Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (The Message)
15 1-3 By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” Their grumbling triggered this story.
11-12 Then he said, “There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’
12-16 “So the father divided the property between them. It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.
17-20 “That brought him to his senses. He said, ‘All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’ He got right up and went home to his father.
20-21 “When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’
22-24 “But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time.
25-27 “All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day’s work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing. Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on. He told him, ‘Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home safe and sound.’
28-30 “The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. The son said, ‘Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!’
Luke 15 is one of the greatest chapters in the Bible. It contains three parables which tell us all we need to know about God’s awesome love. The parable of the Prodigal Son - or better titled, the Waiting Father, is the most well known and profound.
The setting is the Pharisee’s and teachers of the Law - the prominent religious citizens of the day. They have been unhappy with Jesus for not being as ‘religiously correct’ as they are, for “he receives sinners and eats with them.” So Jesus tells this story to open their eyes to how it really is with God.
The rebellion of the youngest son is reason for the Father to disown him. Cast him out!
Forget that he ever existed! This the Father cannot do.
There is no way God will disown any of his children! That just isn’t in the books! Not since Jesus! God doesn’t close his heart to anyone - ever!
Upon his return, hoping to be a hired hand in his fathers house the younger son discovers the second great truth about God hidden in this story - he can’t be a hired son; he can only be a son! Love demands it! Grace fulfills it! He is a son again for love will have it no other way! Indeed, ‘love so amazing, so divine, demands our life, our soul, our all.”
The elder son stayed home. As Bailey says in “The Cross And The Prodigal”, “His heart is full of envy, pride, bitterness, sarcasm, anger, resentment, self-centeredness, hate, stinginess, self-satisfaction and self-deception. And he probably sees his own actions as a righteous search for honor.”
It was his job to serve as ‘head waiter’ at the banquet. This he could not do. So the Father must go out a second time to try show his elder son that he is love too - just as much as the younger. This time it ends up with his love being rejected.
Lesson: Whenever we, like the elder son, get arrogant and think we know how, who and when God should love, we become lost in our own arrogance and way off base in our lack of compassion.
When ever we find ourselves begrudging God’s generosity - God’s grace at work in the lives of sinners - we part company with God and dwell in our own religiosity.
How great indeed is our God and his great loved for all - ALL - his children.
“Grace isn’t a gift for getting it right
but for getting it wrong!”
Richard Rohr
Prayer thought for the week: “Lord, if I stray help me to dare believe that you will welcome me home, again, and again, and again. And when I think you love me because I never stray - at least not much - help me to see how far astray I really am.”
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