears and weeping to try and convince our child to stay, or that other person not break off the relationship?  And so the younger son leaves, and the only thing that follows him to a distant country is the love of his brokenhearted father. 

The young man has now burned his bridges and in a few days he gathers his cash and goes maybe to Syria where he goes to live among the Greeks, or another word for Greeks is the Gentiles.  Why do I say he went to live with the Greeks or Gentiles because we read later in the parable about pigs- and the Greeks or Gentiles ate pork and they used pigs for sacrifices.  And even for a Galilean, Syria would have been seen as a far country.

So he is in the far off country and we read in verse 14, “When he had spent everything.”  Another translation uses the phrase “squandered his property.”  The Greek word for squandered means “scattered.”  How did he scatter his money?  Well tradition says he spent it in immoral acts because, later on in the parable in verse 30 we read the older brother’s response to the father upon his kid brother’s return, “But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes,” we hear the slanderous remarks.  And yet the parable itself is silent on this, is it not? 

What we have is the sense that this young man has wasted his money on personal pleasure.  I have read that, in the Middle East, if a peasant from the village, whose family might be a leading family gets money from his father and travels to the “big city” he could, very like waste that money foolishly. 

So he is in the “big city” and he uses the money to primarily establish a reputation of generosity.  He puts on banquets and gives away expensive gifts and he gains status in the eyes of his friends because generosity is a supreme virtue that is coveted by all. 

I still remember when I was in Egypt for a summer with our Missionary Conference.  They told us to never admire something that someone owned for they would then want to give it to you.  I remember the day I forgot this principle and said how much I liked the dress that one of the Egyptian women were wearing and she said to me, “you may have it.”  And then I had to backpedal and weasel my way out of the offer in a way that would not offend the woman.  Generosity is a supreme virtue over in that part of the world, even today.

OK.  So he is there squandering his cash on extravagant living and the money is all gone.  What is he going to do?  Can he go home again? 

That makes the most sense, does it not?  Just admit you were wrong and go home with your tail between your legs and say, “I’m sorry.”  Not so fast.  There is this thing called Pride that keeps him from his father.  But wait.  He knows his father loves him- he gave him the money in the first place.  What is keeping him away?

First,  his older brother.  If he goes home he will have to live off his older brother’s inheritance.  He will eat at his brother’s table and so he will not only be indebted to his father but also to his older brother.  If he thinks it was bad before with his older brother, just wait till he returns home.  He just can’t bring himself to return, at least not yet.  And so his relationship with his brother keeps him from fellowship with his father.  Ever hear of this happening in other families?

Second, he stays away because of the villagers.  This young man has broken his relationships with the entire community.  He is a despised man in his hometown.  Friends, in the Middle East, the village society can be ruthless when a person is down. 

Beggars who wander the streets are taunted and mocked terribly by the village people and by the children. 

This personal example doesn’t compare but it gives you a glimpse of what the children can do.  One day, when I was in Alexandria, Egypt staying at the Shutz American School I decided to go out for a run, to stay in shape over the summer for my junior year playing basketball at Westminster College.  So I put my running shorts on and off I went down the streets.  All of a sudden I saw these stones zinging by me.  When I turned around there were children chasing me, throwing stones at me.  All of a sudden it dawned on me something I was told but forgot- In a Muslim country it is not proper for a man to show his legs in public and here I am in my gym shorts running up and down the streets.  The children were only responding to the cultural norms and I had broken one.  So the young man decides to “gut it out.”

But we then read in verse 14 that, “a severe famine took place throughout the country.”  He has not only run out of money but the country is now devastated with a severe famine.  Have you ever experienced a time in your life when you had to go hungry?  I haven’t so I have no concept of what this young man was up against. 

Back in 1889 there was a terrible famine in the Sudan, along with a revolution that was ensuing.  An Austrian officer by the name of Rudolf Carl von Stalin was trapped there as a result of the revolt.  He eventually escaped but recorded his ordeal where he told of children being sold into slavery to keep them from starving, men found dead every morning on the streets of Omdurman, the capital city.  Stay animals being killed and eaten raw.  People seeing death coming, bricked up their doors to their homes and waited death in an inner room to keep their bodies from being eaten by hyenas.  We have no idea of a famine.  And the prodigal stayed even though there was a famine because of his pride and lack of humility. 

