Today we’re going to look at the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It’s Jesus’ longest parable and one of the most famous.
We can look at this story from several perspectives. We could reflect on the father in the story and what he shows us of God’s extraordinary grace. We could think about the younger son. He represents most of humankind which has turned away from God and gone its own way. Or we could think about the elder son. One commentator I read described the elder son’s story as a ‘sub-theme.’ But more than a third of the parable is about the elder son. I think that Jesus’ main focus throughout Luke 15 is the elder son and his attitude.
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Let’s first take a look at what’s going on in this chapter.
If you glance over Luke 15, you’ll see there are three parables: the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin and the parable of the lost son.
These three parables are a set.
They’re clearly related. The first parable concerns a sheep being lost, the shepherd searching for it and rejoicing when he finds it. The second parable is quite similar, except it’s a woman who loses a coin. The third parable concerns a son being lost, his father yearning for his return, and rejoicing when he does.
The parables are also presented as a list. The second parable starts at verse 8. Jesus asks, ‘OR what woman…’ The third parable starts at verse 11. Jesus says, ‘AND he said…’
So, the three parables are a set. Jesus is giving three examples to make a point.
What prompted Jesus to tell these parables?
Can you go back to the start of the chapter? In verse 1 we read that tax collectors and sinners were coming to Jesus. In verse 2 we read, ‘the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ”This man receives sinners and eats with them.”‘
So, in these two verses there are two groups of people. One group is the tax collectors and sinners. The other is the Pharisees and scribes.
Now look at verse 3. It says, ‘SO he told them this parable.’ ‘SO’ means, ‘this is WHY Jesus told the parable of the lost sheep.’ But since the three parables are a set, it tells us why Jesus told all three parables. Why did Jesus tell these parables? Look at verses 2 and 3 again.
‘The Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” SO he told them this parable.’
JESUS TOLD THE PHARISEES AND SCRIBES THE PARABLE OF THE LOST SHEEP – AND IN FACT, ALL THREE PARABLES – IN RESPONSE TO THEIR GRUMBLING. HE WANTED TO ANSWER THE CRITICISM, ‘YOU SHOULDN’T BE RECEIVING SINNERS AND EATING WITH THEM.’
Now that we understand that Jesus told the parables to answer this question, we can look at his answer. Why should Jesus receive sinners and eat with them? And applying it to ourselves, why should we?
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Jesus starts his answer with the Parable of the Lost Sheep and then went onto the Parable of the Lost Coin.
The message of these two parables isn’t complicated.
In the Parable of the Lost Sheep a shepherd loses a sheep. It was precious to him and he takes considerable risks to recover it. The shepherd rejoices at finding his lost sheep.
In the Parable of the Lost Coin a woman loses a coin. It was precious to her and she turns the house upside down to find it. The woman rejoices at finding her lost coin.
The tax collectors and sinners are like the lost sheep and the lost coin. They are lost, but very much worth searching for, turning the house upside-down for.
The first part of Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees and scribes is an implicit question. ‘Shouldn’t you be like the shepherd and the woman? Shouldn’t you also rejoice at the fact that the lost are being found?’
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Let’s now move on to the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
To understand the parable we need to see who corresponds to whom. We saw that there were two distinct groups who Jesus was speaking with. One was tax collectors and sinners. The other was Pharisees and scribes.
In the parable there is a wayward younger son who the father welcomes and lays on a banquet for. He corresponds to the tax collectors and sinners who Jesus received and ate with.
There is also a grumbling elder son. He corresponds to the grumbling Pharisees and scribes.
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The Parable of the Prodigal Son is longer than the other two parables and we have more to unpack.
I’d like to start by imagining why the Pharisees and scribes grumbled at Jesus for eating with sinners.
One reason the Pharisees and tax collectors might have grumbled about Jesus’ behaviour is that they had a general principle of not associating with sinners.
To some extent, they were right! The Bible tells us that we should be careful who we mix with. For example, Paul writes, ‘Do not be misled: “Bad company corrupts good character”‘ [1 Corinthians 15:33]. There’s a verse in Proverbs which says, ‘One who is righteous is a guide to his neighbour, BUT THE WAY OF THE WICKED LEADS THEM ASTRAY’ [Proverbs 12:26].
It’s good advice, isn’t it? See what you think of this. William Gladstone was prime minister of Britain for about 12 years in the second half of the 19th century. In 1848, while he was an MP, he founded an association called the Church Penitentiary Association for the Reclamation of Fallen Women. In this work he met prostitutes late at night on the street, in his house or in their houses.
What do you think? Might there be some risks in this?
A biographer wrote:
“At first the ‘rescue work’ (as he called it) was an act of conventional charity… But it is also clear that for Gladstone rescue work became not merely a duty but a craving; it was an exposure to sexual stimulation which Gladstone felt he must both undergo and overcome. As he admitted to himself, he deliberately ‘courted evil.’”
Gladstone’s plan doesn’t seem a very good one, does it? He was exposing himself to a lot of temptation. His story gives weight to the Bible’s cautions about mixing with sinners.
But there’s another dimension to it. Sinners need rescuing. I wonder how many 'fallen women' Gladstone helped. There are risks in mixing with sinners. There are risks in going after a lost sheep. But if the sheep is precious, then the shepherd will take risks to recover it.
