Prodigal

Luke 15:11-32

July 14, 2024 • Mount Pleasant UMC

Bob Goff tells the story of the first vehicle he purchased out of law school: a yellow truck that, let’s just say, didn’t have a lot going for it. He says, “The door locks didn’t work; the windshield wipers didn’t work. The gas cap didn’t even work. How whacked does a car need to be before the gas cap doesn’t work?” Because parking was tight downtown, Goff’s law firm gave each employee $200 a month to pay for parking, but he decided he needed the money more than he needed a close-by parking spot, so he kept the cash and parked a twenty-minute walk away from his building. One winter day when he returned to his car, there was a homeless guy sitting in the driver’s seat. the man had his hands on the steering wheel at ten and two, just like everyone is taught in driver’s education class. When Goff tapped on the window, the man rolled down the window, smiled and said, “Can I take you somewhere?” “Not today,” Goff said as he opened the door. The homeless man got out, patted Goff on the shoulder and walked away whistling.

The next day, the same thing happened. The same exchange at the end of the day. The same whistling as he walked away. Every day it happened. For months. And then one day, as Goff approached the truck, he could see the man wasn’t there. What was there was a trashed truck. Empty beer bottles, half-smoked cigarettes, and garbage on the floor. It was a mess, and the man was no where to be found. He had messed up, and he knew it, and he was ashamed. Goff writes, “Shame does that to us. It makes us leave safe places. It breaks the rhythms we’ve established with each other…Evidently, that day something had gone terribly wrong and he didn’t know what to do, so he left and I never saw him again” (Everybody, Always, pgs. 40-48 Apple Books edition). 

This morning, we are continuing our party here at Mount Pleasant in preparation for Vacation Bible School which is just a week away! VBS this year is called “Start the Party,” and we’ve been looking at the stories that the kids will be hearing during that week, stories of parties in the Bible. And this morning’s story does have a party—eventually. But it takes a little bit of time, and a lot of shame, to get to the party. This is, perhaps, one of Jesus’ most famous stories, commonly called, “The Prodigal Son,” though I am not really sure that the son who left is the point of the story. We’ll get to that in a few moments.

This parable is the third of three that Luke groups together in this chapter. Three stories of lostness: a lost sheep that a shepherd goes searching for and for whom he has a party once the sheep is found, a lost coin that a woman sweeps her whole house to find and for which she has a party when it is found—are you detecting a theme here yet? And then there is the story of the lost son, the longest and most detailed of the three stories, which starts off with a discussion about an inheritance. A father has two sons, we are told, and the younger son wants to get his part of the inheritance now. A bold request, and when the father gives it to him, he runs away. He goes to “the big city” to make his own life and for a while he lives it up. Until the money runs out. Now, it’s important to notice Jesus doesn’t say how the son spent his money, only that he “squandered” it. Literally, the text says he “scattered” it. I picture him throwing it around recklessly, buying just about anything he sees, thinking it will never run out. That’s not an uncommon attitude when you suddenly come into a whole lot of money, more money than you’ve ever seen in one place before. There’s not a lot of thought for the future; this son is living in the “now” and enjoying his “wild living” (15:13; Bock, Luke [IVPNTC], pg. 259). I bet there were more than a few parties during those “wild living” days and a lot of people who suddenly wanted to be his friend.

Until the money ran out. And unfortunately, as Jesus tells the story, the money ran out at the same time that a famine hit. “He began to be in need,” Jesus says (15:14), and so he went to work for a local farmer. Apparently a Gentile farmer because this farmer had pigs and the son’s job was to feed the pigs. For a Jewish young man, there might not have been a more offensive job. The people who were listening in the crowd would have been disgusted, and even moreso at the next thing Jesus says: “He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating” (15:16). He was in such a bad situation that even pig slop looked like a gourmet meal.