So the young man, in verse 15, “hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.” He probably tired to beg but to no avail.  So he hired himself out.  The Greek verb used for “hired” is translated “joined” which comes from the word “glue”.  So this man glued himself or attached himself to one of the citizens.  Now this citizen probably didn’t want him hanging around so he offers him a job with the pigs, probably thinking that any good, respectable Jew would refuse, especially since Jews and pigs didn’t mix.  Any practicing Jew wouldn’t think of getting near pigs, but he is desperate.  And even though he desperately wanted to eat the pods that the pigs were eating, he just can’t.   he is starving to death and so, before he gets too weak, he decides to “suck it up” and go home.

Verses 17-19 tells us of a starving, defeated man who, as verse 17 says, “came to himself” or “came to his senses” and begins the trip home.   Humility takes over and this is his last resort. 

Interesting, the Hebrew and Aramaic expression for “he came to himself” is an expression of  repentance.  Has he come to a point of repentance?  Not so fast since he hasn’t come to grips with the nature of his own sin.  What he does come to realize is that even his father’s hired servants or the day laborers have it better than he.  to be a servant is one thing, to be a hired servant or day laborer is another.  The very word “hired” in the Middle East is a derogatory word.  You “hire” a servant, a street sweeper, a garbage collector but you never hire a teacher or engineer or clerk.  You “bring that person to work or you ask them to serve.  The word “hire” is an insult.  And to go home and be a “hired” servant would not guarantee your wage, for the hired person it is not set.  He is willing to home and be the lowest of the lowest on the totem pole of labor.  He is starving.

In verses 18-19 he obviously “gets it.”  Two good things happen here.  First, he comes around and confesses his sin.  And  second, he confesses his sin towards God. 

He says in verse 18, “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.”  Some theologians believe that from this phrase “heaven” clearly means “God,” and therefore the “father” represents a human father, not God.  And yet all throughout the parable the evidence leans to God the Father.  Maybe what Christ is trying to say is that sin is against God and against others. 

You know what they say, “Confession is good for the soul.”  Do you, do I have anything that we need to confess that we have been holding back from God or from someone else?  Is there someone that we need to save face and search out and humbly say, “I’m sorry?”  Is there anything that we have left hanging out there that at times, jumps up and bites us and we feel the pain, that we haven’t dealt with because of pride, shame, indifference or arrogance? 

If all of us where in perfect relationships and we had everything just right and perfect there would be no need for, and take no offense Dr. Dick/ Dr. Canice Barnett, there would be no need for psychologists and psychiatrists, and therapists, and psychotherapists. 

I don’t know about you but I need to verbally confess my sins daily to God when I pray: the sins of commission and the sins of omission.  Daily, I need to come to my senses, daily I need to come to myself and get right with God and with others.  Who do we need to get right with, and the sooner the better?

The younger brother is hunger and hunger will cause people to do whatever it takes to get their bellies fed.  He hasn’t really faced his own evil and reconciliation is not really part of his immediate plan.  Just food and he might as well go home and work as a servant and eat.  It sure beats starving to death.  So he starts home.  Or does he?  Not really.  He is still in a far country not only physically but spiritually.  He hasn’t been completely broken.  That is yet to come. Join me next Sunday as we look at an unexpected homecoming.  Amen.

Key Points

Introduction: Have you ever heard the statement that goes something like this, if you love someone you must be willing to let them go and it was true love they will return?”

The younger son “gathered” all he had…- “gathered all” means “turned everything into ________

          He goes maybe to Syria where he lives among the Greeks or    

        _____________

        He squandered or “scattered” his money- How?

        Can he go home?  There is this thing called ______ that

          keeps him from his father.  What is keeping him away?

          First, his ______ ________

          Second, he stays away because of the _________

Verse 14 tells us that there was a “severe famine”

Verse 15- he “hired himself out”

Verses 17-19   He “came to himself”- the Hebrew and Aramaic expression for this phrase is an expression of _________

Verses 18-19   Two good things happen

                First, he comes around and confesses his _____

                   Second, he confesses his sin towards ______

Conclusion: the younger brother is hunger; so he starts home, or does he?  He is still in a far country not only physically but spiritually.

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)