The Sin of the Prodigal at Home
By Buell H. Kazee
Morehead, Kentucky
Western Recorder, 1942HERE was a prodigal who stayed at home. And his sin was greater than that of the brother who went away. His sin was the sin of the modern church.
His religion consisted of what he had done and what he had not done. "Lo, these many years do I serve thee." Faithful service. "Neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment." Now this is not bad in itself. In fact, it counts among us as praiseworthy. It is only when we see what brought out this statement of his religion - his theology - we see the barrenness of it.
He is complaining. The father has gone out to see why he does not come to the reception for the younger son, a penitent swine-feeder, who has come home from a wasted life. It is not his hatred for the younger son that keeps him away. It is the hurt pride which he feels that his father has not recognized his faithfulness and goodness, and has failed to set him in higher rank because of what he has done.
"Look what I have done." he cries impatiently. "Yet you never set a big dinner for me, and honored me before my friends. But when this hog-feeder comes home you defile your lips on his dirty neck and arrange a big dinner for him as if he was far superior to me. What has he done, but dishonor you? But look what I have done!"
I SUPPOSE the father had said, "Yes, son, I know; but look what I have done." Such an answer would have fallen on the deadness of that limited and self-centered mind, and would have increased his bitterness. He could see nothing that his father had done. He was too utterly consumed in wounded pride in relation to what he felt was his father's blindness toward what he himself had accomplished. So he insisted on proper recognition. His pride consumed all other thoughts.
There is the religion of thousands today who belong to our churches. Here is the merit system in its canopied seat. He had set his own standard, and by that he was faithful and good. So do we set our own standard, and by that we can feel a sense of pride in our accomplishments. So long as we ourselves set the standards, we may make a good record. The religion of what we can do for God has so consumed many of us that we must be careful to see that every act is accounted for in our reports. We must have credit. Each group must be accredited with its own accomplishments, and the records must be kept all the way from the group in the local church to the World Council of Churches. Look what we have done this year over last year!
I know there must be some records in our work. I am not condemning these things. I am condemning the emphasis upon what we have done in relation to the emphasis we give to what God has done for us and for the lost and sin-marred of this earth. The Lord tells us that after we have done the best we can do, we ought then to call ourselves unprofitable servants.
What credit ought we to claim for being faithful, when it is a sin for us to be otherwise? What credit for being righteous when it is a sin to be otherwise? Why should God recognize what we have done? Let us forever get it out of our minds that God should recognize us on any basis except the blood which Christ shed to redeem us!
How hard it is for people to discover that mystery! The doctrine that we are unfit for divine recognition paralyzes the flesh, for it is death to "what I have done." To the flesh, nothing is so repulsive as death.
Besides, this fellow in the Parable had not been good nor faithful except by his own standard. Here is another phase of his sin. He had failed to see what the father had done for him. What he had done was so close to his eye that he could not see what his father had done for him. Isn't that like us? "Son, thou art ever with me (that is, yours is a great privilege), and all that I have is thine."
Who ever out-gave God? Who could? What do you and I have that God can use? He has to put to death all that is born of the flesh and all that the flesh can do it order to make us fit for His use. Who can sacrifice but God? Who has anything that would not be better for him to give up than to keep? God is self-sufficient. He needs nothing. What can we give Him or do for Him that He cannot do for Himself?
II WHY, THEN, does God ask us to, or let us, do anything for Him? It is a way of bringing our token of love to Him. All we do that God can accept from us is that which is given to express our love for Him. Otherwise, He can get along. Our service must always be an expression of love to Him, for what He has done for us. It must be giving back to Him what He has given us, to tell Him that we have understood His great love for us.
But the goodness of the Father to us is what we cannot. This is our sin, just as it was the sin of that boy. It had never dawned on him what his father meant to him — diligent in doing good though he was. The religion that makes men permanent spiritual dwarfs is the religion of what they can do. We set our own standard low, so that we can reach it. Then we glory like a child in our childish accomplishment. And we get hurt as easily as a child if our work is not properly recognized. THE RELIGION THAT MAKES MEN GIANTS IS THE RELIGION OF WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR US.
We open our minds and hearts to contemplation of that great revelation, and we see our littleness and pettiness. As the glory of what God has done continues to pour into our soul, we grow out of self and into the bigness of God. Instead of demanding credit for what we have done we want to shout the glory of what God has done.
But that boy could not waste the time to sit down and find what was in his father's heart. The farm must be run, the sheep kept, the cattle fed and watered, the fences kept up, the routine of the farm followed, the servants directed and employed and trained. If "the old man" was going to spend the rest of his days in that demented attitude, looking down the road after a worthless boy who ought never to be allowed on the premises again, somebody had to look after the farm. The reputation of the family must be saved.
He did not know that that house never could be home to that father as long as that boy was gone. He did not know that the father did not care whether, or not the farm was run in modern style, and the routine all followed, if his wayward son never got home. He did not understand what made home to the old man. He was consumed in routine of what he was doing.
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If our pastor is not interested in the system we have in our church, and would not help run all the organizations we have set up, then somebody has to do it! And whoever does it ought to be recognized! Records of service ought to be kept and published, even though the service is according to our own standard.
You cannot check a man's record if he is not working according to the system. If he does not have miles traveled, days labored, meetings held, etc., what can we do about his service? You cannot waste the space it takes to record some - think like this:
June 5, I spent much time in prayer for a sinner.And so on. There are just no report blanks that have places for such items. But people like the prodigal at home would say: "He's not progressive. He's a good man, but what has he done?" That is, according to our standards, what has he done?
June 6, talked to that sinner about being saved. He did not yield.
June 8, prayed again for that sinner, and some others. Prepared a sermon with the hope of reaching them in church. They did not come to church.
June 9, read a good spiritual book. Got it from London or Canada. Small book, deeply spiritual.
June 10, preached a funeral; saw much good that sorrow could do for family; spoke a word in season, gently imparting God's meaning to sorrowing ones.
June 11, divided my check out to those I owed. Did not have enough. Praise the Lord, I'm still living.III THE LONGING for sinners that tugs at that preacher's heart will probably never fall upon the prodigals at home. They are too busy running the church to get that feeling from God whose heart is consumed for sinners. They will say: "Poor old Dad! Gone plumb crazy over that boy - that worthless disgrace to us all. Never does anything systematically any more. Just bungles through everything he tries. Seemingly can not get that sinner off his mind. I have to run the place, keep the records, direct the servants, and all. But look what I've done! Then when that dirty sinner comes home, Dad acts like he never did anything bad in his life. Sets a big dinner for him. Think I'd go in there after being treated like that?"
The prodigal at home made the terrible mistake of comparing himself with his brother instead of his father. And there we are. We make the same error. We read them with "pardonable pride," and loudly urge our people to fill in the blanks of our standards for a bigger report next year.
By that standard, some of us will never get to first base. We are just too awkward and bungling. There is a sinner lost, and he would not fit into the pen we have built for him. He would not go through the system. So, we have to wait a while and look down the road and pray. He may never come home, but Heaven would not be the home it would be for our Heavenly Father if that sinner does not come home.
So long as the Father looks down the road, I feel we would do much better if we should try to catch the burden that so consumes Him. Maybe in that we shall discover what He has done for us, and our Gospel will come from a different viewpoint, with the power of the yearning heart of the Father in it!
============================= [From the Western Recorder paper, July 23, 1942, pp. 3-4; via microfilm copy at the SBTS Archives; provided by Adam Winters, Archivist. Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
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