Luke 15:11-32
The Prodigal God
When people make mistakes, they should be punished for them! After all, they’ve brought it on themselves! And if we don’t look out after ourselves, who will? It’s a cutthroat world out there. Every person for themselves. And truth be told, it feels good to nurse that grudge. It makes me feel superior, better than that other person.
The only problem is, Jesus calls me to a better way. The first couple of verses of Luke chapter 15 set up today’s story: “Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” You can hear the disdain dripping from their words. “How good can he be? After all, he hangs out with sinners!”
So to show a better way, Jesus shares a parable—an earthly story with a heavenly meaning. Actually he tells three parables, one about a lost sheep, one about a lost coin, and today’s story about a lost son.
This is hands down my favorite parable in the Bible, so much so that I used it in my dissertation. You know that one dangerous question, right? “What was your dissertation on?” You could be there for hours, maybe even days! So please forgive the three-hour sermon today!
The Parable of the Lost Son is like a play. It takes place in three acts and features three major characters: a father and his two sons. In the first act, the younger of the two boys comes to his father and says, “Dad, I’d like my share of the inheritance now, before you die.” Now back in Jesus’ time, this would be just as rude as it would be today. It’s basically saying, “Dad, I wish you were dead.”
When my mother came to live with us for a year, she used to say things like, “You would be better off without me. You could have your inheritance now.” And I would patiently say, “Mom, we don’t want your money. We want you, for as long as we can have you. You are worth more to us than your money.” Well, the younger son in today’s story is saying the opposite: “Your money is worth more to me than you.”
The father gives him the money. We don’t know why. Maybe the father realizes the boy will only learn through the school of hard knocks. Anyway, the son takes the money and runs off to the far country where verse 13 says he squanders his wealth in wild living. Afterwards, there is a severe famine, and of course he has no savings to live on, so he goes to work in the most unclean place for a Jew: a pig farm. He gets so hungry that he starts daydreaming of eating the pigs’ food. In AA language he has hit rock bottom.
Verse 17 is the pivotal point for the son as he “comes to his senses.” He realizes his father’s hired hands live better than him. So he prepares a speech to humble himself before his father and request employment, knowing he is no longer worthy to be considered his father’s son.
Act Two begins with the father scanning the horizon for his lost son. The scripture doesn’t actually say this, but it implies it. In verse 20 the father sees his son when he is “still a long way off.” The father, full of compassion, runs to his son. Let me tell you, this is unheard of for an ancient Jewish patriarch! Jewish fathers never run to anyone; everyone runs to them! I can just picture the townspeople marveling at the scene, not only because the father is running to his son, but because he’s running to a worthless son, a son who has made a spectacle of himself, embarrassing his father and wasting a lot of money. What a strange father this is, who puts his own reputation on the line for a worthless son!
And then even more surprising: the father doesn’t reprimand his son at all. No dressing down, no chewing out; instead, the father bear-hugs and kisses his son. The literal Greek translation says the father “throws himself on his son’s neck.”
But wait, it gets stranger! In verse 21 the son starts in on his rehearsed speech: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But that’s as far as he gets. The father won’t allow him to finish. Instead, Dad grabs a nearby servant and demands a robe, a ring, and sandals for his long-lost son, thus publicly restoring him to the family. Then Dad announces a huge brisket barbeque for the whole village (that’s a Texas translation). Why the fuss? He explains in verse 24, “This son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”
This would be a beautiful “happily ever after” ending, but alas, Jesus gives one more act to the story. Lest we think that divine forgiveness is free, we learn that someone always pays a price for it. Verse 25 introduces the third character of the story, the older son. This fellow hears all the fuss and comes in from the fields to check it out. When he finds a party going on for the ungrateful little twerp of a brother who ran off with his inheritance, the older son is irate.
In verse 28 we see a loving father once again going out after a son, this time the older son. The son is understandably bitter after working so hard and never having a party thrown for him. You can feel his anger as he can’t even refer to the other as his brother, but only as “this son of yours.”
