When a Father Refuses to Be 'Un-Fathered"

As we embark on the season of Lent we will be meditating a great deal on the importance of taking in God’s forgiveness, acceptance, and love - hence, the thoughts leading up to communion. Really, when we think about it for a little bit it becomes pretty obvious that the whole of Jesus’ ministry is focused on bringing people into reconciliation with God and with each other. Jesus, by the example of how he lived, by what he taught, and through the power of his atoning death, created and creates the context for people to forgive those who sin against them.

So, it is no surprise that we find Jesus’ emphasis on reconciliation amplified in the New Testament writings of the early church. For example, Paul develops this theme as he summarizes what it means to imitate God’s love: to forgive others as we have been forgiven by God.

Ephesians 4:31 Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, 32and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you. 5:1Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, 2and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

However, anyone who has seriously tried to live as an imitator of God in this way knows that it is a hard discipline to learn and we will spend our whole lives learning it.

Perhaps the most basic reason why this is a hard discipline to learn is because we allow the injustices done to us by others to control us and make us into people who become defined by a wish for revenge. It often the case that we have a passion for those who hurt us to be punished and excluded forever from our lives instead of hoping for them to be forgiven and then given back to us in reconciliation.

(Now, a quick parenthesis - there are many instances on this side of the world to come where victims need to not speak with again or even be in proximity to those who violated them; but even then, the desire for the enemy to be reconciled to God and to the one sinned against, even if only in the world to come, is the gospel shaped passion that Jesus’ followers are to pray for and strive for).

At the heart of the gospel stands Jesus who refuses to allow his identity to be shaped by those who hate him . All the way through his crucifixion we hear him forgiving those who have persecuted him and sinned against him. So, the question we will consider is how can we become imitators of God in this way? How can we become those who conform our lives to Jesus’ pattern of being an agent of reconciliation?




Our thesis: the degree to which we feel secure in God’s love for us as his daughters and sons will be the degree to which we are able to absorb his identity as an agent of reconciliation. There is arguably no better story in the scriptures that can form us in this way than the story of the father and the two lost sons.

There is so much in this parable for us and every time I come back to it I find something new or I see something a little differently, but what I want to concentrate on in this homily is the father’s work as a forgiver and an agent of reconciliation.

The first thing I want to note is that Father refuses to, in the lovely words of the theologian, Miroslav Volf, “construct his own identity in isolation from his sons” (he does not let his identity be shaped by the wrong done to him by either of his sons but remains their loving father). The Father knows who he is - he is a father to both of his sons and he will not respond to either of them as anyone other than their father. The younger son fantasizes that he will be accepted back as a hired hand but the son cannot become anything less than a son because the father will not be anything other than a loving father to him, desirous of full reconciliation.

The older son, ironically, betrays his own distance from the father as one who had lived as a hired hand in spite of being a son; but, as the father realizes this he reaffirms his beloved status as son by going out to him - just as he had gone out to the younger son when he was on the edge of the village - and the one who un-brothers his brother is invited to reclaim him as brother. The father takes his bitter words, “this son of yours” and simply pushes them to the side by saying to him, “your brother”.

So, in the instance of each son, they are not allowed to un-son themselves. Their identity as sons is based not on their ability to follow the rules or even to rest in the father’s hospitality. The only power that keeps them as sons is the strong identity of the father; he will always be to each of them father, so that they may be to him, as sons, and to each other, as brothers.

If we are to be agents of reconciliation in a way that can be recognized as an imitation of God’s love for all of humankind it will be because we have come more fully to understand our identity as daughters and sons of a father who refuses to be un-fathered by our resistance to his love and grace. The more we allow his identity, as the one who is constantly father, to make our own identities more secure as his daughters and sons, the better we will be at returning good for evil and being agents of reconciliation in our families, groups of friends, and all of our life-communities.

Questions for discussion:

1. Do yo agree that it is hard to desire to forgive those who hurt you? In your own words, how do you feel when you have been a victim of another person’s meanness towards you?

1a. Can you describe the steps you would take to get to a point where you desire to forgive the person who has wronged you?

2. What might you do differently in your life, in terms of spiritual practices, that would help you be more assured of God’s love for you as his son or daughter?

3. Do you identify more with the younger brother or the older brother? What events in your life have made you like that (identification)?

4. Why do you think Jesus left this story open-ended with regard to the older brother? (Hint: the older brother probably = the religious leadership of Jesus’ day who opposed his eating with sinners).