You Have Heard it Said
You Have Heard it Said by Rev. L. John Gable
August 28, 2022
We commonly refer to this story as being The Parable of the Prodigal Son (prodigal meaning reckless, spendthrift, spend until there’s nothing left), but is it really? Is this boy really the focal point of the story as we make him out to be? I don’t think so. Look again at the way Jesus begins His telling. He says, “There was a man who had two sons.” So really it’s about a man, a father (appropriate for today) and since it is Jesus who is telling the story we can assume the father He is talking about reflects something of the character of God. So this is the story about a man who had two sons, the younger, the disobedient one we refer to as being the prodigal who wanders off to the far country, and the elder who obediently stays home; the former we think of a being bad son and the latter the good, but as Jesus tells the story He makes the point that both are alienated from their father, each in their own way; the younger through his disobedience and, as strange as it may sound, the elder through his obedience.
To help us better understand the story let’s look at the setting in which Jesus tells it. Luke explains that He is surrounded by tax collectors and sinners who were coming near to listen to Him, and all the while the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling and complaining, saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” It is interesting to note who is attracted to Jesus and His teaching and who is not. The sinners find Him to be interesting and approachable and the religious leaders of the day find Him to be incredulous and offensive. Isn’t it a bit ironic that the religious folk are the ones who are offended by the message of the One who is the Son of God? So, who do you think this story is being addressed to? More the latter than the former. The sinners know who they are and what they have done. They know their “lostness” and their need to find the way back home; while the religious folks, in the blindness of their narrow self-righteousness, don’t realize the error of their ways, the hardness of their hearts, so fail to realize that they too are just as lost, perhaps even more so because one needs to know they are lost before they recognize their need to be found. The sinners welcome Jesus’ message of grace and forgiveness, while the religious are offended by it. What of us? Which of these, the younger or the elder, the so called sinners or the saints, do we identify with? If it is the former, we likely love this story; if the latter, perhaps not so much.
Years ago we had a visitor at our former church who asked me as she was greeting me after worship if I preached on the parables. I told her I did. She said, “I hate the parables” and never returned. We may find ourselves saying the something of the same for it is only the sick who know they are in need of a doctor, only the sinful who know their need for a Savior. If we are unaware of our sin sickness or our lostness we too may well be offended by the implication of it.
So the story goes, the younger of the boys tells his father that he wants his share of the inheritance…now! In effect he is saying to his father, “I wish you were dead!” and rather than kicking the boy out of the house for his disrespect the father proceeds to give him the portion that will belong to him which surely brought him disgrace and dishonor in the community and rebuke by his elder son. But the father was willing to subject himself to that kind of ridicule and rebuke out of his love for his son. In much the same way, our Heavenly Father lets us go in our own foolish and rebellious ways, not only as an expression of our own free will but of His great love.
It isn’t long before the boy’s good fortune turns sour. He wanders off to the far country (wherever that may be) and squanders his inheritance on dissolute living (we don’t know exactly what that means, but we probably have a pretty good idea). All of that of his own doing, and then a famine hits that far country and the boy is in a world of hurt, so he hires himself out to a farmer who sends him out in to the fields to feed the pigs (the ultimate humiliation for a young Jewish boy). Realizing the error of his ways, or at least that he has no other recourse, he decides to go back home, to plead with his father to take him back in, not as a son, but as a servant, a hired hand.
Now His first-century listeners knew what was going to happen next. As the boy reaches the edge of town the community is going to express their disapproval at his return saying he had dishonored his father and is no longer welcome here. They just know that the father is going to “do the right thing” and bring the hammer down on this wayward boy and send him packing again, but to everyone’s surprise, he does just the opposite. While he is still a long way away the father sees him coming (apparently he has been watching for him) and he runs to him (no first-century patriarch ever runs, that would be undignified), he embraces him, kisses him, calls for the best robe (his robe) to be brought to him, sandals for his feet and a ring to be put on his finger (signifying he is still a part of the family), and the fatted calf to be killed because there is going to be a party celebrating his return.
I’m quite certain the sinners and tax collectors loved hearing this twist in the story. The message Jesus was giving was loud and clear: no matter who you are, what you’ve done, where you’ve been, you are loved and will always be welcomed home. God’s love and forgiveness can pardon and restore any and every kind of sin and wrong-doing. And I am equally certain that the Pharisees and scribes were deeply offended by this telling and we can see their reaction in the response of the elder brother, the respectable one, who was out in the field working hard when he heard the sound of laughing and music and wanted to know what was going on?
