Being an Authentic Follower of Jesus:
The Prodigal Father
Luke 15:11-32
August 23, 2009
Merriam-Webster online Dictionary defines ‘prodigal’ as, 1: characterized by profuse or wasteful expenditure: lavish
1. The Younger Son
The younger son, probably in his late teens, requests his inheritance from his father. This is an insult because he essentially wishes his father dead and wants to sever their relationship. The first word for property here means wealth as in an estate; the second literally means life. To comply with the request required the father to liquidate assets, land and livestock to give the son his share (1/3; Deut 21:17). This would be devastating to the father. For a Jew, the land was everything. Each tribe was given a share of the Promised Land; Jews fought over their land. To sell your land was to lose part of your life, your identity, and your standing in the community. The son is causing agony and shame to the father. What do most of us do when others hurt us or reject our love? We tend to lash back yet the Father honors his request, maintaining his affection for the son, bearing the agony of his rejection. The younger son quickly sells his inheritance for cash, leaves and squanders his wealth through undisciplined, wild living. Not only that but when he is broke a famine arose in the land. Some disasters are of our own devices; others are not. The result is that he is forced to do the unthinkable for a Jew; he must work for an unclean Gentile caring for unclean animals. Worse yet he has no food and the pigs food is not adequate for human consumption. He has gone from nobility to nothing with no one; by selling and wasting his inheritance, he has lost everything. That is the fruit of sin. Sin seeks to enslave us, suck us dry and in worse cases causes us to loose our humanity and we become like that which enslaves us. It promises us everything and gives us nothing. Seeking to live free from moral constraints we become enslaved to that which we believe will give us freedom. At this point, the younger son comes to his senses. He sees how much better off he would be as one of his father’s hired hands. So he comes up with a plan. He will repent of his actions and seek to serve his father. In his eyes, he has lost his sonship and so he seeks employment, which is a lesser status than a slave, so that he can attempt to repay his father and restore himself to his father. But he does not come back brazen and confident; it is tentative at best. He was expecting rejection from both his family and his community. Any Jew who lost his money to foreigners faced the Kezazah (literally “the cutting off”), banishment from the community.
Yet the Father does the unthinkable. He initiates this reconciliation when he sees his son coming. He lifts up his robe and runs to the son, hugging and kissing him. The son is flummoxed, as the father will not let him finish his confession and even contradicts it. The father was the one who did the restoring, not the son: the father put shoes on him (sons, not slaves, wore shoes); the father put his best robe on him; and the father put the ring on his finger (a signet ring would give him the power to transact business). The son is fully accepted and welcomed back into the family in good standing (i.e. Joseph, Gen 41:42; Mordecai, Esth. 6:6-11). It is at this point the son finally sees his father’s visible, costly love for him.
Then the father tells his servants to kill and cook the fattened calf because they are going to celebrate. You need to know that meat was a delicacy and not commonly eaten, even among the wealthy. The fattened calf was reserved for special occasions, usually for a sacrifice at the temple. This is no ordinary welcome home party; this is the bash of all bashes because this son who was considered dead has been resurrected; was lost and now is found. He has been restored to life, to family, and to community.
Here is a picture of salvation - we bring nothing to the table – even our repentance is a gift (Acts 5:32; 11:18; 2 Tim 2:25) and our faith is a gift (Eph 2:8). God raises us to new life, welcomes us into his family and restores us to community. God’s love and forgiveness can and does pardon and restore every sin and wrongdoing, every kind of evil. No matter who you are or what you have done there is nothing the Father cannot and will not forgive.
2. The Older Son
He also disgraces and insults and humiliates the father but in a different way. As the older son was coming in from working in the fields, he heard this celebration and wonders what is going on. He asks one of the servants about it and the servant reviews the whole story. The Older son is furious, refuses to go in, casting a vote of no confidence on his father, forcing his father to come out to beg him to come in. ‘Look, I have literally slaved for you, always did the right things, and was not consulted about this party and besides that you never even gave me a goat to eat with my friends! He is angry that they are celebrating the younger son, he is angry at the cost of celebrating, and he is angry at losing more of his inheritance now that his brother back in the picture. The older son has obeyed dutifully like a slave and there has been no celebration of me being a ‘good’ son. He wants justice not grace. He views the father as unfair. He views acceptance as merited; not free and gracious which is scandalous in the older brother’s eyes. He does not even care about the condition of the younger brother. Bottom line he is angry that the father is too freely accepting the younger brother. In spite of the public insult and humiliation, the father still wants him to come into the feast.
The older son is just as lost and sinful, though blinded to his own lostness, yet the Father still seeks to reconcile. Just like the older son, the Pharisees felt seething anger toward Jesus throughout his ministry. And ultimately, their answer was to crucify Jesus. And just as the parable talks about the father’s (God’s) costly, visible love for the younger and older son, so Jesus died in a costly, visible way so that we might see the heart of God, our Father. The younger son is alienated from his father because he has rebelled and rejected the Father and when he realizes it, he seeks acceptance purely on the fathers grace and mercy. The older son is alienated from the father as a religious moralist and he seeks acceptance by his behavior. His self-righteousness has blinded himself to his own sinfulness and made him calloused toward the younger son. The Good News is that there is an older brother, who was perfectly righteous, who was compassionate toward rebellious sinners, and who did go out and find the younger brothers. You and I are followers of Christ today because Jesus sought us out. WE brought nothing to the table – repentance is a gift (Acts 5:31; 11:8; 2 Tim 2:25); faith is a gift (Eph 2:8); our acceptance; sonship, inheritance, etc is all graciously and freely lavished on us. That is how big God is.
