The Prodigal Father

The Prodigal Father
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Opening Prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable to you, our rock and our redeemer.
Introduction: When Ed first called me about the two Sundays you were needing a priest for, I decided that with my school schedule, I could only do one Sunday. However, when I started to work on sermon preparation for last Sunday I noticed that the gospel for this week is the one I did my Christology paper on. So I called Ed and begged to be able to do this Sunday also.
Many of us grew up hearing this story referred to as "The Prodigal Son"; however, I like to think of the story as "The Prodigal Father." The term 'prodigal' is often meant to refer to someone being wastefully or recklessly extravagant. And certainly, the younger son wasted his inheritance. However, 'prodigal' can also refer to someone being lavishly abundant; giving or yielding profusely. I think that is a wonderful description of God, which of course the Father in the story is showing us.
Each gospel writer has their own unique view of Jesus. The Lukan Jesus was compassionate, and a friend to outcasts. Jesus is shown as the Savior sent to seek and save the lost. Jesus also talks a lot about the rich and the poor. In this section of the gospel of Luke, there were those who were concerned about how many would be saved (13:22-30). When we are concerned about how many will be saved, we are operating out a scarcity model; that there is a limited amount of God's mercy, so we have to make sure "we get ours". However, God is lavishly abundant! In the gospel of Luke, we see many examples of the upside-down values of God's kingdom in which the poor are more important than the rich.
The Revised Common Lectionary for today includes the first few verses of the chapter, which gives us the context in which the parable was told.
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." (Lk.15:1-2)
A rabbinic tradition cautions: "Let not a person associate with sinners even to bring them near to the Torah" (Mekilta 57b on Exod 18:1). Feeding sinners is praiseworthy; eating with them is forbidden. "Hosting" or "welcoming" sinners, as Jesus does here (15:2), makes the Pharisees furious.
Table fellowship was a very important issue in Jesus' day. To eat with another person was a sign of deep fellowship. In addition, one only ate with people in one's own social class. The Pharisees were upset that Jesus ate with all the wrong people. Jesus responded by telling several stories about God who welcomes sinners and eats with them.
The first story is about lost sheep. The shepherd leaves the 99 to find the one lost sheep. Then we go to the parable about the lost coin. One coin out of 10 is lost. The value keeps increasing. We go from one out of one hundred sheep, to one out of ten coins, to one out of two sons.
The Lost Son and the Prodigal Father
The parable of the lost son is powerful at face value, but it becomes more powerful when the cultural factors are recognized. "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." (Lk. 15:12) For the younger son to request his share of the inheritance was to basically tell his father to "drop dead". This request was totally out of line. The father would have every right to explode with anger at such a request, but instead he granted the request. Honor and shame are the core values in the Mediterranean culture. By asking for his inheritance, the younger son was shaming his family's name since he was basically wishing his father was dead. In addition, the Mediterranean culture is very strong-group. Weak-group societies such as the United States encourage individualism. People are encouraged to stand on their own two feet as distinct individuals. In the Mediterranean culture, the individualism that the younger son was showing was just not done.
"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living." (Luke 15:13) We Westerners usually interpret that to mean he was engaging in immoral living. However, Eastern commentators do not take it to mean a necessarily immoral lifestyle. Certainly the son was spending money excessively. It was the older brother who indicated the lost son was spending his money on prostitutes. How would he know? He had not even talked to his brother yet. So, the younger brother has spent all him money in "wild living", whatever that may have been. In doing so, he finds that when he had money, he had lots of friends. But now that he has spent the money, his "friends" have vanished.
He humbles himself and returns home when he realizes that even the servants on his father's land eat better than he is. The father sees him when he is still a long way off; he then runs to his son, throws his arms around him, and kisses him. The lost has been found. The father had been regularly looking for his son, and sees him when he was still far off. "No other image has come closer to describing the character of God than the waiting father, peering down the road longing for his son's return, then springing to his feet and running to meet him. In ancient Palestine it was regarded as unbecoming - a loss of dignity - for a grown man to run. Yet the father set aside all concern for propriety and ran...The kiss expressed forgiveness." All this happened before the son had a chance to ask for his forgiveness. The father throws a celebration that his son has been found. When the elder son hears the celebrating going on, he becomes angry and refuses to join the celebration. So, the younger son has been found, but now it is the older son who is lost.
Relationships
I am drawn to this parable because of the strong relationship theme. When the son asks for his inheritance, the loving father allows him to use his free-will and to allow natural consequences to occur. Unlike the poem of 'The Hound of Heaven', the father does not pursue the son in his travels, but waits for him to return. When the father sees the son return, he does not have a difficult ritual for him to go through, but runs and kisses him even before the son has a chance to express repentance. Even though the son has already spent his inheritance, the father lets him know he is still his son, and will always be his son.
One of my favorite passages is Romans 8:38 -39. "For I am certain that nothing can separate us from his love: neither death nor life, neither angels nor other heavenly rulers or powers, neither the present nor the future, neither the world above nor the world below - there is nothing in all creation that will ever be able to separate us from the love of God which is ours through Christ Jesus our Lord."
If God is full of mercy and compassion, why do we not always experience it? In today's parable, the older son separated himself from the father's mercy and compassion. He cut himself off from the relationship. We are not told what the older son decided to do. That's where the decision comes to each us. The younger son was not just "that son of yours!" He was also the oldest son's brother. Both of them belonged to the same family where they liked it or not.
reached at Holy Spirit Episcopal in Eagle River.