The Parable of the Lost Sons

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 These verses are known as the Parable of the Prodigal Son in our English Bibles and that is the way they are preached most of the time, and why not!?  To know that our Father will always welcome us home, no matter how far we go astray is Good News! 

But there is another son in the story and in fact, Jesus told this story to people just like him who thought their life with God was based upon what they did and they needed to be reminded that life with God is about his grace and we need that reminder too.

And yet, the very heart of the story is not the younger son’s waywardness or the older son’s self-righteousness.  The very heart of the story is the Father’s love for both of his sons despite their very real failures to be what they should have been—the story of our heavenly Father’s love for each of us here today.  The Bible says that:

Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” 

            Jesus’ ministry was bearing fruit.  People were taking to heart his words, repenting of their sins, and following him as his disciples.  All kinds of people.  Notorious sinners.  Tax collectors.  Adulterers. Roman soldiers.  And the hated Samaritans.

Jesus welcomed them all—no matter who they were, no matter what they had done--and the Pharisees didn’t like it one little bit.  They said that if Jesus were a man of God he would know what kind of people he was associating with.  But of course:  he was—and he did. 

The charge the religious leaders of the Jews made against him (that Jesus received sinners and ate with them) they meant as a harsh rebuke—but they are some of the sweetest words in the Bible:  Jesus does receive sinners and eats with them. 

Jesus wanted the religious leaders to understand that this was good news (not only for the notorious sinners) but also for the self-righteous religious person who was blind to his need to be received and welcomed by Jesus.  And so he told them this parable about a son who said to his father:  ‘Give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ 

            Can you imagine caring more for what we can get out of our parents-- than our relationship with our parents?!  Shocking!  But it’s often how we treat God.  We want all of the good things that our heavenly Father provides, but we don’t want him butting in to our lives. 

But the Bible teaches that the blessings we receive from God are given so that we are drawn to God himself.  That relationship is what really matters-- but often times material blessings push us away from God.  It certainly did for the younger son. 

Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property--and he began to be in need--and hired himself out to feed pigs—and longed to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate.

            Everything that the younger son desired apart from life with his Father—he lost.  He went from plenty to poverty; from dignity to degradation; from a son to a servant.  This is exactly what happens when we pursue a life away from God. 

If you had told this young man that this was the direction that his life would take, he would have never believed you because he thought he had it all.  But this is always the course that sin takes in human lives.  The Bible says that desire gives birth to sin and sin brings forth death.  So it was for this young man—he could not have sunk lower.

Decent Jews would have been horrified to be close to pigs.  To be reduced to caring for them would have been unimaginable.  But to desire to eat from the same trough—this was degradation beyond belief.  And yet, as low as he had sunk—he was not beyond hope-- because he had a father who loved him. 

So long as you have breath in your body—so long as your heart is beating—no matter what you have done—no matter how you have squandered the treasures of life God has given you—you are still objects of the Father’s love and he will graciously and providentially work in your lives to bring you to himself.   

God’s saving work begins with seeing the truth about ourselves-- just like it did for the young man.  Jesus says that when he came to himself, he said:

I will arise and go to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am not worthy to be called your son--treat me as a servant.”’

            This is the heart of repentance—that we finally come to a place where we see the truth about ourselves:  we are sinners who are not worthy to be called God’s children and that life with the Father is infinitely greater than anything we have on our own.

But it was not just the truth about himself he saw—it was also the truth about his father.  Given everything that he had done:  the harsh words and wasted life--he still knew that his father loved him and would welcome him home.  And this is really the key to his journey home (what he knew about his father) rather than his own repentance. 

We know how often our sincere-sounding words of repentance are really self-serving.  We’re sorry that we got caught.  We’re hate the consequences.  And we want to make some deal with God.  That’s what the young man did.  Even in that moment of repentance he still wanted to dictate to his father the terms of his return.

Fortunately, the welcome we receive when we repent is much more about who God is-- rather than the purity of our repentance.  Jesus says that while the young man:

was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

            The son’s trust in the father’s love was not misplaced.  The father had been longing for the son’s return—he was always watching for him—hoping for him—praying that he would come home.  He never washed his hands of him because he loved him.

In that day, grown men did not run anywhere—it was undignified.  And they certainly didn’t run out to meet disobedient, disrespectful children.  And they most certainly didn’t engage in this embarrassing, undignified spectacle of hugging and kissing a wayward child.  But this father did—such was his love for the son.

The scandal and shame of the father’s love that casts aside his dignity to embrace the sinner is fully shown in the outstretched arms of the Savior upon the cross.  There we see the length to which God will go to welcome sinners and make them his children. 

The younger son had his speech all ready but before he could say another word—the father restored him to his rightful place as his son.  That is what the robe and the ring and the sandals meant:  that this sinner was now a son-- and that called for a family celebration.  But the older son wanted none of it.  Jesus says that:

“the older son was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat…but when this son of yours came who has devoured your property…you killed the fattened calf!’

            We think that it is a story about a wayward son—and it is—but it is told for the sake of his older brother.  The religious leaders are the older brother in the parable--scrupulous in how they lived—merciless to those who didn’t measure up.  They resented the compassion and mercy Jesus showed to sinners—but Jesus loved them too.

And so Jesus told this parable to get them to see the truth about themselves:  that they ought to be rejoicing to see sinners welcomed back into the family of God—that all people, whether Jew or Gentile, were ultimately God’s children whom he loved. 

Their lack of joy to see a sinner saved was a real problem because they also failed to see how their own lives with God were not what they were supposed to be-- and so Jesus told them this story so that they could see how far they had fallen.

The older son saw his life as that of a slave rather than a son-- and his father as a master whose commands had to be obeyed-- rather than a father whose words are received with thanksgiving—and he was just as much concerned with getting his share as was the younger son-- and embittered when he thought he was shortchanged.

It is so easy for us who have been life-long Christians to fall into the same trap.  Isn’t there an earthly bonus for years of faithful service to the Lord?  Isn’t it a little bit unjust for the gift of salvation to be given equally to those who have led a dissolute life as to those who have served God faithfully?  Shouldn’t the faithful get more from God?

Jesus told the story of the older son because he wants us to know that this kind of attitude alienates us from God-- just as much as those who lead scandalous lives. 

But Jesus also wants us to know that he loves the Pharisee too and wants them to have a place in the family.  And that is why the father in the parable did another unbelievable thing:  he went out to the older son and begged him to be reconciled to his brother and take his place in the family.  The father said to the older son:

‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’”

            From lost to found—from death to life.  This is what our heavenly Father wants for all of his children. 

Whether we identify with the younger son who did everything wrong and had to be reduced to nothing—or whether we identify with the older son who thought he did everything right and yet regarded his life with his father as an unpleasant burden to be borne—God wants us to know that he is our Father and he loves us and that there is a place in his family through faith in another Son named Jesus.  Amen.