Father of Lights

 Few stories are better known than the Prodigal Son.  Jesus first told it in response to those who criticized him for associating with known sinners. For 2,000 years the story has been repeated: a young man impatiently asks for his inheritance from his father. And, once granted, leaves home in search of adventure, finding it in a “far country.”  For a time, he is surrounded by new friends. As long as the money lasts. Once he has gambled and partied away all of his wealth, he is left penniless, destitute and friendless.  The only job he can find is tending swine in a pigsty.  He is so hungry he considers eating the food he feeds the swine.

 Out of desperation he decides to return home, ashamed, hoping to find a job on his father’s farm. To his surprise his father embraces him, replaces his rags with clean clothes and orders a welcoming feast.  He is stunned.

 The central figure in this story is not the prodigal. The central figure is the father.

The father, out of his generosity, gives his young son his inheritance.  It is the father who also gives him his freedom.  He can choose to go where he wishes and do whatever he desires with the inheritance.  It is the father, who sees his son in the distance, clothed in rags, shoulders slumped, depressed and defeated.  He does not stay where he is, waiting for his son to drag himself to him. He runs, as quickly as his aging feet will carry him, and throws his arms around his son, welcoming him with joy and tears.  He does not require penance.  He does not make him grovel for acceptance.  Instead, he orders a feast of celebration.

 Jesus told this story, not to help us see what we are like. We are, for the most part only too aware that we are sinners.  We have often failed and made mistakes.  He told this story to help us know what God is like.  He is our father!

 Jesus said, “ Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!” (Matthew 7:9-11).

 This changes everything.  The Creator and Sustainer, the Master Designer, the Ground of All Being is for us.  God is our Father.  As we gather this weekend to celebrate fathers, let us celebrate the Father of Lights, our Father who is in Heaven who loves us and gave His Son that we might have life.

Bread of Life

 Bread has become a delicacy.  When my wife sends me to the store for a loaf of bread I stand dumbfounded in front of the shelves.  Which bread to buy?  There’s white bread, whole wheat bread, gluten free 7 grain bread, garlic bread, rye bread, and a dozen others.  Then there are bagels: plain bagels, blueberry bagels and everything bagels.  And what about donuts?  I think donuts are included in the bread family.  Okay, I choose donuts.

 From ancient times “bread” has represented the staple of life.  Even today, in all its various forms, bread is still the most widely consumed food in the world.

 Scholars have found evidence that people started baking bread 30,000 year ago. But the first breads were “flat.”  They lacked leaven. It is the leaven that makes it rise, light and fluffy and sweet. Historians believe that the Egyptians were the first to develop leavened bread, somewhere around 1000 years before the great pyramids were built.  The most famous “unleavened” bread was the Passover bread, cooked up in a hurry by the Israelites to escape Egypt. 

 In 1917 Otto Rohwedder invented the first bread-slicing machine. He set the standard for all other inventors who searched for an idea that would be “better than sliced bread.”  In spite of Rohwedder’s invention, there is nothing quite like pulling apart a fresh steaming loaf of bread and adding butter.  

 Jesus referred to bread to help us understand who He was.  “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me will not hunger, and he who believes in me will never thirst.” John 6:35).  “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God, ” (Deut. 8:3; Mat. 4:4).  God nourishes our soul and satisfies our innermost emotional, personal and spiritual needs, a nourishment more important than the nourishment of our bodies.

 Jesus taught us to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Just as God provides for us daily the nourishment that is necessary for our bodies, He will provide for us each and every day the nourishment that is necessary to replenish our soul. 

 When Moses led Israel in the wilderness, God provided bread every morning so that “he who gathered much had no excess and he who gathered little had no lack.”(Exodus 16:18).  They could not store and keep the bread. It had to be eaten when God gave it.

 Like the Israelites in the wilderness, our relationship with God is daily and constant.  We cannot put our faith in a religious box to be taken out occasionally.  Just as our bodies need bread in order to live, our souls need a daily and constant conversation with God, the bread and substance of life.

The Anxious Generation

 A couple weeks ago my 15-year-old granddaughter suggested I read Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation.  I was stunned.  Over my lifetime I have experienced several technological revolutions that have transformed the way we live: color TV, the personal computer, internet, email,  mobile phones, smart phones.  In every case I was an early adopter. But I missed the rapid and ubiquitous spread of social media.                                      

According to Haidt, a recognized social psychologist, Gen Z, those born between 1995 – 2010, is the first “phone-based” generation to experience a “rewiring” of the brain through social media.  A professor of psychology at NYU’s Stern School of Business, he says, “I have seen the rising levels of anxiety and device addiction as my students have changed from millennials using flip phones to Gen Z using smartphones.” Access to social media coupled with adolescent mental, social and psychological development has been devastating.

 Haidt writes, “Children born in the late 1990’s were the first generation in history who went through puberty in the virtual world.  It’s as though we sent Gen Z to grow up on Mars when we gave them smartphones in the early 2010’s.” Since the introduction of smartphones and social media, Haidt documents a 145% rise in depression among teenage girls since 2010, and a 161% increase among boys. Along with this, Emergency Room visits related to self-harm increased 188% among girls and 48% among boys since 2010. This is recent and rapid. 

Interestingly, Haidt, who claims to be atheist, finds promising solutions in spiritual terms. He draws on a book by David Steno, a social psychologist, published in 2021, How God Works: The Science Behind the Benefits of Religion.  He names six practices that can help all of us in our age of anxiety and fragmentation: shared sacredness, embodiment (rituals), stillness-silence and focus (meditation), transcending the self (inspiration), being slow to anger and quick to forgive, and experiencing awe. He leaves out faith however, the key element that makes all of these work.

 These healthy elements are found in the life and teachings of Jesus. He emphasized the importance of community.  “Where two are three are gathered together in my name, there I am, in the midst of them.”  He established the Lord’s Supper when He shared bread and wine with his disciples the night before His death saying, “this do in remembrance of me.” He taught us to transcend self, “If anyone desires to be first he shall be last of all and servant of all,” (Matthew 9:35).   Regarding anger and forgiveness, He said, “You have heard it said, ‘You shall not murder,’ but I say to you he who is angry with his brother without cause is in danger of the judgement.”  “If you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses,” (Matthew 6:15). As to awe, John wrote, “We beheld His glory, as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,” John 1:14).

 I am encouraged by reports that many in Gen Z are turning to faith.  The magazine Relevant describes it: “This isn’t the next wave of megachurch Christianity or the rebranded youth group hype of the early 2000s. There are no flashy social media campaigns, no celebrity pastors, no big marketing push. What’s happening is quieter, rawer and—to the surprise of many—far more compelling. Gen Z isn’t leaving faith behind. They’re leading a revolution.” We can pray that the entire world may be revolutionized by faith that is found in Jesus Christ.

Bill Tinsley's Sermon on the Mount Devotional Book is FREE as an eBook on Amazon June 2-4.