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Luke 15:11-32 is a very familiar text. Anyone who has heard this story knows it is the story of the prodigal son. You might be interested to know that Charles Dickens and Ralph Waldo Emerson said that it is the greatest short story ever written. It is a story about the joy that God derives from a repentant sinner. In fact, the more sinful the sinner has been, the more joyful God is in His salvation. Let me give you a little background to help you understand the story. In 14:35 Jesus says at the end, "He who has ears, let him hear." That is a call on the part of the Lord to those who were willing to listen to his message. The message is about salvation. Who was listening?
Chapter 15:1 says the tax-collectors and the sinners. It was the outcast, the scum, the riff-raff, the lowlifes. The teaching is really given in three stories. The first one in verses 3-7 is a story about a man who finds a lost sheep. At the end of the story he finds the sheep and rejoices with his friends because the sheep has value. V.7 says, "I tell you in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance." That is the work that brings God joy.
The second story is about a woman who lost a coin, again that has value. She finds her coin, calls her lady friends and says, "Rejoice with me, I found the coin. The application is in v.10. "In the same way I tell you, there's joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." God's joy is found in the salvation of one sinner. That generates joy in heaven. God is not waiting for 10,000 sinners to start the party. The celebration in heaven starts with one sinner who repents.
Now we come to the story of the prodigal son. But I need to tell you a couple of things. This is a different culture. We need to think the way they thought to understand the significance of the story. They were dominated by a shame/honor paradigm. Everything related back to what was honorable and what was shameful. You did what brought you honor, never what brought you shame. Once you understand that, the story Jesus tells is a bizarre, unbelievable, incomprehensible, wild, wacky, and ridiculous story of non-stop shame. Everything in the story is counter to their intuitive thinking. They do not function their way nor think this way. This is a head-shaker. This is an eye-roller.
First, the shameful request v.11. By the way, it is not a story about a son but a story about a father. There are three characters in the story: the father and two sons. The younger one says to his father, "Father." That is respectful by the way. The younger son says, "Give me the share of the estate that falls to me." That is unthinkable. The younger son is asking for his share of the inheritance. He's out of rank. There's a pecking order. If he is younger, there is someone older. He is not only out of rank he is disrespectful. This is a selfish request. You get the inheritance when the father dies. This is like saying, I wish you were dead. I want what is mine and I want it now and I am tired of waiting. He wants his freedom. It is a violation of the commandment to honor your parents. This is an outright outrage. This is a shameful request. There is no precedent in Jewish society for this. Those that were listening would have expected the father to raise his right hand and slap that young man right across the chops. Maybe even a public beating because it was the father's duty to protect his honor at all costs.
Then the shameful request leads to a shameful response. V.12. What does the father do? He divided his wealth between them. That is absurd. The father should have protected his honor. The estate was not to be divided until the father's death and it by law was to be that the younger son gets 1/3 and the older 2/3. This is an outrage. No son would ask for this and no father would grant it. This is not tough love, this is foolish love. By the way, where is the older son? His job was to protect the father's honor and keep the younger siblings from doing foolish things. Where is he? In a sense his behavior is also shameful.
Then you have this shameful rebellion v.13. Not many days later. The son acts quickly as he is driven by lust and passion and evil desire. So he gathered everything together. That simply means he turned it all into cash. How do you take an estate that has been accumulating for generations, a family building, a large amount of land, servants, hired men, hired musicians, a fatted calf, all this stuff liquidated quickly. How does one do that? You can do that but you must sell it at a discount. In the Jewish culture even if you bought it you would not get it until the father dies. Somebody out there was willing to buy a future. This son was in a hurry to get as far away from home as possible, far away from any accountability, far away from any restraints, far away from any scrutiny. Get out there and live however you want where nobody really cares what you do. By the way the word prodigal means wasteful. There would also have been a funeral. A family funeral. That is why in v.24 the father says, "This son of mine is dead." The son leaves and squanders his inheritance on loose living, irresponsible living.
Later on, the older son says he squandered it on prostitute's v.30. That was the younger son's fault. But losing the money wasn't entirely his fault. A severe famine occurred according to verse 14. And he began to be in need. There are some interesting readings about famines in ancient history. People eat garbage. They eat sandals. They eat stray animals. During famine times in Israel they even ate afterbirth. So the son becomes a beggar in v.15. The Greek says he went and became attached which means he was glued. That is what beggars do. They find someone and attach themselves to them, begging constantly, pulling on their clothing. It was hard to get rid of a beggar. The person he was attached to gets rid of him by sending him to the fields to feed the swine. You can see the shame in this story. The shame of approaching his father in this way, the shame of the father in finding the rebellion, the shame of selling the estate cheap, the shame of turning it into cash, the shame of becoming a beggar attached to a Gentile, and now being sent to feed the pigs. The listeners must have rolled their eyes and thought no good Jewish boy is going to do this. Are you kidding me? But it gets worse.
