A Prodigal Father's Love for His Prodigal Children - Luke 15: 11-32

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Gospel reading from Luke 15.

We call it “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” Most of us know it by heart: the father’s younger son wants his share of the inheritance.

Inheritance: let that word sink in for a second. To get inheritance, the owner – in this case, the father - must die. “Dad, you’re worth more to me dead than alive,” is what the son implies. Presumably, the father follows the tradition of the time and divides the inheritance into thirds, one more portion than sons, with the older son getting a double portion, 2/3 of the inheritance, and the younger son getting a third. You notice, that leaves the father nothing. Its as if he’s dead.

Do you know what “prodigal” means? Prodigal means to waste money on extravagant, outrageous - and presumably unsustainable - living. In our own time, there is no shortage of examples of prodigals from among Hollywood-has-beens, professional athletes, and politicians, all whose wealth and happiness, like Lubbock Texas, was left in their rearview mirror. The younger son, like those famous faces you’ve heard about, lets money run like water through his open fingers. Then, when the money runs out so do his friends. Faced with death by starvation, he’s quickly reduced to pig ranching, and then further reduced to wrestling them for scraps from the feed trough. No self-respecting Jewish boy would ever consider such a thing – it’s worse than dying. It made him unclean, putting him outside the community of faith, unworthy of entering the Lord’s House, separating himself from the presence of God.

How desperate does a person have to be to stoop so low, to be so humbled, to excommunicate himself from the people of God and from God Himself? He reduced to being as-dead, physically, mentally, spiritually? I hope that isn’t lost on you. Remember, he wanted his father dead so he could get the money. Now, with the money gone, he’s as-if-dead himself. In another strange twist, this as-if-dead boy comes up with a resurrection plan of sorts, a possible way to come back to life, by returning to the father’s house to become not a son but a servant. “At least,” he thinks, “I’ll have food to eat, a roof over my head, and can give up this porcine hell of a life.”

Weak from hunger and cloaked in shame, I wonder how long the boy took walking home. It probably took some time, after all he is as-if-dead. “Dad, I know I wanted you dead, but – hehehe – funny thing happened to me while I was sowing my wild oats and now I’m the one who’s almost dead.” He played the scenario over in his mind, the words he would say, how he would say them. But, I wonder what he expected – after all, dead men aren’t exactly the best self-advocates. He certainly looked and smelled the part already. What could, what should he expect? Perhaps the father would have pity on such a thing as him. It wasn’t like he was asking for his old room back and the keys to last year’s Mustang.

Imagine his surprise when his father comes running down the laneway to him. His father! The old man, himself, with his robes up past his knees, beard flying in the wind, his breath coming in gasps, tears streaming down his cheeks, calling his name over and over. His father! Such behavior wasn’t very gentlemanly – certainly not for a noble and landed aristocrat. He should be up on the verandah, scowling and snarling at this thing – not a man, just a thing – that dared invade his property. The father should be suspicious of this trespasser, this intruder, who once wished him to just die and get it over already. This father – his father, his own “I wish you were dead but very alive” father – rushes out to meet, greet, and welcome the boy home.

The boy! Not a thing, not an intruder, not an invader but a boy – his boy! His son! His once-alive, then as-if-dead, and now alive son is home! He’s a mess, a disaster, a shell of his former self. But he’s here! Maybe not well, but he is alive.

Do you know there is another definition of prodigal? We usually think of it like I defined it earlier: to squander money. But, in a broader sense, prodigal means having or giving something on a lavish scale. We call this the parable of the prodigal son, but I suggest this is better titled the parable of the prodigal father because he demonstrate his love in the most prodigal, lavish of ways. His compassion will not listen to the boy’s negotiations for a job. Jobs are for servants. Besides, the almost-dead can’t negotiate anything – he has nothing to negotiate with, not even his life. This is his boy, his son, his flesh-and-blood. Half-dragging, half-pulling, dancing, bouncing around his son like a puppy, the father exudes joy, laughter being heard down the lane and at the house. “Bring my signet ring!” he orders. “Give my son a bath and then give him my good robe – the one Momma gave me for my birthday last year that I just couldn’t bear to wear, get it out of the closet and give it to him!”  To the cooks he orders, “Fire up the pits and kill the fatted calf! Save the burnt ends for this, my son, who is alive and among us again!”

That’s the story we know so well. Let the scene fade out in your mind and think critically for a second. How could a father be so prodigal in his love and compassion toward a son that wished him to be dead and lot alive? In the Jewish world, the greatest thing a father could give a son was a blessing, a verbal gift of the father’s love and name to be bestowed to the son. The greatest insult a son could give to his father was denying the blessing, to live outside of his father’s name and blessing. This son, the prodigal son, didn’t want any of that; he just wanted the money. How could a father, how could a dad, overcome that hate-drenched desire of youth? How could the father not only love the prodigal, but to shower prodigal love upon the boy who rejected his father and wanted him dead?

