Luke 15:11-32
This morning’s reading is commonly entitled the Parable of the Prodigal Son. “Prodigal” means reckless and wasteful. But the story is actually about two sons. There’s a younger, rebellious son and an older apparently obedient son.
Both sons are important to the parable, which is about the relationship between each son and their father. In fact, many scholars have said that a better title for this story is the Parable of the Loving Father. Because Jesus’ main point is the father’s amazing love for both sons.
Since today is Fathers’ Day, it seems appropriate to talk about the Parable of the Loving Father.
Jesus begins his story by saying, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.”
Notice that the younger son doesn’t ask; he demands. Instead of waiting for his father’s death to receive his inheritance, he demands it all now. He was treating his father as if he were already dead, an insulting and shameful behavior.
This would be shocking in any culture, but in the world of ancient Israel it was a grave transgression. Respect and obedience were owed to one’s parents as one of the highest of values. Indeed, the son blatantly violated one of the 10 Commandments: “You shall honor your father and you mother.”
In the society of the time most fathers would have beaten the rebellious and ungrateful son, and perhaps disinherited him. But instead, the father in Jesus’ story does what the son wants. He divides his land between his two sons, giving them each ownership of their portion.
But then things get even worse. “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country.”
According to the Law of Moses and established custom, the father could make a gift of his land to his heirs ahead of time. But the heirs could not sell the land while the father was still alive. And the father retained the right to the produce from the land as long as he lived.
But in this story the younger son sold the land for cash and left—this was as bad as son could be. Not only to demand ownership the land, but to sell it, depriving the father of its produce and income. And yet surprisingly, the father allows the son to do all this.
For Jesus’ hearers, this scenario would have been nearly incomprehensible. A father agreeing to the son’s demands would have brought great shame on himself and his family. He would have lost the respect of his peers. The father’s acquiescence to his son’s wishes cost him greatly.
This is the kind of astonishing twist that Jesus’ parables often have. Jesus is telling us something profound about who God is and what he is like. I think Jesus is saying that God bears all things including our wrong-doing and rebellion, for the sake of his children, whom he loves.
So the son traveled far away to a country of the Gentiles, of non-Jews, of people who worshipped idols. There he wasted all his money on wild living. The word for wild living elsewhere in scripture refers to drunkenness, immoral living and even idolatry.
Then a famine came, and the son was starving. He went to work for a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. But he still had nothing to eat. The son went from being a cherished family member to being a starving field worker feeding animals considered unclean. He had hit rock bottom.
We might think of the degradation of the younger son as representing the condition of humanity alienated from God. As human beings we’ve misused the bountiful gifts God has given us and made a mess of God’s good creation. And now with nuclear weapons and our destructive abuse of the environment we may be on the verge of catastrophe.
Finally, things got so bad for the son that he “came to his senses.” Some translations say that he “came to himself.” He got in touch with his true self, with the person God created him to be. In his desperation the son decided to return to his father. He repented.
He said to himself “I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’
That, by the way, is a pretty good thing to learn to say to someone who we’ve wronged: “I’ve sinned against heaven and against you.”
So he got up and went to his father.
People come to faith in Christ for a variety of reasons. And some, like the prodigal son, turn to Jesus out of desperation. A minister that I knew asked a young man he was baptizing, “are you sure that you’re ready to make this decision, to entrust your life completely to Jesus Christ?”
The young man replied with great emotion, “Yes, yes, he’s my only hope, my only hope, my only hope!”
That’s how the Prodigal Son felt. We believers in Jesus also sometimes feel desperate at times, don’t we? So we too cry out to Jesus, “You’re my only hope, my only hope, my only hope.”
The son returns to the father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The father had been waiting and hoping for his son’s return. To have seen his son “while he was still far off,” the father must have been looking down the road, perhaps every day, to see if he was coming home. Longing and hoping for his son’s return.
Despite everything he still loved his son. And when the son does come back, he runs to embrace him. Here again the father does something few if any human fathers in that culture would have done. He pulls up his long robe and runs to his son. In ancient patriarchal societies, fathers didn’t run. They walked slowly and with great dignity.
But this father didn’t care about his dignity. He cared about his son.
Like the father in the story, God loves his children so much that he set aside his dignity and bore the shame of the cross for our salvation.
The father rejoices in the son’s return and celebrates with feasting, music and dancing.
This brings us to the actions of the elder son. The older son hears a commotion coming from within the house. A servant tells him that the younger son has returned and that their father is having a party to celebrate. The older brother became angry and refused to go into the house. So his father went out and pleaded with him.
But he answered his father saying, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
The older son’s behavior also is disgraceful in that culture. He disrespectfully criticizes his father to his face, perhaps in front of others, and he refuses to enter the house.
Yet the father expresses love for the older son and humbles himself, pleading with him to join the party. “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
Jesus’ hearers would have understood that the older son represents the Pharisees and other very religious people who made great efforts to obey God as they understood him, but who rejected had Jesus.
The younger son represents the tax-collectors and prostitutes and non-religious Israelites, who now had committed their lives to God through Jesus
By telling this parable Jesus is urging the Pharisees in the audience to welcome his followers as their brothers and sisters. And to join God’s great celebration by becoming followers of Jesus themselves.
A lesson for us is that God loves his wandering children, and so must we, treating them with kindness and not anger or contempt.
Before I became a believer an evangelist once tried to witness to me about Jesus. As I talked with him, my language was laced with profanity. But instead of becoming angry or criticizing me for taking the Lord’s name in vain, he kept treating me with kindness and respect. His loving response to my irreverence probably helped me eventually become a Jesus-follower.
The end of the parable leaves the hearers with a question. Will the older brother listen to the father’s plea or not? Will the Pharisees and teachers of the Law listen to God and join the Jesus movement or not? What will they decide?
So this is Jesus’ parable about the Loving Father. A father who loves both of his sons despite their disrespect and rebellion. A father who sacrifices himself for them.
Above all, Jesus’ parable is about the astounding love of our heavenly Father who casts aside his majesty and dignity to be human and submit to the cross. In order to reconcile us to himself and unite us with each other.
I’d like to end by listening to a recording of a song by Jim Croegaert entitled, “What is this love.” It’s sung in English, and we’ll project the words in Spanish.
[The chorus is: “What is this love? What is this love that will not let me go? That has a hold upon my soul that I can’t break. What is this love? What is this love? What is this love that won’t let loose of me?”]
“See what great love the Father has lavished on us,” writes the Apostle John, “that we should be called children of God!”