Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (The Message)
15 1-3 By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” Their grumbling triggered this story.
| The Story of the Lost Son
11-12 Then he said, “There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’ 12-16 “So the father divided the property between them. It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any. 17-20 “That brought him to his senses. He said, ‘All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’ He got right up and went home to his father. 20-21 “When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’ 22-24 “But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time. 25-27 “All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day’s work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing. Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on. He told him, ‘Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home safe and sound.’ 28-30 “The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. The son said, ‘Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!’ 31-32 “His father said, ‘Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!” |
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
In the Sherlock Holmes story “Silver Blaze,” we read the following interchange:
Inspector Gregory of Scotland yard: “Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
Holmes: “To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
Gregory: “The dog did nothing in the night-time.”
Holmes: “That was the curious incident.”[1]
The key to solving this mystery was focusing on something that didn’t happen rather than on something that did.
In the story Jesus told of the prodigal son, we never read about whether or not that son was sorry for what he had done, that he was repentant. We just assume that he was. But maybe our assumption is wrong.
Here’s what we know about that son. He’s the younger son, obviously the apple of his father’s eye, and his behavior certainly indicates that he has been spoiled from birth. How else to explain that he, first, makes an outrageous, unheard-of demand that his father liquidate half of his considerable holdings and give him the cash as his inheritance; and, second, that he then takes this fortune and heads off for the bright lights and dissipations of the Big City – or, at least, that he leaves home as soon and fast as he can; and, third, that he squanders this inheritance that his father has built up over the course of his lifetime, without a second thought. And, finally, we know that, when he had spent his inheritance, and was reduced to slopping hogs, he “comes to himself” and thinks to himself, “my father’s servants eat better than I do! Maybe I should just go home and ask to be treated as one of them!”
This is where we generally assume that he’s repented. But there is nothing in the story, really, to suggest that. It’s equally possible that the son decides to go home and tug on his dad’s heartstrings one more time to get what he wants. No repentance, just more scheming manipulation. And because he knows that he really is his father’s favorite, he’s pretty sure that Good Old Dad will forgive everything, and he’ll be right back in the clover.
To continue the Sherlock Holmes analogy: The dog doesn’t bark in this story.
So, why is this distinction important? Is it important?
I think it is. Keep in mind that Jesus is telling this story to a bunch of people who – at least in their own minds – were the “good folk” of their day. The people who tried to do what was right, who followed the rules, who … well, people who were just like us. And these people would have been utterly scandalized by the behavior of that son, just as they were scandalized by Jesus’ own behavior in hanging around with unsavory elements in their community, with people Luke identifies as “sinners.”. And that’s what got him into such hot water.
It should be noted here that Luke does not use the term “sinner” in the Reformation sense that “we are all sinners in need of God’s grace,” but as the designation of those whose behavior is so bad that it puts them so far outside of society that there’s no hope of redemption. They are lost, pure and simple, there’s no way that they could ever get “unlost.” So these good people are upset that Jesus is wasting his time on these sinners in the first place, are probably wondering whether any of that rot might rub off on him, in the second, and if so whether they should now keep their distance from him in the third. They might also be feeling as though they themselves have been had.
But Jesus drives the point home. He comes to the part in the story where that brokenhearted father sees his son ‘way off in the distance. He can hardly see who it is, but somehow he knows, he just knows, it’s his boy.
And he starts running! Now, dignified men in that day and age would never have done that. Running was for couriers, servants, and people on the lam. But he does. He doesn’t even let the son finish his prepared speech! And by welcoming his son as lavishly as he does – giving him a ring, sandals, and a robe, all symbols of an heir – the father maybe even looks a little unbalanced and even open to exploitation.
But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter a bit. His joy was real, it was overwhelming – his son, whom he had given up for lost, was back. Who among us would not do the same thing?
With this story, Jesus tells the Pharisees – and us – that nobody is beyond God’s love, God’s forgiveness, and God’s mercy. Not the tax collectors. Not the fallen women. Not the blind. Not the lepers. Not that relative you can’t stand. Not that neighbor you try your hardest to avoid. Not that boss who makes your work life miserable. Not that criminal who so richly deserves the fullest punishment the law allows. Nobody. God never gives up on anyone, even those who never seem to realize that they’re lost!
This may be the hardest of all lessons that we have to learn: That even those who are so far outside the bounds of human behavior that we can’t even imagine how they could ever be forgiven, that they barely deserve to be included as members of the human race, are in fact still loved by God, and that just as much as God loves us. And the fact that it is so hard for us is just another indication that we are not God.
But the good news is this: Even though we are broken and incomplete, which I would call a good working definition of what “sin” is (because all of our mistakes and bad behavior really stem from our brokenness and incompleteness), yet we can nonetheless live lives that reflect, however imperfectly, the mercy, love, and forgiveness of God.
Let us, then, gives thanks for God’s mercy and try to do likewise!
In the Name of God, the Holy and Undivided Trinity. Amen.
[1] Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan, The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Garden City, New York, Doubleday & Company, Inc., p. 347