THE PRODIGAL SON RETOLD

Luke 15:11-32

Feeling footloose, fancy-free and frisky, this feather-brained fellow finagled his fond father into forking over his fortune. Forthwith, he fled for foreign fields and frittered his farthings feasting fabulously with fair-weathered friends.

Finally, facing famine, and fleeced by his fellows in folly, he found himself a feed flinger in a filthy farmlot. He fain would have filled his frame with foraged food from the fodder fragments.

"Fooey! My father's flunkies fare far fancier" the frazzled fugitive fumed feverishly, frankly facing fact.

Frustrated from failure and filled with forebodings, he fled for his family. Falling at his father's feet, he floundered forlornly. "Father, I have flunked and fruitlessly forfeited further family favors."

But the faithful father, forestalling further flinching, frantically flagged his flunkies to set forth the finest fatling and fix a feast.

The fugitive's fault-finding frater, faithfully farming his father's fields for free, frowned at this fickle forgiveness of formal falderal. His fury flashed, but fussing was futile.

His foresighted father figured, "Such filial fidelity is fine, but what forbids fervent festivities? The fugitive is found! Unfurl the flags! With fanfare flaring, let fun, frolic and frivolity flow freely, former failures forgotten and folly forsaken. Forgiveness forms a firm foundation for future fortitude."

That fun formulation of this famous parable of Jesus is called The Prodigal Son in the key of F and was originally written by Rev. John Garlock and Gwen Jones in the 1940s (see p. 10 of A/G Heritage, Fall 1990).

A pearl to string: Salvation can, but doesn’t always involve being rescued from a life of wallowing with the pigs. And pigpins cannot be fur-lined by parents. There is another son in the story. He wasn't lost..... he never left home, never asked for his inheritance early, never wasted a penny, and served his father every day. If he was never really lost, it follows that there is no need for him to be found. But as the parable unfolds, it becomes clear that there are two prodigal sons. The oldest son had been a part of the safety and nurture of his father’s household his whole life, but had failed to develop a grateful, joyful spirit. And he is lost. There’s a party going on and he won’t participate he remains on the outside judging and calculating whether this is fair or just or deserved for someone far less faithful than him to be celebrated like this. The parable ends unresolved. Here's the truth they each must discover: (John 14:6) Jesus says "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

We are deep and wide in His fadeless love,
Lyndi