Good Friday morning! Today, a parable of Jesus re-told in a modern setting. You might call it the Parable of the Prodigal Graduate.
A man lived with two lovely daughters, twins from his wife who had left him for a younger man. The father made a promise to his daughters that he would pay the cost of their college education at any college they desired. The man also promised to start them in life with the best car that he could afford. The daughters thought long on this promise and made the first major decision of their young lives.
One daughter decided to stay home for a few years and work in her father's company. She would attend the state college when she had attained some maturity; saving her dear father much on the cost of tuition while saving up some money of her own from the job. She would trust in God that college, a husband, and a good job would all be there even with her delay in leaving. The young lady and her father enjoyed the time together, growing closer and preparing for the day when she too would depart for college.
The other twin longed to assert her individuality from both her father and her twin sister. She plotted in the depths of her heart to take all that her father would send with her now. Though she knew that her father would eventually split all he had between her and her twin, the years were long ahead of her and she didn't expect her father to pass from this world until both of them were well advanced in age. "What good would an inheritance do when she was 70?" she thought with just a hint of selfish bitterness.
The prodigal young lady chose to attend a college near Hollywood. She would take only enough classes to get by as a full-time student, while attending auditions for all the best movie roles. From her father she demanded not a car, but fully half of his current fortune. The father, though much grieved in heart, took his company public and divided the shares between his two daughters, himself, and his long-time employees. He dutifully gave half of his bank accounts to his departing daughter and also the money from a mortgage note for half the value of his properties. The loving father even took half of his 401K as a disbursement, and though the taxes were brutal and painful to bear, gave the full half to his departing daughter.
With her fortune, the departing daughter left town in the latest sports car with a trunk full of new clothes for her new life in Hollywood. Once there, she became busy with the latest auditions for this movie and that, quite forgetting about her promise to attend college in the crush of events. With her wealth and youth, she leased a fine home and threw parties to attract the industry bigwigs to her cause. As the movie industry is often in need of new young faces, she did obtain a small role here and there, never enough to quite support her mounting bills. Just one break, would put her over the top she thought.
The years went by and the twin who stayed home, though not related to the little piggy who did the same thing, did eventually go to college. The dutiful daughter graduated and worked her way up in her father's company, finally landing the position of CEO. The Hollywood daughter continued to find the going difficult, finally giving herself up to roles in the worst kinds of movies in order to support her lavish lifestyle and profligate parties, both of which she enjoyed to the hilt.
What came to be known as the Great Recession arrived in the land; companies laid off many, money for entertainment became scarce, and the government dumped truckloads of cash on its best banking buddies. While Hollywood did enjoy a resurgence in ticket sales, the now older actress found doors closed as her body of work in the dark side of town worked against her. Her father's fortune long spent, and her own earnings now at nothing, the Hollywood daughter found herself evicted and friendless in a city far from home. With no college education and no experience in real jobs, she had nothing but a cardboard box in a vacant lot to call her own. None of her former "friends" came to look for her; the producers who had attended her parties and drank her booze now said "what's your name again?" in spite of their knowing her name quite well. The last few dresses from her checkered past clung to her wasted frame as she hit bottom.
Often we fail to look up until there seems to be no more down to go, and so it was with the failed Hollywood daughter. From her seat in the junk-strewn vacant lot only a few miles from the homes of the rich and famous, she read in a discarded newspaper that her father's company had made a point to a business reporter that by trusting in God first, and hanging on to their valuable employees second, the company had faced some tough times, but had emerged victorious when competitors failed. With the economy improving now, the company stood to gain not only the best employees cast off by companies following the current wisdom, but much new business as well.
In her despair, the daughter thought of that faraway company. She had little to offer her father's company, but she would humble herself and beg her father and sister for a job as a restroom cleaner on the night shift; the lowest-paid and most demanding job her father's company had to offer. She had no trouble taking the part of the poverty-stricken and downtrodden victim of her own bad decisions; she did after all practice that role every day. After a complimentary shower and laundering, a local church gave her a bus ticket to her hometown. The prodigal daughter felt hardly deserving of such generosity, but promised to remember the church as best she could in her tithing.
A thousand miles and what seemed a thousand hours of bus riding later, the prodigal found herself a few miles from home at a bus stop. Without luggage or money to weigh her down, she walked home in donated shirt and pants, with freely given and quite unfashionable shoes on her feet. No gilt signatures shined on the soles of these shoes, but she found them far more comfortable than the expensive shoes in her past life. She couldn't recall the last time she had walked this far, but she became more humble with each step toward the home she had left so pridefully; promising so proudly that she was, "free of this nothing town and on her way to fame!" as her father and sister watched her drive away in her new car. What to say to her father now?
As the father of the twin daughters watched from a chair on his porch, he thought of the success his daughter had made of the company he had left in her care. He also thought of a daughter he no longer knew. For years he had subscribed to Hollywood newspapers and magazines, became a fan of the Facebook page, signed up for the Twitter feed, and read a fan blog on his daughter's growing career. He winced in pain as his daughter began taking the unsavory parts and prayed for her daily to God. However, the web sites had not been updated for more than a year, and the tweets had stopped some time ago. Some show called "Where are they Now?" had tried and failed to find his daughter this year, and the man wondered what had happened. Suddenly, a very thin, almost starved figure, came trudging up the long driveway to his home. The panhandlers had increased during the recession, but none had ever walked up to his house to beg.
As the figure came closer, the man finally recognized his own daughter. He couldn't remember the last time he had gazed on his daughter's face as God had made her, free of the Hollywood cosmetic art and not made up for the latest photo shoot. The daughter tried to stammer something, but no line from a scriptwriter appeared in her mind; she simply fell upon her father's feet and wept.
"Stand up, my child!" her father cried, "I will always love you; let me see your face!"
With a good home-cooked meal in her stomach and the light of her father's love in her eyes, the prodigal daughter finally found the courage to ask for that most humble job in her father's company. She would work that job to the best of her ability and ask nothing but what God would provide.
"While it is true that we can never keep that job filled for long, I would have you go to college as you promised years ago, my child," the father told her, "I have already paid the price through my endowment to the state university, you need not worry over the cost."
"But I am not deserving of such a thing, father!" she cried once more.
"No, but in my love I choose to give you what you don't deserve," he informed his daughter.
*********
Obviously, I'm not as concise as Jesus is, but I thought that He would let me borrow his parable for the modern times and re-tell it for the graduates soon to go out into this difficult world. Sorry for the length of it. Have a wonderful Friday in Christ!
Bucky
No comments:
Post a Comment