The father patiently responds in verse 31, “My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.” That is financially accurate, since the remaining estate all belongs to the older son upon the father’s death. Even with forgiveness remain consequences: the younger son doesn’t have any money left. So who is footing the bill for this barbeque after all? It’s all coming out of the older son’s inheritance, as is all their living expenses (maybe another reason for his bitterness?). The father continues with familiar words in verse 32, “But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”
This story is profound on so many levels: our own unworthiness to come back to our Heavenly Father, the Heavenly Father’s willingness to run to us at the very hint of our turning home, the Heavenly Father’s exuberant restoration of us as sons and daughters, and the jealousy of the older brothers of the world—of which we can become if we’re not careful—equating God’s love to our performance: if I just work harder, God will love me more.
I wonder with which character you most identify? Are you more like the loving father, or the older hard-working but hard-hearted son, or the younger foolhardy son? Maybe that’s something you can talk about at lunch today.
And what does it mean to know a God so radical that he runs for us, throwing aside his dignity and commonsense, and grabs us in a big bear hug with a huge kiss, welcoming us home? We must know it really has nothing to do with our own achievements. Because the real hero of this parable is the father, the one who loves both the fool hardy son and the prideful, hard-hearted son, the father who runs after both children, the father who wants no one to perish (2 Peter 3:9).
Timothy Keller wrote a book entitled, “The Prodigal God,” from which I borrowed today’s message title. I didn’t really know what the word “prodigal” meant, so I looked it up. It means, “spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant; having or giving something on a lavish scale.” People talk of the prodigal son who burned through his inheritance. But what about this prodigal father who lavished on a son his undeserved love? What about God’s reckless grace poured out on us with seemingly no limitation? God’s love for us is truly extravagant. God’s forgiveness of all our sins is absolutely mind-boggling when you think about it. It’s virtually too good to be true.
No wonder every other world religion is based on works: doing something to earn your way to heaven. Grace doesn’t make any sense. But this is the gospel: that God lavishly loves us, that God runs for us, that God embraces us in our pigsty filth, throwing his arms around us, stink and all. And all he asks is that we turn our step towards home. Just the slightest inkling of repentance on our part and he comes running.
Don’t hear me wrong: we are not to presume on this grace. Someone always pays the price of forgiveness. In the parable, the older son foots the bill. And we have an older son without bitterness who has paid the price for us: Jesus Christ our Lord. Romans 5:8 says, “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” When he died for our sin on the cross, he was able to say, “It is finished” (John 19:30). We have truly been bought at a price: the price of our Savior’s blood.
No, we don’t want to take God’s forgiveness for granted. Rather, we should be blown away by God’s grace, knocked off our feet, overwhelmed with a sense of gratitude, of thankfulness that permeates all that we are, all that we do. And we should give this grace away to others, forgiving them because he first forgave us.
John Newton was a slave trader, a drunk who frequented bars, spent time with prostitutes, and engaged in all kinds of wild living. But one day God used a near shipwreck to get his attention and John turned his step towards home. He gave his life to Christ. Later he wrote, “I am not what I ought to be. I am not what I want to be. I am not what I hope to be. But still, I am not what I used to be. And by the grace of God, I am what I am.” Newton went on to write a poem about God’s forgiveness, what we now know as the hymn, “Amazing Grace.” God’s grace really is amazing, isn’t it?
Let us pray: Prodigal God, what can we say when faced with your radical, excessive grace? We can barely comprehend it. We know full well that we don’t deserve it, and yet sometimes we think we can work our way into your good favor. Please seal our hearts today with the truth of the gospel: that as we turn to you, you are running to us, you are bear-hugging us, restoring us as sons and daughters to your royal family. Help us to rest in your grace and forgiveness, and to share it with others, all made possible by our true older brother, Jesus Christ our Lord, amen.
[Sing “Amazing Grace”]
