Highlighted Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Ancient Lens: What can we learn from the historical context?  

The setting of the “Prodigal Son” (which is much more accurately entitled The Parable of the Two Lost Sons) is critical to our understanding of the message and our ability to explicate it to our audience.  Jesus is observed eating with sinners, ie. tax collectors, prostitutes, people of ill-repute, certainly, the non-religious.  Vs. 2, He “welcomes sinners.”

This means he proactively pursues them, he searches them out, he invites them to a meal, he enjoys their company.  The religious leaders, the Pharisees and teachers of the Law are aghast at such behavior.  “No Rabbi would act this way, it’s unthinkable.  These people are unclean, we are God’s Chosen, we are morally pure, we are holy, we have kept all the laws of the Torah.”  They could not hide their contempt.  It must have been easy for Jesus to notice their unveiled disapproval.

Ἰησοῦς Lens: How do we point to Jesus?

So, Jesus responds to the religious egotists by telling them three parables.  He is not addressing the sinners (but I’m sure they listened in with some degree of glee), but the self-righteous.  The tales concern three lost and found items: a sheep, a coin, and two brothers.  It would not be an over statement to say that Jesus is the shepherd, Jesus is the woman who actively searches and finds what was lost, and then celebrates with great joy.  The third story wonderfully expands the meaning of being lost, being found, of celebration.

Keller’s in-depth explanation of this parable is right-on, in my estimation.  There are two lost sons.  The brash younger son who insists on his inheritance, takes it, travels to a far land, wastes it on wild living, loses it all, lives in destitution, awakens to his sin, returns home prepared to confess and bare his punishment.  And, in contrast to this free spirit, we are presented his older brother, who is self-righteous and completely intolerant of either his roguish brother or his profligate father.

He feels only self-pity and righteous indignation.  He believes he has earned his father’s devotion and his property.  Keller explains that, “Jesus uses the younger and elder brothers to portray the two basic ways people try to find happiness and fulfillment: the way of moral conformity and the way of self-discovery.”

In between these two polar opposites, Jesus sandwiches the great celebration lavished by the father upon his son, whom he thought was dead but now is home.  The younger son could hardly even utter his confession, nor beg forgiveness, before the father overwhelmed him with acceptance and exuberant feasting.

This is the picture of all homecomings, of all returns to our heavenly Father.  It is a precursor of the marriage feast of the Lamb, described in Revelations, when Christ brings all believers to his great wedding banquet.  The parable then closes in v. 31-32 with the father’s RSVP.  Was it answered?  Did the elder son join the feast? Or did he continue to pout and wallow in self-pity.  Jesus doesn’t say.  The Pharisees and teachers are left hanging. How would they respond?  Did they even see themselves in the story?  It seems so obvious, yet……?

Modern Lens: How does this touch our heart, life, emotions, thoughts and relationships today?

We live in a fractured world.  Not just divided in-two, but split into many different pieces, with very little hope of reconciliation between any of them.  Around the world people are divided between right vs. left, capitalists vs. socialists, dictators vs. democracies, religious vs. secular-humanists, science vs. faith. 

The U.S. is further torn between Republicans and Democrats, whose parties are divided between moderates and progressives among the Democrats, and between the Trumpers and never-Trumpers among the Republicans.  Then there are the BLM and Antifas on the left and Q-anon and Proud Boys on the right.  And we must not forget the battle over the best way to deal with the Covid 19 pandemic which is dividing the country.  The Church, itself, has, obviously, not escaped these divisions. The Body of Christ is divided among scores of denominations, all sub-divided into dozens of creeds and sects.

In the midst of such upheaval and chaos this parable reminds us that all people are actually alienated from their Creator God along two broad schisms.  One tends to be the religious moralists, of many persuasions, who are proud of their orthodoxy and obedience.  On the other hand are the free spirited, freedom-lovers, who seek salvation through self-discovery and self- actualization with little or no fetters attached.  No one is excluded from this picture, all must choose with whom they most identify, the younger brother or the older brother.  The Father invites all to the feast.

I’m quite sure the vast majority of church-goers will see themselves as older brothers, if they are honest.  That is a good start on hearing and learning from Jesus, because that is clearly to whom he is speaking.  He waits for our response.  While he waits he continues to welcome the sinners and outcasts.  Clearly Jesus is more comfortable with them than the Pharisees.  The question must be asked, “Who is the church most comfortable with?

Ideas and themes to be explored

• Why has the emphasis always been on the younger son and not the eldest?
  • Is this because how the church views itself?
• What should the church’s message be to the self-righteous, the Pharisees?
• What is the balance to be in the Church’s life between these options: seeker-friendly, missional, theological preaching/teaching, worship, confronting culture/society?

• How do I/we grasp the importance of Feasting and Celebration?

Contemporary angle to preaching

1. Two older movies beautifully portray the dynamics and conflicts evident in this parable, “The Witness”, 1985, with Harrison Ford and Kelly McGillis as a hard-bitten cop and an Amish single mom; and “Amadeus”, 1984, with Tom Hulce and F. Murry Abraham, who are the libertine Mozart and the prudish, proud Salieri.
2. In the light of such intense and universal divisions in the world, explore how the Church can best fulfill its role as Salt and Light, Peacemaker.