Now it is his turn to disgrace his father. So offended was he by the father’s gracious act of forgiveness and acceptance that he refused to go in to the party. He was angry at the unfairness of his father’s love. Where is the contrition? Where’s the repentance? How’s he going to pay the money back? Who’s going to pay for this party? And now he probably wants his room back too and will expect to get yet another portion of the inheritance when the old man finally does die. So angry was he that he refused to be part of the celebration which brought yet another measure of disrespect and dishonor to his father who, according to first-century custom, should have gone out and put his older son in his place, but he didn’t, instead he went out and pleaded with him to come in and join the party.
So, how does the story end? Does the elder son go in? Is the family reunited? Do the brothers hug and make up? We don’t know. Jesus doesn’t tell us, which should also tell us something. This story is about a man who has two sons. The father (God) has shown what he will do, now the sons have to decide how they will respond.
This short story is so well told. It doesn’t address the tensions between the two boys, but we can read them in to it. We know the younger’s restlessness and disobedience didn’t show up overnight, nor did the elder’s unbending self-discipline and obedience. These character traits were well ingrained and surely had caused conflict between the two over the years. Family systems are so different and so difficult. We wonder, how can two such different children come from the same home: same parents, same gene pool, same environment? But then we are reminded of our own families (our siblings and children and grandchildren) and the ways we react and respond to one another, just as these two boys did.
We find ourselves in a story like this. So, which son do you relate to? Many of us Presbyterians relate to the elder son: a little buttoned down (you know we are called “the frozen chosen”), color within the lines, we do things decently and in order, all things in moderation. And with that attitude our problem is we tend to think we have earned our place at the table, we have earned God’s love and good favor by our good behavior, so we are offended or spiritually confused when things don’t go our way, when our prayers aren’t answered the way we expect them to be, when bad things happen to us good people or more difficult for us yet, when good things happen to those we think to be the bad people. We live with the assumption that if we live a good life we should get the good life, as though God somehow owes it to us. We expect our goodness to pay off. Our problem is, we don’t really think we have much to confess, to repent of, to change because we think we are doing alright, and then we really don’t know what to do when we do mess up because that is so out of character for us. We don’t really know how to ask for forgiveness or even how to receive it because we don’t really understand what grace is all about. Most problematic for us is, we don’t really think we need a Savior because we think we are working things out pretty well on our own. Kind of like the elder brother. Kind of like the Pharisees and scribes.
But there are others of us who do have a past we aren’t too proud of. We are the younger, the so called prodigals, and likely we have been labeled that by some in our families or communities. We know what it’s like to rebel, to wander off to the far country, what it means to hit rock bottom, to have no way out, to have to swallow our pride, tuck our tails between our legs, confess our sin, ask forgiveness and go back home wondering all the while whether they will receive us still, love us still. Those of us who have suffered the tough life of our own disobedience have the scars to show for it, and difficult as that road has been we also know what it means to be loved, to be forgiven, to be accepted and welcomed home again, even when we don’t deserve it and haven’t earned it. We, much more so than our elder brothers, know what grace is like; to be loved, not because we are lovely or even loveable, but simply because we are loved.
Interestingly enough, each of us is a mixture of both of these boys, so it would be helpful for us to reflect a while on this story and relate it to our own lives and attitudes. We would do well to ask ourselves: what is it I’m rebelling from? Why am I attracted to the far country? Why do I refuse the love which is being freely offered to me? Or why do I resent it when good things happen to bad people? Why do I see my errors as minor slip-ups and others as their character flaws? Why does God’s grace seem so unfair, forgiveness so undeserved? Why do I find myself trying to argue what the younger should have done differently and why he deserved to be punished, and then justify the elder’s hard hearted behavior? Why do I love the idea of grace, when it is offered to me, but then wrestle with it when it is extended to another, someone I don’t think really deserves it; which is a complete contradiction of terms. By definition grace is God’s unmerited, undeserved favor. Taking it even a step further: Why do I fault the father for being too easy on the younger and too tough on the elder? Why do I even fault God for being too gracious, too merciful, too slow to anger and too abounding in steadfast love? Maybe the reason we don’t like the parables very much is because they hold the mirror of Scripture up to our faces and force us to ask hard questions of ourselves.
Admittedly, both of the boys in the story were lost, alienated from one another and from the love of their father: the younger by his disobedience (he thought he was out of the reach of his father’s love) and the elder by his obedience (he didn’t realize his need for it). But again we need to be reminded that this story is not about a prodigal son or even two lost brothers, it is about a man, a father who had two sons, each of whom he loved, different as they were, each in their own way. If anyone was prodigal in this story (restless, spendthrift, giving until there is nothing left) it is the father, who gave of his love in this way.
A parable has been called “an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” So this is a story about God and His love for us, His children, different as each of us is, each in our own way; of His acceptance and embrace, of His waiting patiently for us, of His running out to greet us, even of His pleading with us to come in and join the party. Like these two sons, the way the parable of our story ends depends entirely on our response to the Father’s love.
Rev. L. John Gable
Tabernacle Presbyterian Church
Indianapolis, IN