We explored this familiar story last summer, and I asked you all to think of a title that reflected this parable’s peculiar content. Maybe your title was still the prodigal son, or maybe the parable of the foolishly generous father, or maybe the parable of the broken family, the lost son, or simply the two sons. The author of the gospel of Luke frames this story and the other two before it with the first 2 verses of chapter 15. The hated and despised, the outcast and marginalized, the tax collectors and sinners have been welcomed into Jesus’s followers and at Jesus’s table. The Pharisees cannot believe it and grumble often about Jesus’s indiscretions.
We must remember that for the Pharisees, the reason that the nation of Israel is still in its current predicament, namely being a conquered people, subject to the humiliation and torment of the Roman Empire, is because they have not followed God’s ancient covenant, the Torah. The indiscretions of their ancient ancestors were what led to the first great exile as well as this continuation of t first one now under the Romans. How could Jesus think that allowing those who colluded with Rome, the tax collectors, or those who disregarded the law entirely, like the sinners, could be inheritors of the coming Messiah’s promised covenant? The prophets had written long ago of the great arrival of a king, a descendant of David who would institute a new covenant and free Israel from its oppressors and its past sins. They knew what Messiah would be like when he arrived, and Jesus did not seem to have a clue, so they made sure to let everyone know that welcoming the un-welcomable disqualified Jesus from any share in what was coming.
In response to the Pharisees’ grumbling and criticism in verses 1-2, Jesus responds with three stories. The stories of the lost sheep and the lost coin fill in the space between verse 2 and where we begin in verse 11. Let’s walk through the story again. A father has two sons. The younger comes to him and says that he wants to cash out his portion of the family inheritance, the same as saying that he wishes that his father were already dead so that he could enjoy the inheritance. It seems, without a question, the father obliges, divides the inheritance, and gives the younger son his portion. Remember that this would be animals and land and any other assets that the father had accumulated. The land at least was most likely sold to a neighbor. The younger son receives the cash then along with the rest of the assets owed to him. After a few days, he decides to head out on his own, traveling to somewhere far away.
After some time, the son has squandered everything in dissolute living, which gives us the idea that he wasted it foolishly in all the worst ways that we can imagine. When everything is gone, the younger son’s situation is exacerbated by a famine, which would have left him in an even more precarious situation as he has no family or social connections to support him. If the younger son’s shame has not become too overwhelming already for Jesus’s first-century listeners, it overflows in the son’s agreement to work and care for a local farmer’s pigs, the most repulsive of animals to the Jewish people. Even the pigs have more to eat than he does, the height of his disgrace. In his starving state, he finally comes to himself and realizes that at least being a worker on the family farm back home would be better than what he is doing now, so he sets out for home in hopes of his father’s mercy. He prepares the words of his plea beforehand, offering his apology and confession to hurting both God and his father by his foolishness. In this moment, I wonder if the words of Psalm 32 come to his mind: “while I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night, your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Then I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not hide my iniquity.”
When his father sees him coming up the road, the father runs to him, a rather improper action for the respected and honored patriarch of the family. He hugs and kisses the younger son and tells the servant to prepare the fatted calf for a celebration of his son’s return. In case we are not rattled thoroughly by this turn in the story, Jesus gives us a look into the older brother’s perspective. He has missed all of this because he is working out in the fields, doing the right thing, continuing to build the family business and making his inheritance into something that will both support him and his father. The older son has performed all of the proper duties of a righteous and upright child, so when he hears that his irresponsible brother has come home, he is incredulous to hear from one of the servants that Dad has squandered one of the fatted calves on his other son, especially without consulting him. Remember that because the property has been divided, the father and eldest son are partners in this family business venture now. In his rage, the older son refuses to join the party. How could he act as though any of what is happening is right or good? How could he associate himself with the other son in the family, who has done all that he can to impoverish the family and trample on his father’s generosity? The father walks out of the party, concerned for his older son and pleads with him to come inside.
By this moment, the anger and disgust has overwhelmed the older brother as the shame had overwhelmed the younger. From my perspective, I hear his words as a shout, a yell, a scream. “Listen, Dad! For all of these years, I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never even given me a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with immorality, you waste all of the investment that we have put into the fatted calf!” Note that the older brother cannot even acknowledge his father’s other son as his brother. Yet, notice the father’s response, even to the obedient son’s outrage. “Son, you are welcome, for we must celebrate. Nothing has changed between you and I. My love and generosity are big enough to include both you and your brother.” The father will not allow the older son to exclude his younger brother. Notice too that the father welcomes the older son but does not force him to accept his brother or to come join the party. Resurrection has come to this family, even though the older brother struggles to see beyond the humiliation, shame, death, and destruction.
Exceptionalism drives both the ridicule of the older brother and the Pharisees in our scripture text today. Remember what we talked about early in this message: the Pharisees had built their entire lives around following God closely and purely, at least in all of the ways that they thought their ancestors had missed it. But, Jesus challenged them with actions and stories that draw not greater religious purity out of them, but greater inclusion in extending the very blessing that God had promised. Ancient Israel had been chosen for this peculiar relationship, not so that they could make sure to leave those out who were not worthy but so that they could open their hands even more widely for God’s blessing to flow through them to the whole earth.
The exceptionalism that we see in our story this morning can weave itself neatly with last week’s theme of earning, which can feed a sense of entitlement, that we deserve the love and grace that God offers us or even that we somehow deserve the life that we have today. These stories also hit sometimes too close to home when we think of all of the ways that exceptionalism drives our conversations today about family inheritance or taking over the family farm or managing the family estate. How would all of the ways that we step into these complex and arduous moments be transformed if we used some of the lessons from this parable rather than our culture’s standards for who is to be welcomed or unwelcomed? The love, grace, mercy, hope, and peace that have included each of us is to be extended to everyone, no matter the past that they bring with them. Just when we think that we have Jesus figured out, when we think that we know exactly whom Jesus has invited to come along for the journey, we will be surprised and astounded by how far and deep our God will go to embrace and kiss those returning to or coming into the new family, the kingdom.
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