Bible studies - Sunday

The parable of the prodigal and his brother: the grace that refuses to disown us (Luke 15: 11-32)

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(To read Monday's Bible Study, please click here)

What do we have to do to get God so angry with us that God disowns us? According to many parts of Scripture, and to many Christians, remarkably little! In fact, if you talk to people who have little or nothing to do with Church, somehow the word seems to have got round somehow that the Christian god is an angry, offended deity with an ego of cosmological proportions who is itching to throw people into hell for all eternity for anything from not being baptised, picking their nose (especially in church!), stealing a sweet to mass murder! That is not a cheap jibe. It is sobering. This is the sort of impression many people have of the Christian god. “He” (and how can he be anything other than an angry male?) is very frightening. Fear sometimes sends people scurrying into Church or some other sort of “better keep on the right side of God” activity, or else it keeps people away. They’d rather live life without God, thank you very much, and live decently in the vague hope that, when they have to meet their Maker, the good will outweigh the bad and they’ll be welcomed by God – or at least, grudgingly allowed in!

Jesus, too, suggests at times that it is incredibly easy to get into serious trouble with God over the apparently slightest things. He told his listeners that if they gave hungry person a sandwich, they’d be numbered among the sheep; equally, if the didn’t, they were among the goats. And of course, there are all the “hard sayings” of Jesus, where Jesus takes the commandments and makes them more difficult – indeed, almost impossible – to fulfil: he equates saying, “I hate you!” with murder, and lust with the act of adultery. Jesus expressly says, in the gospel tradition, that we ought not to fear other human beings who, in the end of the day, can only destroy the body; rather, we ought to fear God who can cast both body and soul into hell.

I find myself wrestling with these sorts of questions when I read the parable of the prodigal, and when I come to the Communion table. In these places, we encounter a radically different God – or at least, a God who is radically different in disposition towards us. They give a different message, the message echoed by Paul in Romans 8:38f: “I am utterly convinced that nothing is able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord!” Nothing! But “nothing” is a pretty comprehensive word, isn’t it? Is it true that there is genuinely nothing that is able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus? Note that Paul uses the word, “separate”. He doesn’t only say that there is nothing that can stop God loving us: he says that it is a love which refuses separation! If it is true, then it means that God is more gracious than we could have believed possible. It means that God is as Jesus portrays God in the story of the Prodigal.

1. When a wrong title means we miss the grace …

Why do we call this the parable of the Prodigal? “Prodigal” means “recklessly wasteful”. Calling it the parable of the Prodigal means that we’ve missed the fundamental point that Jesus is trying to make in at least two ways. The title we’ve given it focuses on the spending habits of the son. It’s not that the son squanders his inheritance that is so terrible – it’s the fact that he asks for it in the first place! I want to return to this in a moment. The other point is that Luke clearly intends that, for consistency, we should call this “The Parable of the Lost Son”. This chapter of Luke’s gospel consists of three parables on the subject of finding lost things. There is the Parable of the Lost Sheep, the Parable of the Lost Coin, and the Parable of the Prodigal and His Brother (following the NRSV subheadings). The three are linked thematically: something precious and valuable has been lost. Importantly, what has been lost is one of a number. The shepherd has another 99 sheep, the widow has 9 other coins, the father has another son. That is never compensation, though, for the grief at the one which is lost. That which was lost in each parable is found, and the finder (God) rejoices.

In other words, these are parables about God. God is the seeker and the one who rejoices of finding the lost. They are parables of grace – the grace that will not give up on the lost. That Luke intends us to read the Prodigal as the Parable of the Lost Son is clear from the ending (15:32), which is the climax to this group of parables: “We have to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found!” Do you see what I am driving at? We’ve lost the whole point if we focus on the career of the Prodigal in the foreign country. This is a parable whose focus is the father and his attitude to the son who becomes lost.

“Hang on”, I can hear you say. The son is not lost! The lost sheep wanders off by mistake. It’s left bleating on the hillside, frightened and alone. It didn’t want to be separated from the flock. And the coin – well, a coin’s inanimate. What’s different about this parable is that the lost item in this case is a son who isn’t ‘lost’; he has absolutely, deliberately chosen to leave! I can understand God yearning for people who have become lost and needing finding, but what about people who absolutely deliberately and knowingly reject God?” And that’s exactly the point! This parable is the climax to the group on lost things. The context is a dispute between Jesus and the Pharisees over Jesus’ choice of table companions. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them!” they grumble (15:2). Jesus answers their accusation by way of telling them these parables. His answer is, “I do this because that’s what God is like!” The Parable of the Lost Son is his answer to the question, “How will God treat the most deliberately sinful of people, who choose utterly to reject God?” “God welcomes sinners and eats with them!” Jesus says.

2. “God, I wish you were dead!”

It’s fascinating to explore what is happening to the faithful, older son who stays at home in terms of a world of just deserts, personal holiness, covenantal obedience and fidelity etc. It is fascinating to draw parallels between how the son squanders his money and our postmodernist, capitalist, consumer-driven world in which it is supposed that “things” can buy happiness, fulfilment and self-realisation. These are true and relevant to our contemporary context. Yet in terms of the Parable of the Lost Son, these are narrative devices whose sole purpose is to create the framework for the interaction between the father and the son who rejects him.

In a nutshell, Jesus sets up the following scenario: the son quite coldly, knowingly and deliberately cuts all familial ties to his father. He’s not “lost” - he goes off to make a life utterly apart from the father. Finding he cannot survive, he returns with a business proposal. Question: what will the father do?

