I am grateful to Karen Smith for raising the issue that prompted this sermon. What she wants to know is: how to let go when your child needs to make his or her way in the world when young adulthood arrives, but still at the same time, let them know you love and support them. I am sure that Karen is not the only one asking that question, and if you are not asking it now, you either have asked it, or you will ask it.

A few months ago, a movie called, "Failure to Launch" told the story of Tripp, a thirty-something young man with a good job, a nice car, and a nice life made all the better because he has not yet left his parents’ house. He is so comfortable with his life that he cannot imagine living somewhere else. Eventually, his parents hire a woman to lure him into his own place to live.

It is true that in some parts of the world, young adults live at home until they are married. But we tend in our culture to encourage independence, unless there are circumstances of health, or finances, or choice. The expectation generally goes something like this – turn 18, go to college or vocational training, go to work, go into the military, go live someplace else. It is not about whether parents love their children, it is about helping their young adult children launch out into their own lives.

Many of you know that I got back yesterday from a week spent with Disciples between the ages of 19 and 29 at Advanced Conference. Some of them are students, some live on their own, others with their parents. Some are working, and a few are married, and some are married with young children. I told them what the topic of this sermon was and I asked them as they thought about what it means to launch into their own lives, what they wanted their parents to know about them.

They said: "we need our parents to know that we will do our best to make good decisions. We need them to help us be accountable when we don’t; and we need to know that if we need to, we can come home, at least for a little while." This last one, in my mind, presumes that the young adult’s presence will not endanger or harm the family.

But sometimes it is the parents who have trouble letting go. A few months ago, Newsweek magazine published an article called, "The Fine Art of Letting Go". One paragraph describes the problem, particularly for baby boomer parents of young adults.

"One minute there’s an adorable, helpless bundle in your arms. Then, 18 years go by in a flash, filled with [school lessons, sports lessons, food, shelter, clothing]. The next thing you know, it’s graduation. Most boomers don’t want to be ‘helicopter parents’ hovering so long that their offspring never get a chance to grow up.

"Parents who hover risk crippling their children’s fledgling sense of self-sufficiency. They don’t allow their children to deal with the consequences of their decisions. So when a decision goes badly, they just fix it.’ Children and young adults build up confidence by tackling things that are hard. When they do they succeed, they earn self-esteem." (Newsweek, May 22, 2006, p.52, 56).

That question of when to launch your children, or to encourage them to launch themselves, or to wait a year or two, the story of being willing to let go is the story of the Prodigal Son. Jesus told the story as one of three stories about the joy of having something that was precious and lost restored. The stories remind us of our desire to know that when we are in some stage of being lost, someone will long for us, look for us, and rejoice when we return.

Jesus want us to know that we are cared for and that we have a place, the church that is home for our spirits. He wants us to know that if a shepherd will look for a lost sheep, if a woman will clean her house to find a lost coin, surely a parent, in this case a father, for us, God, will wait for and long for a lost child and celebrate the child’s return. So many of you can imagine his heartbreak and worry as his beloved younger son makes an outrageous demand on his father.

It is as if we are overhearing their conversation. "Dad", I know that you just finished making out your will, and that you will leave me some money and property when you die, but you are looking pretty healthy, and I need my share now. There’s a world out there and I want to be in it. There are people out there, in places out there, and I need to be out there to meet them. Why don’t you and I go to the bank tomorrow, you withdraw enough cash for my 1/3 of your estate, I know that the law says that the older brother gets 2/3, and I can be on my way. I will start packing tonight, and as soon as I can, I will get in my care and bounce out of here".

And the father does it. Why in the world would he let his young son treat him as if he were already dead? Why would he allow himself to be disrespected in this way? The father lets him go because it is all he can do. He knows that he has raised him in the ways he prays he will develop. Now it is up to the young man to do with his life what he will.

While his son is gone, the father cannot know that his son is off somewhere living out a parent’s nightmare. He wants him to be alright, but even in his most terrified moments, he cannot conceive of the life of reckless living, the sudden poverty, and the job that was an offense to the young man’s culture, his faith, his upbringing, and the father who taught him to respect himself.

"Having renounced his family, he attaches himself to a Gentile, who orders him to feed his pigs. Swine, of course, were an abomination to Jesus’ Jewish audience (Leviticus 11.7; Deuteronomy 14.8). The rabbi’s declared ‘None may raise swine anywhere’. So complete was the younger son’s fall and so desperate was his need that he desired to be filled with the pods the swine were eating." (New Interpretation Bible, volume IX, Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997, p. 302).

The young man knows he has damaged himself and his family’s name. But Jesus tells us that there is a moment when he understands himself in a new way. He comes to himself; Today’s New International Version says he came to his senses. He said in the word of the spiritual, "I believe I’ll go back home, and acknowledge there that I’ve done wrong." He practices the speech he knows he must make.

He couldn’t know that his homecoming celebration would make his older brother furious. There was a man who had two sons" (Luke 15.11). The older brother, the one who has never launched, has been managing the family business, doing his work, and his brother’s work, and even some of his distracted father’s work too. This son who has always been there is disgusted when he hears that a party is being given for his disrespectful, ne’er do well brother come back from God knows where. When his father comes out to meet him, he is nearly beside himself with anger. He has offered no complaints, no rebellion, nothing but his own sweat and sacrifice.