Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
In today’s Gospel lesson, Luke 15:11-32, Jesus tells what’s usually called the parable of the prodigal son. But, really, the parable isn’t about either the younger or the older son. It’s about the father, who loves both sons. It’s about the God we meet in Jesus Christ, Who loves all people.
Just before telling this parable, Jesus tells two shorter ones. The first is about a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine of his sheep to go find the lost one-hundredths one, then throws a party when the lost sheep is found. “I tell you…” Jesus says, “there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” The second parable Jesus tells is about a widow who loses one of her ten coins, sets about searching for it, and, on finding it, throws a party. “I tell you,” Jesus concludes that parable, “there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” (Luke 15:10)
In each of these parables, something gets lost and in each, the person charged with the stewardship of what is lost doesn’t rest until they’ve found the lost things. Notice too, that in these two parables, the shepherd and the widow stand in for God, and the lost things stand for those who have become separated from God. Jesus, God the Son, once described His mission by saying He came “to seek and save the lost.” (Luke 19:10)
But here’s the other thing I want you to notice about these two parables. Jesus says that both stories are about repentance. But neither the sheep nor the coin do anything to get found. Repentance then isn’t something you and I do. Repentance is what God does to us when His Word comes to us, whether through the words of Scripture or through the sacraments. God’s Word comes to us as Law, telling us that we are sinners who deserve death and cannot save ourselves from that fate. God’s Word comes to us as Gospel, telling us that Jesus Christ died for us and grants forgiveness and eternity to all who believe in Him. We might more accurately call the parable in today’s Gospel lesson, the parable of the searching father and the two lost sons.
Jesus tells these parables to a crowd composed of two groups of people besides His own disciples. First, there are the tax collectors and other sinners. The second group of people Jesus addresses today is made up of Pharisees and teachers of religious law. These two groups are represented by the lost sons in Jesus’ parable.
You know Jesus’ story. A younger son asks his father for his portion of his inheritance. The father complies with the son’s request. The younger son converts his inheritance to cash and sets off for a far country. While there, he squanders his money, a famine hits, and the son has to go to work for a Gentile pig farmer, something unthinkable for Jesus’ fellow Jews. He looks longingly at the pigs’ feed because he’s so hungry. He then devises a plan. Remembering how well his father treated the hired servants, he decides to ask his dad for a job. That way, he can earn a living but still be free of his obligations as a son. The younger son thinks that he can or has to work for his dad’s favor or help, just the way we may sometimes think we have to work at being good Christians. A man once seriously asked me, “What inputs do I have to bring to God to get the outputs I want?” He wanted to have with God what the younger son now wanted with his father: a business relationship.
When the younger son returns to his father. He only gets through part of his rehearsed speech. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son,” he says, as planned. (Luke 15:21) But before the self-admitted unworthy son can ask for a job so he can earn a place in his dad’s dominion, his father welcomes and forgives him with hugs and a kiss. Friends, God doesn’t make deals with us. He freely offers His gifts of forgiveness and new and everlasting life to all who, because they see God in His Son, Jesus Christ, turn to God. The younger son thought that returning home to his father was his idea, part of a shrewd plan to use his dad to get what he wanted out of the old man. In fact, he turned to the father because the father’s love had created the impulse to turn to him. When people turn to the God we know in Christ, they may do so for their own selfish reasons. But whatever our motive, whenever anyone turns to God in repentance, it’s because God has used His Word to call us to that repentance. Whenever the lost are found, it’s the action of God alone. God the Father refuses to make any of us His “hired hands,” servants striving to earn our way out of hell into God’s kingdom. Instead, in Jesus, God calls us to be His children, heirs of His grace, forgiveness, and love.
As the Creator of the human race, it’s God’s right to receive the repentant, no matter how uninformed their motives may be, just as it’s God’s right to destroy the unrepentant who refuse to turn to Him. But God wants to save all people. Not just people like the tax collectors and notorious sinners to whom Jesus speaks, but also people like the Pharisees and teachers of the law, people who have grown certain of their own righteousness.
That leads us to the older son. He comes in from the fields and hears the music of a party in his father’s house. When he learns that the father is celebrating over the return of his younger brother, he’s angered. His father comes outside of the house to invite the older son inside–the way Jesus leaves the comfort and eternal jubilation of heaven to enter our world, inviting us to follow Him and enter the Kingdom of God. The oder son refuses his father’s invitation. “All these years,” he says, “I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.” (Luke 15:19) And yet, he goes on, “when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!.” (Luke 15:30) We can see that, despite the differences between him and his younger brother, the two sons actually have had the same view of their father. When the older son complains of “slaving” for his father, he shows that his respect for his father has had nothing to do with love or gratitude or because he values their relationship. Like his younger brother when he set out to come home, the older son wants a piece of his father’s estate, but he doesn’t want his father. The older son got an A+ as a “good boy,” but he has no desire for a relationship with his father.
Many church people think that being Christian has everything to do with “being good” and nothing to do with having an eternity-changing relationship with God or with living in God’s Kingdom. They think if they’re good, attend worship, and do things for the church, they’ll be leading godly lives. (Even though many of the things these people do “for the church” has absolutely nothing to do with the one and only mission Jesus has given to His Church: to be and to make disciples.) People like this think that their “slavery” to being “good Christians” will earn them a place in God’s kingdom.
But folks, no matter who you’ve been, whether a hypocrite who’s played at trust in God like the older son, a rebel who’s wanted just enough of God to get what you want in life but not so much as to actually repent and believe, or some combination of both, God is running down the lane looking for you, a father desperately seeking His children. He calls you again today and everyday to turn to Him through Jesus…and to receive again and again the joyous welcome of heaven that happens whenever anyone hears Christ’s call to turn from their sin and follow Him…and then, by the power of the Holy Spirit, run into God’s outstretched arms. Amen
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