V.16 the son is so hungry he longs to fill his stomach with the carob pods the pigs are eating. He goes from wealth to fighting the pigs for food, sticking his face in the mud between snouts and eating pig food in a Gentile place. He now understands that he is starving to death. In v.17 he says, "I am going to die of hunger." He can't even beat the pigs to the pods. What is our Lord trying to illustrate? He is illustrating desperation. This is the sinner, poor, destitute, hungry, hopeless, dissipated, and dying. What is the lesson? Sin is rebellion against God and God will give you the freedom to choose your sins. He will give you the freedom to take your sin in any direction as you choose to take it. This is a picture of someone who has no relationship to the one who gave him life, no relationship to the one who held all the riches he could have ever needed in his life. No relationship to the one who could give him the future as well as the present. Sin is a desire to run from God, to avoid all responsibility and accountability to God. It is to deny God any place in your life. It is to dishonor God by taking all his loving gifts he gave you and to squander them in self-indulgence and unrestrained lust. And it will take you to the brink of death. Sin always looks for fulfillment outside of God and will leave you exhausted, emptied, hungry and hopeless. Yes, the story is extreme. No one can be this bad, can they? This is not skid row; this is the bottom of the skid.
A shameful response follows in the story v.17. It says when he came to his senses. The beginning of repentance is always when you assess your true condition. He says," How many of my fathers hired servants have food to spare but here I am starving to death". This tells you something about the father. Hired men barely eked out an existence but the father gave them more than they needed because he was merciful and generous and good. The son now realizes the goodness of his father and once again begins to rust in the love of his father.
In v.18 he says "Father I have sinned against heaven and in your sight. I am no longer worthy to be called your son, just make me one of your hired men." This had to be embarrassing. He has to face his father, he has to face his brother and he has to face the community because he will be treated by his peers with scorn and ridicule and disdain and mockery. That was part of the cultural punishment for his behavior. This is true repentance, He wants reconciliation and realizes he has no rights and privileges but he will do so at any costs, even hard labor. The listeners must have thought that is exactly what he should do. He is getting what he deserves.
So in v.20 the son returns, walking back in his filthy swine smelling, stinking clothes. What should the father do when he gets there? The listeners thought finally the father gets his chance to regain his honor and punish the son. There can be no reconciliation without restitution.
But then, we come to the shameful reconciliation v.20. He was still a long way off so the father must have been looking for him. The father was a seeker full of compassion. And then he did the unthinkable. He ran. Middle Eastern noblemen do not run. Jewish literature says men do not run. Why? You wore a robe that went to the ground because it was shameful to expose your legs. If you ran you had to pull up the robe and expose your legs. Priests were not allowed to lift their robes to keep it off the blood on the ground when they sacrificed animals. One man was condemned for lifting his robe above the knees while walking through thorns so as not to tear the robe. The word ran here is the word for sprinting in a race. The father comes out and sprints down the middle of the village towards his son and the people that saw him would have been appalled. He throws his arm around his son and begins to kiss him all over his head. The son should have been beaten. He should have been shamed. What is this? I will tell you what it is in one word. It is grace. The son replies, "Father I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, I am no longer worthy to be called your son."
But he left something out. Compare it to the speech he rehearsed in v.19 and he left out 'make me one of your hired men'. He planned on saying it but he didn't. Why? Because he knows he does not have to earn back his father's love. He just repents and entrusts himself to the fathers mercy. That is all a sinner ever has to do. What do we learn about the father? The father is God in Christ, coming down from heaven to the dust of our towns to seek and save the lost sinner who comes to him. God initiates. God is the seeker. He sees the sinner before the sinner sees him. He runs the gauntlet and takes the shame. His love is lavish and his grace is limitless. Because God finds joy in the salvation of one lost sinner when he runs to embrace and kiss and restore him.