Remember, this is a parable. The purpose of a parable is to use an earthly story to give us insight into the Kingdom and the Father’s love toward His people. It’s a Divine version of “The Rest of the Story,” if you will. So, who is Jesus telling this parable to? Start with the audience: Jesus is speaking with tax collectors and sinners when Pharisees and scribes observe Jesus’ storytime companions. You can hear the sarcasm dripping from their words. “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”  Some kind of rabbi, this Jesus, stooping so low as to associate with riffraff like this. Those are the people, tax collectors and sinners and Pharisees and scribes, to whom the parable is told.

That, then, gives us insight into the parable’s characters. The father, of course, is the Heavenly Father with His outrageous, compassionate, prodigal love. He offers grace, mercy and compassion to those who relent and turn to Him.  His love is spread in the most prodigal of all fashions – even over those who treat Him as if He were dead – and is almost overwhelming to those who are likewise dead in their trespasses and sins, and who repent, relent and return to Him. In fact, His prodigal love is so great that He is willing to sacrifice His own perfect Son who perfectly follows and obeys the Father’s commands. The Father’s love is able to be given because there is a sacrifice, not of a fatted calf, but the Lamb of God.  

Who is the prodigal son? In the story, the prodigal son is the one who squandered the father’s love, but then realized his plight and came back, as-if-dead. Granted: in the parable, it was not a perfect repentance; he wasn’t trusting the father’s love and compassion, nor was he seeking to be welcomed home. But, at least the son went where he knew mercy and life could be found. Who is the prodigal? The tax collectors and sinners sitting around Jesus. Perhaps some were believing, already, that He was Messiah; perhaps some saw Him as the fulfillment of what was missing in their lives. But, at least they recognized that He could offer hope, compassion and mercy to them, the ones that society cast out as unlovable and undesirable. Jesus wants them, the tax collectors and sinners, to see themselves whom the Father welcomes and that Jesus, there among them, welcomes them on the Father’s behalf.

There is one other character remaining: the older son. With the party swirling around him, he stands in the shadows, scowling, refusing to celebrate. He, then, represents the Pharisees and scribes, the very antithesis of the Father’s prodigal love. If anything, he is prodigally abounding in resentment, anger, and disdain for both the father and the brother. While he should be bouncing, dancing, celebrating with the father and the whole household, rejoicing that the as-dead brother is now as alive as can be and back in the home, instead he is jealous of the love, attention, and even the meal. In fact, by separating himself from the household’s celebration, it’s as if he is as guilty of rejecting the father’s love as his brother when he left home. He’s so busy looking at how good he’s been that he misses how guilty he has become and what he’s guilty of. Rather than confessing his sin, he digs in and doubles down. The son’s question of “Where’s mine?” is the pharisaic equivalent to “Hey, Jesus, look at us! We’re getting it all right; we’re doing it all perfectly but you’re ignoring us. What’s with sitting with people like them and snubbing us?” Sadly, the Pharisees totally miss the point of who Jesus is, what He is doing, their place both in the Kingdom and in the parable, and their own need for a Savior.

You notice the question is left unanswered in the parable. What do you think happens? Is there a sudden change of heart by the older brother when he looks across the party and sees his as-dead-but-now-alive brother dancing while gnawing on a beef rib? Do his feet start tapping when he hears the band drop a banger like the Cupid shuffle? Does he clap his father on the back, repenting of his stubbornness, his begrudging labors, and his own failure to show love to the father and pray for the father’s mercy for himself? What does the brother do?

You know the rest of the story. The older brother slinks deeper into the shadows and plots murder. Not in the story, of course. Remember: the older brother represents the pharisees and scribes. They begin to plot how to get rid of the one who tells such stories of prodigal love, of mercy and compassion for tax collectors, sinners, and undesirable people who dare to trust in Jesus as Messiah. The Son must die – for the sins of the world. He dies for those who have rejected the Father’s prodigal love. He dies for those who run away and surrender to the temptations of sin and satan and their own flesh, squandering it all in prodigal living. The Son stripped of His dignity, His honor. When Pilate records that this Man is the Son of God, the Pharisees want it recanted, that He only claimed to be the Son of God. He dies the most horrific death the world will ever know. Not just physically, but dying separated from the Father and His prodigal love.

When Jesus rises on the third day, the world knows the fullness of what prodigal love is: that God was, in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself. Having made His own Son sin, through Christ’s death, He makes us His own sons and daughters. It’s nothing we do. Like the prodigal son in the parable, we were spiritually blind, dead, and enemies of God. We have nothing to bargain with, nothing to negotiate with. Jesus died for the spirititually dead, and Jesus rises to give life. Through Christ, the Father no longer remembers the prodigal’s sins. He no longer hears the prodigal’s curses, sees the hands held out in greed, or remembers the prodigal’s back that was turned against him. What the Father hears is Jesus’ prayer, “Father, forgive.” What the Father sees is the Son’s nail-pierced hands and whip-scarred back. And, then the Father simply calls you “Beloved.”

So, where are you in the story? You’re at the table. You, a former prodigal, are welcomed to the family. You were lost and found. You have already died and risen with Christ. That’s what prodigal love and grace does. Amen.