Suspect preach

Prays: Lord, open thou mine eyes that I may behold wonderful things in your law. Amen.

So turn with me, if you will, to the Gospel According to Saint Luke and the fifteenth chapter. It’s page 1836 in the pew Bibles. Susan will read to us from the eleventh verse to the twenty-seventh verse. Thank you Susan. (she reads)

Thanks again to Susan for her reading. Now, how many of you are younger sons? Younger sons are a breed apart, aren’t they? They have, you see, both a father and at least one older brother to look up to. Sometimes that is a thing of joy, great joy, when they are men of quality or are setting examples worth following.

We will now watch a video clip from The Godfather, where brothers Sonny & Michael are discussing how and when to rub out heroin-importing Mafia boss Virgil The Turk Sollozzo and police Captain McCluskey…

And we’ll have to leave that there. Sorry about the extremely low lighting effect, which was apparently done on purpose, but some say overdone. And all that bad language.

Now, many of you will know that I’m a Saggitarius, which is one of the reasons why I find the Lent Observances rather difficult, as those of us with mutable signs are less strong-willed than others. The up-side of this is that we are more adaptable and deal more easily with change, and, of course, being a Fire sign, I sense morality by instinct, and am prepared to speak out with courage and firmness. We shall be learning about this further in house group this week, so bring your tea leaves and keep your fingers crossed that we’ll be able to move slowly towards the light of revelation, like the boy in the story, and like St Paul in his Damascus Road experence.

So, continuing our discussion about fathers and brothers; sometimes brothers can be a cause for resentment. Perhaps father is unable to express love. Or is thoughtless or makes mistakes. Perhaps he does not treat his sons fairly or equally. Perhaps the older brother lords it over the younger.

Whatever the situation in your circumstances, consider this family home, where all three of these chaps are working on the farm, labouring with great energy. It is clear, is it not, when we turn to verse 29 that the wiser, more stable, more faithful and Godly older brother worked hard for the good of the family firm? I believe it is.

So the younger son approaches his father and demands (yes, I don’t think that’s too strong a word for this, not too strong by any manner of means) – as I say, demands his share of the inheritance. Now, let’s give this a moment’s thought. The inheritance becomes available upon the death of the father, the winding up of his affairs. The younger son receives a smaller portion than the firstborn, in that society, but still this would represent a considerable sum of money. Yes, considerable. Just imagine, if you will, for a moment, how you might make liquid, say, 30% of your personal wealth.

Let’s think this through, shall we? Much of your wealth is tied up in property and cannot be realized without selling the property. In this case, there would be the value of the business to take into account as well. So how can this father give the younger son his inheritance? Perhaps there is sufficient cashflow to be able to make the payment that way. But I rather doubt it.

Perhaps the father was willing to sell off a portion of his cattle to raise the capital needed. Maybe his took out a loan or a second mortgage, but he was determined to pay the lad. Maybe (and perhaps we shouldn’t even think like this, but I’m on a roll now) the father fooled the son, misleading him in estimating the size of the inheritance he might expect, and managed to get away with giving him a little less than would otherwise have been more appropriate. Perhaps we should dismiss that possibility.

Now, in conclusion, we can see from the way Our Lord tells this story in the context of other parables where one of the main characters represent God, that the father in this story stands for God. So it is evident that God wants to give us plenty, right now, no strings. How good is that? as some of you young people might say, using your entertaining modern argot.

So, what is the best way we can apply this story to our lives?

One: Always demand your rights, especially your rights from God.

Two: Demand, don’t just ask/seek/knock. Be bold. (Refer to 2 Timothy 1:7, if you need a Bible verse to give you the oomph to get yourself into action on this.)

Three: Make your demands financial, definite and immediate. God wants to pour large amounts of cash upon us all, to bless us with great prosperity so that we can have large houses, big cars, fine clothes, the best food and be able to throw extensive parties for all our friends (vegetarian or omnivore).

Is this not the message of this passage?

In the name of the Father, etc.

874 words, delivered at public speaking speed of 120 words per minute 

= 7’30” plus time for the film clip