[Propertalk] Gospel tidbits - March 14 - Lent 4 - Part 1

[Joe Parrish]

When the younger son asks for his share of the family property, he deals his father a double blow. He not only means to break up the estate; he also means to leave his father, who counts on both of his sons to care for him in his old age. If there is a mother upstairs listening from behind her bedroom door, then she gets clobbered too. When her husband dies, everything she has goes straight to her sons. Losing one of them is like losing a kidney. 

http://www.barbarabrowntaylor.com/newsletter374062.htm

Barbara Brown Taylor, 2006

[but that observation does beg the question of whether the happiness in the son's return is partially the result of having another future home health care worker back to take of him in his old age.  Yet I digress.]
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      PH in OH
      March 9, 2010
     Here is a personal story as an example of the
      older son. We moved shortly before I began high
      school. Not knowing me at all, the band director
      placed me in the last chair of the third clarinet
      section. Over my four years in high school I
      managed to progress up 7 chairs to first chair of
      the third clarinet section. My senior year I took
      a solo usually done by people in the first
      clarinet section and received a II rating, which
      was quite an accomplishment. For three years I
      served as the band historian, keeping scrapbooks. 
      It came the end of the year and time for the
      banquet and awards evening. The most improved
      band member ended up being a person in the first
      clarinet section who moved up only 2 chairs in 4
      years. He was a nice guy.
      At the awards he was given the most improved
      award. I was steaming. I had worked hard. I had
      sacrificed. I had improved. And I deserved the
      award. No one had worked harder or been more
      faithful than me. It came time for me to present
      the scrapbooks, as historian to the band director.
      I stomped up on stage, my feelings on my shirt
      sleeves. I said only a few words, handed the
      scrapbooks to the director and began to leave the
      stage. The band director called me back over and
      said a few words about my work. I again began to
      leave. Again I was called back and was presented
      a scrapbook with my name on it and an inscription.
      How many times, we feel we deserve the fatted
      calf.  
     

http://www.desperatepreacher.com/bodyii.htm
(Page 2)
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      Joe of the Eastern Shore of MD
      March 10, 2010
     Tom in Ontario made an interesting observation
      that most people miss: Jesus rarely (if ever)
      gives an "ending" to his parables -- as
      the endings are really our decision to follow him.

      I would commend to anyone Henri Nouwen's "The
      Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of
      Homecoming" [Image Book (Doubleday), New
      York, New York, 1992] which looks at the parable
      through the eyes of Rembrandt and his artistic
      rendering in his painting "Return of the
      Prodigal Son." It opened my eyes to so
      many things I had missed in both the painting and
      the story... especially the purpose of the
      story... which is not so much identifying which
      son we are, but the fact that Jesus is calling us
      to become like the father. 
     

http://www.desperatepreacher.com/bodyii.htm
(Page 2)
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