Then you have a shameful rejoicing v.22. The father says to his servants, "quick!" Salvation is an instant thing. Not a long process of restoration by works and ceremony, it is instantaneous. Get the best robe. This would be a beautiful embroidered robe and was used only for special occasions like a wedding. He doesn't tell the son to go and clean himself up first. Just put on the robe. The robe of dignity. Put a ring on his finger. That wasn't just for looks. The ring was used to stamp in soft wax the family symbol on official documents. It was the authority to act on his father's behalf. It was like the keys to the kingdom. Put shoes on him. Slaves and hired men and the poor didn't wear shoes. Shoes were for people that had responsibility. Give him dignity, give him authority, and give him responsibility. This is full sonship. Isn't it marvelous how grace triumphs over sin? Grace gives us when we come to God the full dignity of God as we are clothes in his righteousness and the authority to act on his behalf. And bring the fatted calf. Wealthy people had one calf used only for the brightest and biggest and best occasion. It's a party. The celebration is beginning but the party is not for the son but for the gracious father. Remember v.7? There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than 99 righteous persons who need no repentance. One calf could feed from 100 to 200 people. Meat was also reserved for special occasions. But they will eat meat today for this son who was dead is now alive. God knows who his sons are and he will raise them from the dead to life and they will begin a party that will never end.
The amazing conclusion of this story is the shameful reaction v. 25. I would have thought the older son would have planned this party but he was nowhere to be found. His father never consulted him about it, didn't tell him about it, or even send a messenger to get him. Why? Because this son had no relationship with his father either. I think he hated him. He had a zero relationship with his father. That is why he didn't defend his father's honor in the beginning nor try to protect his brother from doing something as stupid as he wanted to do. The father knew the older son did not care about his brother or his father's joy. So he just left him in the fields supervising the workers until the day ended. He comes home, hears the music, sees the dancing and summons a servant, actually the word is one of the village boys, and begins inquiring what is going on. The boy tells him in v.27, your brother is back safe and sound. The word is actually shalom meaning the younger son was at peace with his father. I would have thought he would have joined in the celebration. But v.28, says he became angry. This is a direct reference to the religious leaders that were listening to the story. They were angry that God in Christ was embracing sinners. They are the 99 who never saw themselves as sinners needing to repent. The older brother refuses to go in. He is more lost than his brother. And listen there are people lost in far countries and there are people lost that are in the church. Superficially, religious people who only conform outwardly.
But in , the father pleads with the oldest son. Unbelievable. The father comes out, a picture of condescension, leaves the party, leaves the celebration where he is the guest of honor, comes down into the dark night, finds the hypocrite who hates him and begs him to come to the party. And the father entreats him in a prolonged way. What is the response? The son says look. You don't say that to your father, that is disrespectful. This is I wish you were dead too. For so many years I have served you. I never neglected one of your commands. You never gave me a goat let alone a calf so I could party with my friends. I want my own party. But this one who devoured your wealth with harlots you killed a fatted calf for him. And the father responds, 'My child". Eight times he uses the word for son and now he calls him my boy. All that is mine has always been yours. You just had to come and have a relationship with me. You can't earn it any other way. This other son was dead and is now alive. Was lost and is now found. We had to celebrate.
What do you see in this story? Two kinds of sinners. The open, immoral, irreligious sinner and the hypocrite in the house, around the church, superficially moral but both are extreme sinners. Then you have a father who begs both to come and have a relationship with him and all that he has he will give them. Not even an extreme sinner can fall below the grace of God. We may not be either extreme but we all fall somewhere in the middle, don't we? Notice we never get the older son's response. The story just stops there. I would have liked to hear, "The older brother seeing the compassion of the father and desiring reconciliation, confessed his sin of hypocrisy and asked for forgiveness and was embraced and kissed and taken to the banquet, and seated at his fathers table."
I would have liked that ending. But that was not the ending. The true ending would have been, "Upon hearing the words of his father, the older son being outraged picked up a piece of wood and beat his father to death." Why would I say that? Because in a few months after this story, the listeners would kill our Lord by nailing him on wood and then they would congratulate themselves that what they had done was an act of honor that protected their people, their nation, and their religion from one who came to shame it. The irony is that the father who should have beaten the son is beaten to death by the wicked son in the greatest act of evil ever. They thought they were righteous but had no understanding of mercy and grace and love. Yet God uses that very murder as the means by which he purchases our salvation. At the cross, he took the shame so you could be at the celebration that brings him great joy. I called this article 'coming home.' It is an opportunity to come home to a fresh start. Won't you come home today?
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The Rev. Dr. James Barnes is currently the pastor of White Memorial Church in Milroy.