Now, how long he stayed in that situation we have no idea. Jesus doesn’t add that detail to the story. We don’t know how long he spent throwing the pods to the pigs and wishing he was a pig so he could eat. We don’t know how many nights he fell asleep listening to his hungry belly growl. But we can imagine that there were several nights he sat in shame, regretting his life decisions, regretting ever leaving home. Like the homeless man who took over Bob Goff’s truck, this young son realizes at some point how badly he’s messed up and how. badly he had treated his family. The homeless man had something bad happen, which led to him messing up the truck and running away. He ran away from someone who could help him (cf. Goff 47). But this lost son in Jesus’ story makes a different choice. The text says he finally “came to his senses” (15:17). Other translations say he “came to himself” (NRSV). In other words, he realized that the pig slop he was sitting in (and wanting to eat) came about because of his shame. He deserved better, and he had an option. So he picks himself up out of the slop, prepares a “lame little speech” and heads for home (cf. Card, Luke: The Gospel of Amazement, pg. 185). Once he gets close to home, his father (who has apparently been watching for him every day) comes running to him, interrupts his rehearsed speech, and welcomes him home like he never left. Bob Goff describes it this way: “They both knew the son had steered his life right off a cliff, but somehow they got past the shame of the failure and got to the celebration of being together once again” (48).

So, now, I have a question for you before we get to the rest of the story. Who is the prodigal in this story? Don’t be quick to answer, because even though we’ve come to define “prodigal” as “lost,” that’s not what the word actually means. The dictionary definition of a “prodigal” is someone who “spends money in a recklessly extravagant way,” so yes, on one level, the son who left home is a prodigal. But so is the father. And, in fact, I would argue that the father is more of a prodigal than the son. The father in this story represents God, the one who has resources without limit, and the one who welcomes home the lost without any question. He doesn’t ask where the son has been. He doesn’t tell him to get himself cleaned up before he comes in the house. He doesn’t even let the son finish his speech, the one he has been working on the whole trip home. No, in the place of all of that, he runs to his son, grabs him up in a strong embrace, kisses him and has an extravagant party to celebrate his return (15:20). All the son had to do was turn toward home and the father was ready to receive him. I think this parable is misnamed. It should be called “The Prodigal Father,” because it’s really about a father who is wasteful, reckless and extravagant in showing his love toward his children, and who will throw a party when one of them comes home.

All this prodigal father looks for in his children is evidence of repentance, of turning away from the broken life and turning toward him. The act of repentance could be summed up this way, all of which we see in the younger son: “recognition of one’s sinfulness before God, even shame for what one has done, determination to return, choosing to act in returning, and confession to the father for what he had done” (McKnight, Luke, pg. 244). Now, granted, in this story, the son doesn’t really get his whole confession out, but the father knows his heart. And God knows yours. All you have to do is turn toward home with a heart of repentance and he will be there waiting for you. Not crossing his arms in anger. Not with his back turned. Not with a scowl on his face and a list of things you have to do to make everything better. No, he is waiting for you with arms open wide, ready to receive you. The young man knows he could be made a hired hand and honestly he would be glad for it. It would be better than the pig pen. But instead when he comes with a repentant heart, he finds himself restored as a son, no other questions asked.

So…the one who should be a hired hand becomes a son again. And the one who is a son feels like he’s being treated as a hired hand. The younger son says, “Treat me like a slave.” The older son says, “I have been a slave all along!” (cf. Card 185). That’s the other part of this story, the overlooked part of the story, and honestly I think it’s the part Jesus most wanted to get to because he is telling this story to a group of religious leaders who are upset that he’s hanging around with, you guessed it, “tax collectors and sinners” (15:1-2). And so Jesus doesn’t end the story with the beginning of the party. The party is going on and the other brother, the older brother, the one who stayed home, the one who didn’t go off and engage in “wild living”—that brother comes in from working all day and he hears the music and the laughter and the clinking of glasses. And while he’s putting things away in the barn, he asks one of the servants, “So, what’s going on in the house? Why is there a party I didn’t know about?” The servant, who I would guess is none the wiser, says, “Oh, didn’t you know? Your brother is home! Yeah, your father was so excited he had the fatted calf killed and invited everyone over. It’s kind of crazy in there!” And if the servant expected the older brother to be happy about all of this, he couldn’t have been more wrong. The older brother is so angry he won’t even go near the house. He sits outside and fumes.

