Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

“A Prodigal Father” Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

It is perhaps the Story of Christianity, the central narrative, the key to the kingdom. Get this little story that Jesus tells and I think you get the whole thing. Fail to get it and you probably don’t quite get Him.

But do we get it? Really? We’re not even sure what to call this story! It is traditionally known as “the parable of the prodigal son”. But the New King James calls it “the parable of the lost son”. The NRSV calls it the parable of  “the prodigal and his brother”, the New Jerusalem calls it “the lost son (or the prodigal) and the dutiful son”, the Revised English Bible just calls it “finding the lost”.

I call it the story of a Prodigal Father—because if there is a Prodigy here, I’d say it’s the Father who is prodigious with His forgiveness. But what we call it probably reveals more about us than about the story itself. Jesus, you will note, doesn’t give any titles to His stories. He just tells them to us, often, as is the case here, without explaining it to us in any way.

How can we hear this story fresh? How can we ponder it without all the preconceived labels and pat explanations that have been fed us over the years interfering? Maybe we should try to read it as if it was an advice column from someone like John Roseman or some other parenting guru? Imagine a father writing in to an advice columnist and saying: “I’ve got a little problem with my sons. Here’s what happened:

“My younger son came to me a year or two ago and said: ‘I want my share of the inheritance I’ll get when you die!’ So, naturally, I gave it to him, because I love my son. He, sadly, burned through it all in a year or so with riotous living, hookers, gambling, fast cars, drugs, bad associates. Ended up feeding pigs somewhere. Anyway, he came to himself and realized that I treat my staff pretty decently, so he came back looking to get hired on as a hand on my ‘Flying F’ ranch.

“I was so happy when I saw him heading up the main drive to the house! I was filled with compassion, you know, love for my son—whom I feared lost forever. I ran out and he started some prepared speech about how he’d messed up and I just hugged him and kissed him and had them put a new suit on him, and the family ring and some shoes and we had a party. Killed the best calf for him and everything.

“But it upset his older brother. A very dutiful son he has been. I’d given him his share of the inheritance too and he’s a penny-pincher that one! Watches every dime! More than I ever did. And he’s upset at wasting more resources on his younger brother. Worried that having him back in the family might cost another cut of the inheritance someday, and who knows? It might! But I told my older son, whom I love dearly, that everything I have is always his and he can do as he wishes with it, and not to worry! But he’s worried and upset and keeps muttering to himself about fairness. What do you think of all this?”

And what would you say? What would any advice columnist say? John Roseman would write a scorching response about tough love, limits, indulgence, and saving for college. He’d chew out such a father for enabling and spoiling the younger son and alienating and embittering needlessly the good and dutiful older son. He’d lay down the law! And so, I think, would most of us…

Which is maybe how we hear it fresh, hear this story as it was always meant to be heard. Because that was how the original audience felt about Jesus’ actions. Those first three verses are as important as anything else in the story. Jesus told this story when tax collectors and those considered the worst sinners of Israel, the wastrels and ex-communicants, gathered around Him eagerly to hear Him. And the Pharisees and scribes complained saying “This Man receives sinners and eats with them!” So, (it says) “Jesus spoke this parable to them…” that is, to the Pharisees and scribes and holy rollers who complained that He was too lax and free and easy with sinners. Too much forgiveness and not enough law and sanctification and shaping up going on with Jesus! Why, it looks as if Jesus is some kind of antinomian to these experts in the law of Scripture. At minimum, He is “weak on sanctification”. A serious weakness to the religious elite, then as now…

And can’t you sympathize, a little, with those Pharisees and scribes? Can’t you see it how they saw it? They were the pious and devout. They were the ones in church every Sunday without fail. They were the ones fixing the chili suppers. They were the ones running the homeless shelter and soup kitchen. They were the ones in bible study class without fail. They were the ones witnessing to their neighbors. And here comes Jesus and He seems to have little regard for their devotion and piety, but is more concerned to forgive everyone and anyone their sins, without first making sure the people are sorry, contrite, intent on reforming their wasted lives. Nope, He just charges ahead quite recklessly with the forgiveness, almost as if He’d never read Walther’s Law and Gospel (which corrects such errors) almost as if Jesus doesn’t know the proper, Lutheran, scholastic distinction between law and Gospel, the right way to preach!

If we start right in with the forgiveness of sin, not checking for real remorse and contrition first, won’t we just encourage a generation of sinners who cheapen God’s grace and ruin His kingdom? We might. We really might. You can see the worry here, can’t you?

That’s the audience for this story: people like us who are worried about holy living, about being right with God in all we say and do. And His message is jarring…

Jesus tells us that God is a Father who forgives everyone always, everywhere, all the time. He is all about mercy and forgiveness. When His law is broken seven ways from Sunday, He is concerned simply to forgive, lest the lost and straying imagine that our Father is concerned mainly for our performance rather than for us!

You can waste all His gifts and goodness on reckless living. And when you come to yourself and seek an out, an end to the misery, you will always find a Father waiting on the steps of His mansion with open arms, a fine robe, the family ring, and a party that never ends inside. The only thing this Father will refuse is to treat you like a hired hand. Once a son, a daughter, always a beloved son or daughter. All that is His is yours, by grace, freely, through His inexhaustible mercy.

Even if you never leave home. Even if you never go roaming like the younger son, you still live on Mercy St. because that’s your Father’s address. What the older brother forgot is that he lived off the Father’s inheritance too, just as much as his younger brother, because it was allotted to them both together, freely, carelessly, prodigiously, by their Father, at the outset. Forgetting we all live by grace through faith alone, off the Father’s mercy, makes bitter and resentful children. But the Father pleads for us to let it go and come to His Feast…

Where it’s all forgiveness, with Jesus and His prodigal Father. Older brother, younger son, we all live on Mercy St. The Pharisees who think this is only encourages spoiled brats have gravely underestimated the power of Christ’s forgiveness (and the cross that comes with it) which changes everything. But come to the Feast, eat His body, drink His blood and find out for yourself how the Peace that surpasses all understanding guards your heart and mind in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Pastor Kevin W. Martin