Luke 15:1-3 introduces a wonderful set of parables. Those who accept
the message are no longer outcasts. They share in the salvation of the rule of
God. The presence of salvation is also related to the removal of the barrier
that separates from God. The turning of Jesus to tax gatherers and sinners
makes it clear that sinners are included in the saved community.
When you read the famous parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, it
begins to look like a photo album of failure.
Clip number one shows a kid with his
hand out, demanding (not asking) that he get his share of inheritance right
now, up front. A kid with his hand out is not an unusual picture, as any parent
knows, but in this case it is a particularly shocking one given the cultural
conventions of the time. Jewish law dictated that when the father passed away,
the eldest son would get two-thirds of the estate (a “double portion”) and the
next youngest son one-third. But, as Jesus tells it, Dad was still alive and
well. So the younger son commits an egregious gaffe by saying, “Pop, I wish you
were already dead. Forget the family business and, for that matter, the whole
family. I’m outta here.”
Although it was not unusual for a
father to distribute property in advance, as in the case of marriage, Jesus
strongly implies that the younger son’s demand is disrespectful, rebellious and
foolish — a clear violation of the commandment to honor one’s parents (Exodus
20:12). In a culture where family and community always took priority over the
individual, the kid’s self-centered demand would have raised the eyebrows of
those hearing the parable for the first time. They would definitely lump him in
with those “sinners” that the Pharisees and scribes were accusing Jesus of
befriending.
As if to hammer home that very
point, Jesus offers clip number two. The suddenly wealthy kid living it up in
some foreign (read “Gentile”) country. There he “squanders” all the property
(the Greek word can also mean “scatters”) by living a wild and undisciplined
lifestyle. But after he has blown it all and is flat broke, he hires himself
out to a Gentile pig farmer, which is about as un-Jewish as he can get. Pigs
were unclean foods for Jews (Leviticus 11:7; Deuteronomy 14: 8). People who
cared for swine were cursed. (Apologies to those enjoy pork and those who make
their living from it). The picture of a young man, hungry and destitute, sitting
in the filth of a pigsty envying the slop his porcine charges were gobbling
down would have qualified as a major FAIL photo. Jesus seems to be making the
point that this kid is even farther gone than any of the “sinners” with whom he
is sitting down to dinner.
We
all know what it is like to feel lost. That scary, confusing, out-of-control
feeling that takes hold of your heart and squeezes it hard. For some of us, it
is a feeling that we encounter only occasionally. Minnesota had cold winters. Among the scariest times I ever had in my
life was when I had to walk about four miles home from school. I do not recall why, but I missed the bus
that took me home. As I walked, it became
colder and darker. That twelve-year-old
boy was scared. For many people, feeling
"lost" is a much more permanent condition, and trying not to
"look lost" has become the whole focus of their existence.
But the pigsty also becomes a place
of revelation. In the midst of piles of pig “stuff,” the boy “came to himself”
and decided to go home. Notice, though, that at least initially it is more of a
pragmatic decision than a penitential one. He is a hired hand to the pig farmer
and gets nothing, so he figures that if he goes home he can at least get hired
on to the family business and get what the other servants are getting, which is
way better than pig fodder. Yeah, he will have to do a mea culpa, but at least
he will have a full belly.
Of course, we know the next picture
— that of the father racing down the driveway to embrace his long-lost sinner
son and calling for a major-league party to be thrown in his honor. Here we
might picture Rembrandt’s beautiful painting The Return of the Prodigal Son,
with the penitential son kneeling at the feet of his father, whose face
reflects a deep love and sense of relief. It is a picture we certainly would
not post on the fail blog but is one that Christians have looked to for
centuries as a reminder of the love of God.
We know what it
is like to lose something. While it may
have been worth little in objective, economic terms, for you the value was
priceless. Something that had previously been an integral part of your life was
now gone forever. The parable of the prodigal son offers us a different
perspective on "lostness" though. While we may eventually forget what
we lost, Jesus tells us that God does not forget. To God, "lost" does not mean the
inability to locate the object of desire. When something is lost to God, it
means that it is cut off from the relationship God so desires to have with it.
It is not misplaced. It is hiding. We
live in a world that has crawled away from a loving God and tried to the best
of its ability to stay "lost." Like the father in the parable of the
lost son, God has allowed people the freedom to act against their best
interests, to sneak away and hide.
In a first-century context, however,
Jesus’ hearers might have been more likely to initially assign the biggest
failure in the whole story to the father, who is really more the subject of the
parable than the prodigal son for whom it is more readily known.
In the first place, the Pharisees
and scribes would certainly have stamped FAIL on the father’s willingness to
give the boy his inheritance in the first place. A good father would have
squashed such rebellion in a child rather than give in to it. And then, after
the insolent boy has the nerve to actually show his face back on the family
farm, the father disgraces himself by running out to meet him “while he was
still far off” (v. 20). In first-century Israel, it was considered the height
of indignity for a man, especially a family patriarch, to run anywhere for
anything, let alone to run out from the house to meet the one who had
dishonored him. Not only that, but the father actually forgives the boy and
restores him to the status of son, even though the kid had disowned himself
from the family. Where was the rebuke? Where was the lesson? Where was the
justice in all that? Dad was a failure, here, for sure.
The older son thinks so, too. He
cannot believe that Dad is doing such a heinous thing for his stupid kid
brother. He stands outside the party and angrily pouts, so the father once
again disgraces himself to come out and “plead with him” (v. 28). The
older son gives dad a tongue-lashing, reminding dad that he has been a loyal
son the whole time but he has nothing to show for it (except two-thirds of the
inheritance, which Dad points out in verse 31). The big brother wants justice,
retribution, and what is coming to him, but all Dad says is,
“[W]e had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours
was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found” (Luke 15:
32).
Forgiveness is not an easy thing for
most of us. The father in this story puts forgiveness into action. The older
son has put resentment into action.
To forgive is to set
a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you. ―Lewis B. Smedes.
You will know that
forgiveness has begun when you recall those who hurt you and feel the power to
wish them well. ―Lewis B. Smedes.
Love is an act of
endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit. ―Peter Ustinov.
“Did you ever notice how lost you are when you
are resentful? It’s a very deep lostness. The younger son gets lost in a much
more spectacular way ― giving in to his lust and his greed, using women,
playing poker, and losing his money. His wrongdoing is very clear-cut. He knows
it and everybody else does, too. Because of it he can come back, and he can be
forgiven. The problem with resentment is that it is not so clear-cut: It’s not
spectacular. And it is not overt, and it can be covered by the appearance of a
holy life. Resentment is so pernicious because it sits very deep in you, in
your heart, in your bones, and in your flesh, and often you don’t even know it
is there. You think you’re so good. But in fact you are lost in a very profound
way.[1]
[1]― Henri Nouwen, From
Fear to Love: Lenten Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal Son, (Fenton,
Missouri: Creative Communications for the Parish, 1998), 13-14.
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