A second reason the Pharisees and tax collectors might have grumbled about Jesus’ behaviour is that they simply disliked tax collectors. The tax collectors collected taxes on behalf of the Romans – the enemy! They weren’t nice people. It seems that they extorted money, and their contact with Gentiles made them ceremonially unclean.
I can’t think of any job today which has the social stigma that being a tax collector in Jesus’ day would have had. However there are groups which society today tends to marginalise, minority ethnic groups, for example, or people with mental illnesses.
In the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin the shepherd and the woman didn’t want a single sheep or a single coin to be missing. There was no one Jesus marginalised or excluded.
There’s a third reason the Pharisees and tax collectors might have grumbled about Jesus’ behaviour. This reason is almost certainly closest to the truth, because it’s the reason Jesus gave.
In the Parable of the Prodigal Son the elder son says to his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’
The elder son is feeling hard done by. He thinks he deserves his father’s favour – and hasn’t had much of it. And he thinks his brother doesn’t deserve his favour – and now he’s going to get a lot of it! It’s not fair!
Jesus is telling the parable. He’s putting words into the characters’ mouths, revealing their thoughts. The elder son represents the Pharisees and scribes. So it looks as though this was what the Pharisees and scribes were thinking. They thought they DESERVED God’s favour; that they had EARNED his favour. But in their view, the tax collectors and sinners did not deserve God’s favour; they had done nothing to earn it.
Since the tax collectors and sinners did not deserve God’s favour there was no reason for God to accept them. And there was no reason for the scribes and Pharisees to do so either.
What’s Jesus answer? His answer is the gospel.
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At the start of the story, the prodigal son doesn’t want to live under his father’s authority. He leaves home of his own free will. He has a good time for a while but squanders his inheritance. Then he falls on hard times. The prodigal son wasn’t unlucky. His experience is the invariable result when a person chooses not to live under God’s authority.
The prodigal son then comes to his senses. He returns to his father and receives a welcome he could never have hoped for. His father runs and embraces him and kisses him. He tells his servants to bring the best robe and put it on him, and a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet.
That’s the gospel. We’ve sinned. We DO NOT deserve anything from God. But God is willing to receive us back. In fact, he’s yearning for us to come back. He’ll give us a welcome we don’t deserve and would never imagine.
Someone called David Anderson wrote that “Jesus’ parable of the lost sons … was not so much a story of repentance as a depiction of the extravagant grace of God.”
Jesus tells the Pharisees and scribes, ‘God isn’t like you imagine.’ People can’t earn his love and favour. They don’t get to the point where they deserve it. They get God’s favour when they return to him in repentance.
At the heart of the gospel is grace. I’m sure Jesus would be pleased if we used the Parable of the Prodigal Son to tell people the gospel. But here Jesus’ telling of the gospel sits inside a bigger dialogue. It’s his answer to the Pharisees and scribes’ complaint.
We can paraphrase Jesus’ answer. ‘Why do I receive these tax collectors and sinners and eat with them? Because they deserve to have me receive them and eat with them? Definitely not! It’s because God is full of grace. God is yearning for them to come back to him. So I must welcome them too.’
Jesus’ parable ends with the father explaining to his elder son why they had to celebrate. His son had moved from death to life! This is also the final part of Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees and scribes too. When people come back to God they have moved from death to life! It’s a wonderfully good thing. It’s something to celebrate, not be grumpy about!
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What's the application for us?
First, if God is so full of grace that he values and accepts the undeserving sinner then we need to value and accept the undeserving sinner too. No marginalising, excluding, ostracizing or judging those who come back to God.
I’d like to read an excerpt from a book called “What’s so Amazing about Grace?” by Philip Yancey. He wrote this:
‘Not long ago I heard from a pastor friend who was battling with his fifteen-year-old daughter. He knew she was using birth control, and several nights she had not bothered to come home at all. The parents had tried various forms of punishment, to no avail. The daughter lied to them, deceived them, and found a way to turn the tables on them: “It’s your fault for being so strict!”
My friend told me, “I remember standing before the plate-glass window in my living room, staring out into the darkness, waiting for her to come home. I felt such rage. I wanted to be like the father of the Prodigal Son, yet I was furious with my daughter for the way she would manipulate us and twist the knife to hurt us. And of course, she was hurting herself more than anyone. I understood then the passages in the prophets expressing God’s anger. The people knew how to wound him, and God cried out in pain.
“And yet I must tell you, when my daughter came home that night, or rather the next morning, I wanted nothing in the world so much as to take her in my arms, to love her, to tell her I wanted the best for her. I was a helpless, lovesick father.”‘
Did the pastor show a godly attitude? Of course! It’s how the father in the parable acted. It’s God’s character to show grace, and he calls us to do the same.
Second, in the parable, the father did not go after his youngest son. His elder son stayed at home. But the father actually had a third son! He sent him after us. His name is Jesus. Of course, we need to welcome the tax collector and sinner of our day. But I believe Jesus would like us to do even more. He’d like us to be energetic searchers of the lost – as the shepherd and woman were, and as he himself is. It’s especially needed here in Europe. Jaume Llenas, who is a pastor in Spain, commented, ‘Most Europeans have a family history in some form of Christianity but now, like the prodigal son, have turned away.’ The statistics certainly support that. We need to go after those prodigal sons and daughters.
Third point. The prodigal son in the story squandered his inheritance. There's a parallel in our world at the moment. God gave humankind this world to look after, but by and large we’re using its resources in an unsustainable way. We’ve returned to God like the prodigal son. Let’s not continue to squander our inheritance.
