Luke 15.1-3,11b-end
Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’
So he told them this parable:
Jesus said, ‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’ ” So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.
‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even 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 prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” ’
I am grateful to Tim Keller ands his insights for this sermon. You can buy his book all about this parable ‘The Prodigal God’ which will tell you more.
Dotted around Saint Mark’s school you will see pages from that wonderful book by Charlie Mackesy, ‘The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse, which until recently was the best-selling book on Amazon. At the beginning of the book the boy and the mole spend time together. In one of the pictures, the little boy sits across looking at mole. You can tell from the way the picture is drawn that they are deep in thought and conversation; It’s a lovely moment of closeness and intimacy.
One says to the other. ‘I wonder if there is a school of unlearning?’
If you spend enough time around with Jesus long enough, you would have been at the school of unlearning par excellence. No parable illustrates this more than our reading today than the parable of the prodigal son. This is not as some, sentimental story where a father welcomes a wayward son home and throws a party for him. There is so much more happening here.
Let’s look further.
We know that the younger son goes to his Dad and says ‘I want my inheritance.’ Now we all know that, you only get your inheritance when your parents die. So, the son is saying ‘I wish you were dead.’ A pretty awful thing to do.
In this culture, Inheritance in this culture was land and pasture. The elder son was entitled to two thirds as the first born and the younger son was entitled to a third. But what’s shocking is that the Father, the patriarch of the family, gives him the inheritance. Jesus’ hearers would have been like ‘what’s going on?” the boy deserves a clip around the ear (to use an old school term). Any upright patriarch would have done that. But here the father doesn’t, he sells one third of his land and property and gives it to the son to do with as he will.
The son leaves, squanders the inheritance in, ‘dissolute living’ is the word used. You can guess the kind of life he was having. He squanders everything, there’s nothing left; there’s a famine in the land, and he finally comes to his senses when he’s literally in the mud and returns home.
The father sees him a long way off, runs to him and kisses him, and brings him into his home, puts a robe and a ring on him. Kills the fattened calf, (the prize possession of the family) and throws a party for the whole village. We don’t have the eyes to see what all this means, it means everything
Look at the Father’s behaviour, giving the son his inheritance when he asked for it, despite the huge social faux pas it was. Running to his son and kissing him when he sees him a long way off. Patriarch’s don’t run, it’s undignified, it’s embarrassing. But this patriarch is not bound by the learning of his culture, all that is unlearned. The only thing he cares about, the only thing that he is bound by, is the love for his son.
The Father Kills the fattened calf for the son. The most important asset he would have had, so that they could have a feast with the community and celebrate his return.. What has gone before doesn’t matter, for the Father is overjoyed that his son is alive again. Again, you woudn’t have done this in that culture. In that time, a son returning after doing what he did to his Father, he would have been seen coming down the road and been mocked and been given all kinds of verbal and perhaps physical abuse. But the father will have none of it.
The younger son himself knows that this is what is expected, he knows has has no inheritance left. He just wants to be in the presence of his Father, and he wants to pay him back, so he says. Make me a hired hand; now a hired hand doesn’t live in the family home, they live elsewhere and come to work and go home again. The father has none of it, he brings his son back into his home. And the son accepts the grace his Father offers. Jesus is telling us the kind of God that we have what God is like, a loving parent completely devoted to the children.
Now, why is the older brother so angry at this? To our eyes it’s obvious, after all it looks like the Father is rewarding the younger son for all the wrong he does.. He says himself to his Father when he begs him to come and in enjoy the celebration.
The elder brother says this, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even 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 prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!”
Again, it’s easy to miss this he isn’t angry because the Father is being generous and killing the fattened calf and giving him a robe and everything else. He’s angry, because the Father is using HIS inheritance on this, ‘younger son.’ Remember the younger son has nothing left of his, so when the father dies it will all go to the elder one, Notice that he can’t even call him a brother ‘this son of yours’ not ‘my brother.’ ‘Why are you using ‘my’ inheritance on this waste of space!’
It’s then we realise that the older brother is just as spiritually blind as the younger. Neither of them are interested at all in the Father. The younger son just want’s the Father’s stuff, and acquires it in a terrible way; but the older son is no better, as he is working hard, thinking ‘one day the old man will be gone, and all this will be mine.’ In other words, the elder son just wants the property, like the younger son, but he was more clever. He was getting what he wanted through obeying the Father perfectly and being the ‘goodie two shoes;’ he was being the Pharisee.
The traditional way of thinking of salvation is thinking in terms of ‘repenting of our sins’ and turning back to God, the Father and receiving his forgiveness. In one of the prayers after communion it hearkens back to this very parable, we don’t say it here often but it’s an absolutely beautiful prayer, ‘Father of all, we give you thanks and praise, that when we were still far off, you met us in your son and brought us home.
But in this parable it’s not just the younger son who is ‘far away’ from the Father, both are, because both want the Father’s things and not the Father. Both in their own way, don’t want God they just want what God can do for them. In fact, the elder son is probably spiritually worse off, as he doesn’t realise what he already has ‘my son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.’ He doesn’t realise that he always has the grace and love of the Father. He’s too busy looking at what he can do for his own advantage.
Charlie Mackesy’s website has lots of prints as well of scenes from ‘The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse. It also has two wonderful images of this parable, one called the prodigal son and one called the prodigal daughter. And they are wonderful images of a son and a daughter being embraced by the Father. But the point is not whether or not It is a son or a daughter who is held and hugged, the point is, is that it is God, doing the hugging, the holding. He is the true good and loving parent who just wants a relationship with his children.
Do we need to do some unlearning about what God is like, I think we all need to do that as we all have preconceptions, just like the Pharisees had of what God is like. Some are from our upbringing, some are from our assumptions of what God must be like.
But we need to look to Jesus to see what God is like, he is the model, he is the master, he is the teacher. He will help us to unlearn our unhelpful images and replace them with true images of what God is like.
So as we continue through lent, I invite you to continue to meditate on this passage, and allow your perceptions of God to be changed.
Amen.
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