The Resurrection of a Dead Son, a Dead Father, and a Dead Calf - Luke 15:11-32

Jesus tells the story, the parable, that we commonly know as the Prodigal Son. Today, I want to take a little different view on the parable. Let’s start by changing the name of the parable. Let’s call it the parable of the dead and dying.

It starts with the death of the father. He has two sons, the younger of which decides Daddy dearest is better off dead than alive. Junior wants his inheritance. The problem is, you only get inheritance when the head of the household is dead. It’s as if Junior is saying, “You’re not dying fast enough for my speed, Dad. I want my share of the money now, and I don’t want to wait for the will to be read and estate to be probated.” So Father dies. Not literally, of course, but it is as if he were dead. The estate is divided according to the custom of the day with the oldest son getting a double portion, 2/3 of the property, and Junior gets a third. The dead don’t need anything – they are dead, after all – so Father is left for dead, penniless, and for all intents and purposes, homeless, at the whim of the older son. The older brother gets the corner office with a view, his name on the company letterhead, and the title “head of household” while Junor hits the road to live the high life.

Junior becomes the model of celebrity excess. Think Charlie Sheen, Kanye, and Mike Tyson all rolled into one. With his newfound wealth, he buys whatever he wants – babes, booze, and binging on jewelry, food and whatever he wants – and his new friends sponge off his largesse. Les bon temp roulez, and the good times keep on rolling until his credit cards are declined, his horse is seized by creditors, and the Ritz-Carlton tosses him and his luggage out to the curb. Things get so bad that even Tom Bodett turned out the lights.

Whatever life he’s enjoyed in the past, both while at home and on his own, is as good as gone. Money, possessions, life - all over. There’s a bit of a word play here. Our translation uses “property,” both to describe what the father surrenders and what the boy squanders. Don’t just think the antiques, stocks, bonds and inventory that Dad sold to create the cash and assets that Junior wastes. This is their whole existence, their being, their identity, their very lives – both the father’s and the son’s. Junior is as good as dead, now, too. The money is gone; fair weather friends abandoned him for better times elsewhere. His property – remember, his existence, his very being, his life – it was all gone. We lose his level of desperation in our culture – he takes a job slopping hogs. Mike Rowe would never catch a self-respecting first-century Jewish man with this dirty job. It made him unclean, unable to participate in temple, in society, in family. It was another layer of death – dead to his culture. But it didn’t matter to Junior. The dead are unclean, anyway; unable to participate in any living aspect of Jewish social life. He was dead as a Jewish man; he was dead as a son. With his sonship gone, there is nothing left except to be that dead son.

He concocts a plan; he’ll go back to his father. Interesting, isn’t it, that he’s going back to the father that he once wished dead.  But since a dead father can’t welcome back a dead son, Junior must appeal to a businessman as a business venture to be hired as a fieldhand, just a servant. Anything, any kind of life is better than death, he thinks.

What should the father do? IF it were you, what would you do if your good-for-nothing, thankless, wish-you-were-dead son came dragging his sorry, scrawny, skeleton up the laneway? For those hearing the parable, the answer was an easy one to imagine: throw away the welcome mat, go into the house, lock the door, and pretend no one is home when he knocks. Junior wanted Dad to be dead; this is what death looks like. The dead do not answer when someone knocks.

Remember, parables are told to give us insight into the kingdom of God, to tell us something of the work of God in heaven and on earth, and to help us understand God’s plan of salvation for us in Christ Jesus. Although this parable begins as a story of death, it makes a tremendous shift, a shift from death to life, from vengeance to grace because it is, in fact, a story of God’s mercy. God’s story is different than our own. Parables use a “gotcha” in the story to remind us of this heavenly fact. In this parable, the ultimate and unexpected gotcha in the raising of the dead, the restoration of life to the dead, and there is the wonderful resurrection promise of the father.

The father sees this corpse of a son staggering down the road towards his home – or, rather, the home of the other brother – and does the unexpected. In an instant, it’s as if the father’s greatest joy is sitting, watching, and waiting for prodigals to return so that there can be a resurrection celebration. It’s as though he’s been practicing throwing parties for the dead who are made alive again through the father’s great love. He rises, hikes up his robe and shows off his legs – he doesn’t care who sees – and runs (runs!) to enliven his dead son. The father is alive again. It’s like the father has done nothing since the son left behind the mock funeral except to wait for this resurrection reunion, welcoming home the dead with kisses, hugs, robes and jewels.

But the boy is still dead – at least in his own mind. He doesn’t see any way for new life – not through his own strength, not even in the father’s possible compassion. He stammers out his prepared confession – at least part of it. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” No debate, no negotiating, no attempt to create worth.

I said this is a parable about death. The prodigal confesses it – he is dead. He has nothing to offer, nothing to give, nothing to bargain with. That’s how it is when you’re dead. The only thing he has is his condition – his deadness, his sinfulness, his unworthiness. He owns it; he admits it; he confesses it. He confesses his death.

