The Parable of the Lost Son Part 2

So just as a reminder, this is Part 2 of a two-part article. We left the story at the point where the younger son has seen what a mess he’s gotten himself into and has resolved to return home:

‘When he came to his senses, the younger son said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.” So he got up and went to his father.’

We also set the stage in Part 1 for how the younger son would be expected to be received by the two groups listening: the ordinary people—the so-called “sinners,” including tax collectors—and the religious leaders, the Pharisees and teachers of the law who were critical of Jesus for associating with and, even worse, receiving hospitality at the homes of these people, whose “holiness” did not meet the standard that the religious leaders demanded. As with religious people generally, they were very good at making sure everyone “knows where we stand” on matters they perceive to have to do with (other people’s) holiness.       

The story now begins to take some unexpected turns.

‘But . . . while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him, and kissed him.’

Every day that the son’s been gone, the father’s been looking out for him on the horizon—that’s how it is that he sees him while he’s still a long way off. But why does the father run out to him? It’s to reach the son before the son reaches the village. He wants to protect him from the shame and the abuse. 

Respectable Jewish heads of family would never run. It was totally undignified. He would have to gather up his robe in his hands and expose his bare legs. Cue more gasps from the crowd—this is so humiliating.

The son’s a mess, he smells like a pig, but the father embraces and kisses him. 

‘The son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

The son starts his speech—the one that he’s practiced; the one that’s supposed to end with “Make me like one of the servants”—but the father cuts him off. He doesn’t let him get to that bit.

‘The father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate.’

Despite everything he’s done, the father refuses to receive him as a servant. He insists on receiving him as a son. And because the calf would be enough to feed everyone, the father is inviting the whole village to see that’s what he’s doing.

So that’s nearly the end of the story. At this point, we’re all thinking that we’ve heard the “good news ending.” But the religious leaders wouldn’t have seen it like that at all. Everything in the story so far has been bad news—a shameful son and a shameful father. They are still waiting for the hero to emerge in the story.

And here he comes now!

‘Meanwhile, the elder son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. “Your brother has come,” he replied, “and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.”

But—‘The elder brother became angry and refused to go in.’ The religious leaders are thinking, “At last—this is our boy. The son has acted shamefully, the father has acted shamefully, and now he’s got the whole village involved in a shameful celebration. And no one’s done anything about it—until now. At last, the older brother will put things right. Someone who has standards, who cares about holiness, who takes sin seriously.” 

The older brother is showing everyone “where he stands” by refusing to go in.  

‘So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” “My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 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.”’

You may be thinking that the older brother does seem to have a point here—after all, he didn’t do anything wrong. Surely he’s got a fair complaint. Actually, no—he hasn’t. The way that Jewish inheritance laws worked, when the father divided up the estate, the younger son got one-third and the older son got two-thirds. Yet still he complains, “You never give me anything.”    

At the start of the story, the older son never says a word—probably because it suits him. Not once does he try to talk to his brother or support his father. And then, refusing to come to the father’s party, being angry at him, criticizing him, and making a scene—telling the father who he is and isn’t allowed to forgive. All of that was just as dishonourable in that culture. 

The religious leaders have turned a blind eye to all this because religious people are always selective about sin—especially, other people’s.

Do you know what the older brother’s main complaint is against the father? Too much grace and mercy and kindness. Low standards, too much understanding, too much forgiveness. Being “soft on sin.” In today’s language, the father is too “progressive,” too much of a “liberal”—which, for many conservatives, is just about the worst thing another Christian can be. 

So the big question is what will those two groups, those two audiences, have taken away from the story?

The religious leaders have now realized the deeper meaning that Jesus had in mind. And they’re struggling to figure out how “the good guy,” as they saw it, has suddenly ended up looking like “the bad guy.” Worst of all, Jesus seems to be saying that just like they misread the father in the parable, they’ve also been misreading God the Father. The religious leaders have misunderstood God’s nature and character and priorities and what’s most important to him (which is people). They’ve shaped a god who’s a religious conservative in their image, rather than shaping themselves in the Father’s image. They’ve thought of him in Matthew 25:24-25 terms, as “a hard man . . . [so] I was afraid of you.”  

But the ordinary people and the tax collectors—the “sinners”—are overjoyed, because it seems there’s another chance for people like them who get themselves in a mess. “Is Jesus saying that to us?” they wonder. “That if people like us, in a mess like us, approach God the Father the way the younger son approached his father, that God will embrace us and hug us and kiss us and throw a party for us? Can that really be us in the story?”

I think that’s exactly what Jesus is saying. However bad things were for them—and the stereotypical picture that Jesus paints here was pretty much as bad as it gets—God the Father was inviting them to “come home” too. And, to “come as they are,”  because these “sons” will be welcomed in exactly the same way as the son in the story. They don’t even have to make a good speech or get all the words right. And servanthood and slavery aren’t even on the table, only sonship.

The word “prodigal” means “recklessly extravagant”—being “lavish to a point of foolishness”—which is what the younger son did with his inheritance. But that’s only the surface meaning. The story really isn’t about the son. It’s about the father.  It is about “reckless extravagance” and being “lavish to a point of foolishness.” But not so much the son’s, as the father’s. 

Our heavenly Father’s love for us is like the father’s love in the story: recklessly extravagant. Lavish to the point of foolishness. That’s why the story really should be called The Parable of the Prodigal Father.   

Reading this, perhaps you’re thinking, “This way of reading the story sounds a bit liberal—a bit progressive.” Maybe. But be careful folks, because that’s exactly what the Pharisees thought: “It sounds too easy. Cheap grace! Where’s the justice? Where’s the wrath? The fear of hell and judgement? Where’s the balance here?” It’s what the older brother was thinking too. But the father was too busy partying to worry about “balance.”

The grace of God is so amazing that it looks exactly like the father in the story. Is God a God of justice? Of course he is! Is God interested in how we live and what we do? Of course he is! But we need to be careful about so “balancing” the story, by adding in all sorts of caveats and qualifications that Jesus himself chose to leave out, that we end up diluting God’s recklessly extravagant love and grace. Turning it into something that sounds more reasonable and more respectable, instead of the party time that God intends it to be.

One final thought. The older brother was just as much a “lost” son. The problem was that he didn’t realize it. His lostness was in completely failing to understand the nature and character of the father—and still less, to be replicating that toward his brother. He completely misunderstood the father’s priorities. 

One parable does not tell the whole story of anything. It will picture certain things, certain aspects of truth, but not all of them. And yet it’s interesting that in this, Jesus’ longest parable, there was no need for any sacrifice or punishment before the father was enabled to forgive. The only “sacrifice” was the fatted calf to celebrate the restoration of sonship.

I can’t help but be reminded of what Jesus said in Matthew 7:21-23:

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you.’”

Are we sure that we know what doing “the will of my Father who is in heaven” looks like? The older brother clearly didn’t. The religious leaders clearly didn’t.

In the Matthew 7 passage above, it doesn't seem to be how passionately we pursue the charismatic gifts of the Spirit. Might it be how passionately we love others, in ways that replicate the father toward the lost son? Practising the same kind of hospitality and welcome toward tax collectors and “sinners” that Jesus was being criticised for by the religious leaders? Might it be willing to risk being accused (as he was, and as the father in the story was) of being “soft on sin,” because we are so focused on grace?