But, look at this: the father comes to him, too. He doesn’t just run to the younger brother. This prodigal father, as soon as he learns that his oldest son is upset, comes out to meet him where he is and begs him to come in to the party. If shame blinded the younger brother for a while, anger is blinding the older brother. He reminds his father of his faithfulness, and that he’s done everything that has been expected of him. He’s never left home and he’s never asked for a party. “But,” and I imagine he is practically shouting now, “when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” (15:28-30). Two things to notice there. First, he won’t claim his brother; he calls him “this son of yours.” And the second thing is that he claims to know what the brother was up to in the big city when there is no such information in the story. So after his rant is over, the father, in what I imagine as a kind voice, says, “We had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours [notice how the father refers to the young man] was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (15:31-32). And that’s where the story ends. And every time I read this story I wish Jesus had finished the story. It’s like a movie that ends with an ambiguous ending. Do they reconcile or not? Did the father’s plea work or not? Did the older brother join in the party or stay in the barn? Yeah, I know it’s “just a story,” but I want to know because, honestly, I see way too much of myself in the older brother, resentful that someone who I think doesn’t deserve it is getting all the attention. What about you? Where do you find yourself in this story? Both brothers needed to repent, but only one of them realized it. Both brothers were far from the father, but only one made the effort to move in the right direction. So let me ask again: where do you find yourself in this story?

This brings us to our bottom line this morning, which is: “Celebrate the good news.” The word, “celebrate,” comes right from the father’s description of what happened with the younger brother. He says, “We had to celebrate!” (15:32). We had to! And the older brother in us wants to say, “Well, no, you actually didn’t have to. You chose to. You could have just as easily chosen not to celebrate, couldn’t you?” And the father, who (again) represents God in this story, would say to us, “No, my nature is to celebrate when anyone turns back toward home. There is nothing more exciting than to see someone who has turned around and come back home, no matter where they come from. We had to celebrate because someone coming back home is good news!” It is God’s nature to welcome the repentant back home and to celebrate every single time. Earlier in this same chapter, Jesus said that “there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent” (15:7). He says almost the same thing just a couple of verses later: “There is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (15:10). The father celebrates the good news. And he calls we older brothers to celebrate that same good news.

I think our tendency, especially those of us who have been in the church for a long time, maybe all our lives, is to read this story and say, “Well, I am not the older brother, that’s for sure.” But I have come realize that I am more like the older brother than I want to admit (cf. McKnight 245). When we have been part of Christ’s family for a long time, it’s easy to get caught up in doing things for Jesus or at least for the church and thinking that earns us some sort of privilege. Or it’s easy to become self-righteous and convinced that everyone should get in line according to how much they have done for the kingdom of God. Or we see someone else in the Christian family who seems to receive more than we do and we say, “Why do they get steak while I’m stuck with a Big Mac?” There is far more of the older brother in me than I care to admit, and I need this reminder that when the younger brother comes home, my only calling is to celebrate that he has responded to the good news. My job is to celebrate with the angels in heaven over one sinner who repents, not try to point out how much better I think I am than they are (cf. Bock 261). Because I’m not. And you’re not. We’re all sinners saved by grace, welcomed by the arms of the same loving heavenly Father. We all once sat in the pig slop, and we’re only welcomed home because God is a prodigal father.

I think about the younger son when he got up out of the pig slop. We don’t know how far he was from his father’s house, or how long it took him to get there. But I do know what it feels like to long for home. At the end of our trip to England and Ireland this past spring, we had a snafu that meant all of our flights home were off schedule. Because we were late leaving from Dublin, we missed our connections in Newark. Four of us got to come home that night and the rest of us were sent to Washington, DC, which of course makes perfect sense geographically. We spent a very short night there, and the next morning when we finally boarded a flight for Indianapolis, I was tired and felt gross and so glad to finally be on the last leg toward home. I think the younger son would have felt the same way. For him, home was a place of hope and joy and relief. For the older son, it had become a place of work and hardship and grumbling. The outcome of the story and the impact of the good news depends on how you view home.

So let me ask this morning if there is anyone who feels like they need to turn toward home. Maybe you’ve been in that far country, squandering everything God has given you, and you’ve found it’s all empty. The thrill that comes from the “wild living” life is hollow; there’s no lasting joy there. You can come home. You can turn toward home and you don’t even have to practice a speech. All you have to say to the Father is, “I’m sorry,” and he will be there with open arms to welcome you home. And we would love to celebrate with you. Celebrate the good news! Because the news is good, and it’s worth starting a party over.