Confession – you hear me speak of it often, usually in line with repentance. Repent and confess your sins. Make no mistake: confession is not a medicine that leads to recovery, as if by confessing our sins we are suddenly all better. If that was true, all it would be is a glorified “I’m sorry,” as if our sin never happened. The fact is, we never get better. What we do is we die. And, if we live again, it’s not because we found the strength, or the courage, or the innate ability to make ourselves whole. We live only because Someone takes up residence in the middle of our death. Grace is never this-for-that. Grace is fully and complete from the start.

Some people think they have to confess their sins so they can be forgiven. That’s backwards for Christians. We confess our sins because we are forgiven. Remember – we confess our sins AND we believe Christ forgives us. If we were not forgiven first, we could never believe we are forgiven. We would be left in limbo: did I confess enough? Was I sincere enough? Did I get all my wrongs right?

Consider the prodigal: he met his father who rose up to forgive, the father who ran out to him, the father who had been forgiving him even before he asked for his own father’s death, the father who died so that he could continue to forgive and love and grace his sons. Confession is never about a transaction or negotiation. Confession is the last life-breath of a corpse admitting he is dead…and, all the while, looking forward to resurrection. Forgiveness in Christ Jesus surrounds us, enwraps us all our lives, breathing new life into us every time we die. We confess, only to draw new Spirit-filled breath of life.

Every confession bears witness to this death-to-life gift of grace because our confession – whether in public or in private – flows from one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. It is always this order: Christ, cross, font, you. Christ’s death for the sins of the world, nailed to the cross for the forgiveness of sins, poured out in Baptism, showered abundantly upon you, while you were yet an enemy of God. You weren’t prepped and made good enough for Baptism. You were God’s enemy. And, in Water and Word, He adopted you, forgave you, and redeemed you and gives you the eternal promise of remaining as His son and His daughter.

That means this: you are forgiven before, during, and after you sin. You are forgiven before, during, and after your confession. You are forgiven for this and this reason only: Jesus died for our sins and rose for our justification.

It’s sometimes hard to believe it unless we see it, hear it, and even taste it for ourselves. That’s why we confess our sins each Sunday, so we can hear those precious words again. We see the sign of the cross, the sign that was placed on our hearts and foreheads as a mark of Christ the crucified. We taste Christ’s body and blood, given and shed for our forgiveness. God does this, as the father to his prodigal, and He never hesitates for a moment. It’s what He always intends to do. You are never forgiven because you have made yourself forgivable. You are dead, remember. You are forgiven because solely because there is a Forgiver who sacrificed His Lamb for you.

That’s the final death in this parable. In the story, it’s not a Lamb, of course, it’s a fatted calf. What’s the purpose of a fattened calf? One thing only – to drop dead at the father’s whim so people can have a party. The calf’s death proclaims what the father’s house is all about, just as Jesus, the dead and risen Lamb of God, proclaims what the eternal, heavenly Father’s house is all about. Grace is God celebrating and wanting to share it. But wait, you say; the calf doesn’t rise. Yes, it does: it rises to feed the prodigals who are returned to sonship and welcomed at the Father’s table.

So, the parable is about death. The father is dead; the prodigal is dead, the calf is dead. Then, the parable is about life: all three are risen and everyone celebrates.

Jesus tells this parable to the tax collectors and sinners who were listening to Him. Thus far, the parable is a parable of grace for the sinners, condemned by everyone except Jesus. They are forgiven because they are dead sinners. But Jesus is a risen savior who years to raise them to new life as well.

But the parable is also a word of warning to the self-righteous Pharisees who sat nearby, are busy finger-pointing at everyone else. They are very much like the older brother in the parable who stands, grousing about the celebration for the returned son. He grumbles that he has worked for his father without even a goat of reward or a word of recognition. The father points out, he’s missed the point. He’s been dead since the beginning of the parable, remember? Everything was given to the boys. Yes, the younger brother did indeed waste his property, but didn’t the older brother as well? He found no joy in his inheritance, no thankfulness in the father’s loving sacrifice. The fatted calf was actually his – he could have celebrated any time, but instead he chose bitterness. Why, it’s as if you’ve been dead, too, son. The difference between you and your brother died and came home to resurrection joy. You, you’re alive (sort of) but standing here miserable. You own this place – it’s yours! – but you’re outside, as if you’re the prodigal. The roles have reversed. So, son, die – die to yourself, to your rules, your expectations, your demands. Die to yourself so that you might rise and be part of the family.

The parable ends with tension, the question left unanswered: will the Pharisees, the older brother in the story, will they die to themselves so they can rise to new life, come inside and celebrate as family, or will they remain outside replacing the prodigal who left home dead only to return alive.

So, who are you in the story? You’re at the table. You’re a former prodigal who has been welcomed into the family. You were lost and you were found. You have already died and risen. That’s what grace does.

If you found yourself crawling in the doors of this house this morning, feeling more dead than alive, wondering if the Father still loved you, the answer is a resounding yes. If you need to hear that yourself, privately, into your own ear, let me know. I’m just a prodigal, myself, but I’ll gladly tell you about the Father’s great love for the undead in Christ.