Actually, the son doesn’t cut himself off from the father “coldly”. There’s heat and hatred. In asking for his share of the inheritance, the son is doing more than saying, “Dad, I’m off for a few gap years and I need some money. How about an advance against my inheritance?” He effectively says, “Dad, I’ve had it with this father/son stuff! I have no wish to have anything more to do with you. I have no wish to be called your son. It’s a great inconvenience that you’re still alive. I wish you were dead – then I’d be independent of you. In fact, I’ve a suggestion: let’s pretend you are dead! You give me my share of the inheritance now, and in return, I’ll go away and you’ll never have to set eyes on me again. Do we have a deal?”

Now, this is a multi-layered text. There is all sorts of stuff about exodus and exile and return going on this parable. The subject of land and inheritance takes us into the further sense in which the son is excluding himself, not only from the father (ie his family) but the people of Israel. There is the deep, deep offence to the father’s dignity (he ought by rights to have stoned the son then and there, never mind later when the son returns home). Several elements in the story emphasise the way in which the son tramples on his father’s dignity, making him a public laughing stock. All of that, however, only heightens the unbelievable offensiveness of the son’s rebellion. Jesus wants to make something clear: there is no excuse for the son. There is no way back. There is no space for reconciliation and restoration. The son wishes the father dead. The father lets the son go. The son no longer has a father. The son leaves. There is nothing left. The relationship is utterly dead.

3. The indignity of grace

Note what happens when the son comes to his senses. He doesn’t wish he could go back to being a son. He knows that’s impossible. Instead, look at the hard-eyed cynicism of his proposal: “I need a free lunch. Where can I get one? Best place would be home. Of course, I’ve no claim there any more. But maybe Dad would be open to some negotiation? What if I indenture myself – become a servant in return for bed and board? Of course, I’ll have to make it clear that that’s what I’m after from the outset, or my father will think I’ve come home to try and patch things up, and he’ll set the dogs on me!”

I’ve heard countless sermons on what must have been going through the son’s mind as he journeyed home, and what the penitent son would say to his father. It’s rubbish! It may be a great sermon about penitence and repentance, but that’s not what this parable is about! The son doesn’t repent; he negotiates, just as he did before. Repentance is about restoration, and there is no sense in which the son is proposing or even wanting a reconciliation. The text doesn’t give us any insight into the mind of the son other than that he was hungry and had a potential solution to his problem. What we do have warrant to do is to speculate what was going through the mind of the father. What Jesus does give us detail on is the mind and heart of the father: the father (a) is looking out anxiously for him – he’s probably been doing that day after day, even though everyone thinks him an over-optimistic, deluded old fool; (b) runs to meet him – here is an old man for whom love and excitement and the fulfilled dream of his son’s return drives all thought of dignity, reputation and social convention from his mind! The man who is already the laughing stock of the village because of the lenient way he treated his unspeakable son has now lost the very last shred of dignity. But in a contest of love vs dignity? This father doesn’t stop for a second; he runs! (c) Thirdly, the father’s heart is filled with compassion. That’s a “guts” word in Greek. All the father can see is the son whom he had feared dead and had watched for daily, hoping against hope, coming up the road; the child he thought he had lost coming home again.

The father embraces the son and kisses him. In a sense, the story ends there! The rest is commentary and elaboration – Jesus telling his shocked audience, “Yes, I am saying that! And I know you can’t believe that this father would want the son back, but he does. Yes, he really is that excited. No, he doesn’t shout at the son and make him grovel – he abases himself in his love and excitement, and gives his son a party! You ask about the eldest son? Well, how would you feel? Of course he’s angry! Of course it’s unjust! It’s outrageous and ridiculous! Yes, half of the property is gone forever, and they’ll never get it back. Yes, the father has made an absolute fool of himself and will never recover his dignity and standing in the community. And yes, of course it would have been better if the younger son had been the child he ought to have. But he didn’t, and there’s no way of undoing it. So why does the father behave so … offensively, infuriatingly generously? Because of love and compassion. Because of grace. And yes, it is amazing! But then, grace always is!”

“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them”, the Pharisees and the scribes grumble. “Yes I do!” says Jesus. “Ha! Call yourself holy? How can you actually eat with these sorts of people? They’re outcasts! They have put themselves beyond the pale. They know God’s laws – yet they turn their backs on them! Why do you let them anywhere near you?” “Because God welcomes sinners and eats with them”, is Jesus’ reply in this parable.

We are invited to the table as beloved children. We are invited by the God “to whom all hearts are open, all desires known and from whom no secrets are hidden”. Think of that. That is potentially terrifying. God knows everything we are, do and think. God even knows the things we try to hide from ourselves! What will God think? How can we be invited so generously and so freely? If God knows what is in us, surely God will turn us away?

The response of Jesus, who shows us what God is like, is to say, “Tell me, what do you have to do to make God disown you? If turning your back on God – wishing God dead – isn’t enough, what is? How about acting on your wish – killing me? Will that do it?” We hear Jesus’ reply in Luke’s gospel on the cross: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing!”

We are invited to this table by the God who runs to meet us, arms outstretched. We are invited to this family feast of God; to sit in the seat of honour. It is the feast of grace – the grace that will not disown us. It is a feast for lost children. God invites us, saying, “It’s so good to have you home!” Amen.

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The parable of the prodigal and his brother: the grace that refuses to disown us (Luke 15: 11-32)

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