by Paul Bayles, Pastor, Christ Community Church Canoga Park, Calif.
the Christian home Nor can we condemn the younger son for wanting to venture out upon life. There is great potential in his fiery spirit. Don’t worry about his break ing your heart. Be really interested in his heart. Parents need to check their motives quite frequently. He left home. That was no great sin. He asked for that which belonged to him and his father gave it to him. What really got him into trouble was his determination to have his own way. God expects us to make per sonal choices; but when the desire for independence becomes so consuming that we refuse counsel from God’s Word, from parents and friends, and demand our own way, then we are in trouble. The problem usually goes back in the history of the family involved and in the church attended. Having a fiery, adventurous nature did not doom this boy. Neither did having a quiet disposition necessari ly save the older son. It was com pulsive self-will that destroyed the lives of both of them. As Christian parents and church leaders, we often are too much like the older brother. We want all the celebrating to be done in our honor. We kill the fatted calf to honor our own morality and non-deliquency. We isolate ourselves from the deviant because he embarrasses us and makes us wonder if our faith is really capa ble of converting him. A leading so ciologist has sugested that “The church is not giving young people anything memorable, soul stirring, and liberating.” That would describe the Christian Gospel. Instead, we often foster youth vs. age rivalries by holding up our own morality. We picture our own youth as having been pure, ideal, and forever victorious over hardships unknown to modem youth. We imagine we are helping young folks, but we are actually com peting with them and isolating our selves from them. W e tell our teen agers, “ I left h o m e ; I n e v e r rebelled.” Probably we’re not being honest. Perhaps we had a different temperament. Our teenagers could feel much closer to us if they knew of the struggles, rebellion, resent ment, and frequent bitter hate we experienced. So you had to chop wood and walk three miles to school every day. Tell your teenagers how you sometimes hated it all. They’ll love you for being honest with them. M o st A m e r ic a n s are acquainted with the story of the Prodigal Son. This parable colorfully portrays a home that is typical. There are two sons and a father in the story. Tradi tionally, one son is delinquent and the other is not. However, when we read this story, we are left feeling strangely uneasy about the situation, for there are qualities about the de linquent which are more attractive than those in the older brother. On the human level, this parable is the story of a teenager who rebelled at home authority. In his struggle to give birth to an independent mind, his father became symbolic of those unsophisticated and humiliating days when he looked to his parents for everything. In throwing off those days, he feels he must throw out his father, too. It should be comforting to know that 2000 years ago, youth also chafed at home authority. In scribed on a very ancient Egyptian tomb are these words, “W e are living in a dying and decadent age. Youth is corrupt, lacking in respect for its elders. Age old truth is doubted . . .” Yet it is frequently difficult for parents to supply necessary adult in spiration. The father in our story seems to have been a good one, yet the son rebelled. Our children go through several stages of developing their re lationships with us. At first, they are sexless, so far as self knowledge is concerned. They aren’t aware of be ing either a boy or a girl. Soon they identify themselves with the parent of the same sex. They mimick every thing that parent does. Little girls play house and little boys play with cars and tools. Early, adolescents be gin to compete with the parent of the same sex, as fierce rivalries de velop. Parents a r e unconsciously brought into these rivalries and com pete just as vigorously as do their sons or daughters. This may he why teenagers some times spurn Christianity and high ideals, since these are virtues which parents supposedly represent. So only as we compete and keep the rivalry alive, the ideals each party represents must be rejected by the other. We don’t know how long these brothers lived together, but the dif ference in their temperaments is Ob vious. Life appeals to each in different ways. If the older son is content to remain at home, then let him stay. “ THE UNDERSTANDABLE NEW TRANSLATION . . . TH A T EXPLAINS ITSELF” Christian Leaders Applaud . . . . . it is the most wonderful trans lation. Get one!" 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