Contact Details and How to Find Us
HomeChurch Groups
CREATING COMMUNITIES OF WHOLENESS WITH CHRIST AT THE CENTRE
God the Father - Discussion Notes of 06.06.2007
Genesis 1.1-5 - Luke 15.11-32
NOTE – there are some hard questions within the passage and the notes – tread carefully and sensitively.
Whatever your view of the literal truth or mythical reality of the creation narratives in the early chapters of Genesis they shout from the rooftops about the power and eternity of God, our creator.
‘From dust you made us, figures from moist earth, breathing, loving, recreating; celebrating life in your image.’
God was there before time began. God is here and now. For all eternity, God will be, God simply is.
Imagine being created, designed, loved by God who knows and experiences all things [and makes even a Time Lord’s knowledge and experience look nsignificant – for Dr Who fans].
DISCUSS
For a moment what it means that God created not only the whole universe, but us, each one of us, as well.
NB: For me the creation narratives are amazing stories to explain the wonder of creation by God. I don’t believe in creation in seven days but similarly do not see a conflict between the science of the big bang and evolution and the presence of a creator, and I believe that Genesis is a way of explaining that so that we can begin to understand it all.
AVOID
Preferably – creationism vs. evolution – a subject for another time.
After an awesome glimpse of God the Father right at the beginning, the very beginning, in Luke 15 we have another view in the parable of the Loving Father. It should not be called the Prodigal Son, the son is not the hero, or even the primary focus of the story [except that then, as now, we love a bad boy turned good!]. The focus and the hero is the loving father, and this has, justifiably, been described as the greatest short story ever written.
The father would not have been at liberty to dispose of his estate as he chose. It would [almost certainly] have gone 66% to the elder son and 33% to the younger son. It wasn’t unknown for the father to retire early and hand over his estate before death, but for the younger son to go and demand it immediately was tantamount to saying to his father, ‘I want you dead now’.
The father didn’t give him the response he richly deserved; instead he gave him his share of the estate. He allowed him to make his mistake, to carry out his rejection, he wrote the cheque, watched his son cash it, and saw him run off away from home and into the sunset.
There are so many powerful words in this story. Words that, in a family, you wish might never have been said, words that are almost impossible to forget, words that wound and jar and [later] words that heal. This demand from the younger son for cash is the first of these words, Hear their impact for a few moments.
DISCUSS
Have you ever run away? What drove you to it? What did you have to do to break free? What and who did you leave behind?
Has anyone ever run away from you? Have you ever let anyone go, given them their freedom?
The younger son gets to his far off country, it might have just been the nearest big town or city, but it was a whole new world, no one knew him, there were no expectations, he could do what he liked. And he had an endless party.
Our daughter, Anna [7] recently complained that we were always telling her what to do, so we said that she could do whatever she liked. She promptly went and turned on the TV, we took the other two children up for a bath. It only took Anna ten minutes to come up in tears saying ‘please tell me when its time for a bath?’.
Freedom is wonderful and scary, and I wonder at what point in his partying the younger son began to feel fear?
DISCUSS
Your experiences of freedom – what is the closest you have come to complete freedom?
The cash ran out and with it the fun. The ‘friends’ were merely fellow pleasure seekers running away from home just like the younger son; and without cash they ran from him too. And he ended up feeding pigs and starving himself. For a Jew this is the ultimate degradation. It is also another of the moments in the story that the younger son would not, ever, have forgotten.
DISCUSS
Your experiences of poverty and humiliation – what is the closest you have come to the end of the road?
When the younger son ‘came to his senses’, he decided to return to his Father’s house, to his home. Even the most confused, despairing and messed up people can ‘come to their senses’ that’s part of the miracle of God’s creation of us. But note that the younger son was planning/hoping to go back to his Father’s house as a servant. Never in his wildest dreams did he imagine that the words of rejection and denial that he had spoken could be un-said, that he could once again be treated as a Son.
DISCUSS
Could you have risked the return home? Have you risked a similar return?
The younger son is in for the surprise of his life. His Father has been waiting for him, constantly looking, hoping, dreaming, praying, never giving up – in just the same way that those who loose children today never give up the search, the hope, the prayer, even after decades of absence. And when his father sees him, even from far off, he runs out to meet him. He is old, bent and frail but he runs out to meet him and hugs him as if he has come back from death [as indeed he has]
The younger son repeats his request to be treated as a servant, he still cannot believe that anything else is possible, but his loving father thinks otherwise. He is given the marks, the symbols of a son, a ring on his finger, a robe, shoes, the fatted calf and a party of celebration. His rejection caused a rift as deep as death, but the father’s love can forgive everything, heal every rift; and his return has brought him back to life again.
[Note that even in the face of the father’s love, the son has to do something, in this case return home.]
DISCUSS
Can you dare to accept the forgiveness of God?
Is it within this forgiveness that we can find true freedom?
Or is the whole idea even more terrifying than the concept of running away to a place where no one knows us and we can just have a ball?
But if the younger son was back home the older son, who had never left the estate was, spiritually and emotionally, just as far from home as his brother had ever been. Full of resentment, bitterness, anger; his service has felt like servitude and he can see no way out. Was he secretly envious of his rebellious brother, did he wish that he had also had the nerve to break free and enjoy himself and stop all his duties to his family and home? We don’t know. But from his bitter reaction to his brother’s return and the welcome that he sees his father offering to his brother it’s a fair guess.
But his father offers him just the same love and forgiveness that he offered to his younger son. He reminds him that ‘all that I have is yours’ that ‘you are always with me’ that the older son too is his ‘son’ with all that that implies [ie not a servant]. But then he reminds his older son that a return from death, a return home, merits a celebration.
DISCUSS
The older son’s response – can you empathise with him?
In conclusion three big themes that run though the story of the loving father.
Throughout the story we have the idea of ‘home’, the home from which we run and to which we return.
Where is home for you?
Does God have anything to do with your definition of home?
The loving father offers us unconditional forgiveness, but he also allows us to reject him, to hurt him and to hurt ourselves.
Is this the way that you would have ordered it?
Would you have preferred less freedom and more control?
We are offered in the two sons two very different models of running away and returning home [although we don’t know the end of the story for the older son].
Which son do you most equate to?
Or have you lived both lives?
NOTE: We are all infinitely different. God our loving father is eternally the same and loves us all equally and unconditionally.