Lent 4, 03/31/2019

Sermon on Luke 15:11-32, by Hubert Beck

There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.” And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

But when he came to himself, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread,, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.” And they began to celebrate.

Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.” But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him. And he answered his father, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!” And he said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version,

THE PRODIGAL FATHER

What can one say about this parable of Jesus that has not already been said through the ages many times over? One can rehearse any number of things that are particularly striking about the parable as they have been recognized, remarked upon, commented on, preached on, and / or pointed to as noteworthy concerning the way the two sons act, interact, and react over against the other. Few of these things are “new,” strictly speaking, and most of them are really quite old!

It is, nevertheless worthwhile to recall and set forth once again some of the more important ways by which the two brothers are spoken about and / or described as Jesus portrays them in this parable.

The Younger Son

How can a child of this father be so thankless as not to recognize all the benefits and abundance available to him in this home? How can such a son even think about, much less actually decide to strike out on his own? Does he not recognize that the sumptuousness of his life is nothing less than a gift in itself lavished upon him by this gracious and generous father, whose desire and hope and expectation is nothing less than the welfare of this maturing young man whom he has been grooming and preparing for a prosperous adulthood?

Sadly enough, the young fellow decided to do that which he wanted to do in his own way. The standards of the day made it possible for a parent to give a portion of an inheritance even before death due his child if / when asked to do so . . . which is precisely what this foolish young man did.

Once his foolishness had used that inheritance up in extravagant living he fell upon very bad times. He was still proud enough, however, to reduce himself to virtual nothingness in order to survive – even to the point of doing the most demeaning work imaginable in order to maintain a livelihood of any sort.

“When he came to himself,” as Jesus put it, he realized what he had given up and which was still available for him even in the minimized form of servanthood in that homestead which had earlier been available to him in all its fullness in his father’s house. The more he thought about it, the idea became not merely a dream, but an actual possibility in his mind. So he swallowed his pride (Christians call this moment “repentance,” a major theme of this season of the church year!), returned to his childhood home ready to admit his foolishness and beg for a servant’s place in his father’s house – and to his astonishment was received like a prince returning to a once-forfeited palace!

Listeners could -- and surely still can – put two and two together already at this point to recognize a major point that Jesus was making concerning God and his will to receive even the most errant of his children into his divine presence by means of this parable.

The Older Son

But there was still more – very likely to the astonishment – or was it to the shock? – of his listeners. There was another player in this parable – hitherto unnoticed and probably even unmentioned before this lest the folly of the young brother should be lessened.

The appearance of this new participant in the parable – an older and somewhat hardened brother – took place when this older brother returned home after a rather prolonged stint of sweat and toil in a distant forty acres under his care. Tired, worn out from his labors, exhausted to the point of virtual collapse, he heard the strangest sounds of jubilation and excitement as he neared the home where he was hoping to find rest and refreshment.

That perked him up enough to inquire of a household servant whom he happened to encounter on his way concerning the reason for these ecstatic sounds coming from his father’s house. The servant’s explanation completely undid him because he had thought this irresponsible young brother had finally been expelled from “his father’s house” once and for all. (It was no longer “his childhood home,” but it was now “his father’s house” so far as the elder brother was concerned!)

Now this foolish and carefree / careless sibling had reappeared and was the center of both attention and delight far greater than this responsible and much more mature older son had ever been given – and beside that he was being given even more indulgence than this returned scalawag ever had received before he had left a couple years ago! The closer to home this older brother came the more he became incensed at this most infuriating turn of events.

It is important to recognize how powerfully we find empathy with this older son. We can identify with him far more than we can identify with the younger son. It isn’t hard to consider the younger son now returned home as having finally learned a lesson or, perhaps more jarring yet, how this young scoundrel had recognized the ease with which he could manipulate his father into receiving him back home by means of a hypocritical “I’m sorry and I won’t do it again” kind of story playing on all the sympathetic sentiments that he knew his father had. One can find many faults with him, but, unfortunately, when one is honest with one’s self, one can understand him, for he is not unlike us! We regularly come before God asking for his grace and mercy – for him to give us a place in his home even though we do not deserve it.

Oh, yes, this older brother had good reason to sulk, to brood, to mope – well, face it, to feel downright sorry for himself as the backside of being increasingly angry with his younger brother the closer he came to his “father’s house.” By the time he got there he no longer had a “brother,” but, as he named him, “this son of yours.” He was consumed with self-pity. “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends.”

Is it not much, much easier to identify ourselves with this elder brother than we can with the younger brother? Do we not – no, HAVE we not time after time – felt like others are favored in some way or another – either by God or by a parent or by a “less worthy one” – over us? Still more – do we not understand that those more favored than others (like me, much as I hate to admit it!) are often far less worthy of receiving those favors? Can we not multiply this older brother’s feelings many times over in a wide variety of situations or things that we have experienced – this favoring of unworthy “others” at the expense of one’s own far greater worth? Much as we may hate to admit it, our sympathies lie far closer with the older brother than the younger brother.

The Prodigal Father

By considering the two sons at some length as we have done, a major problem has been uncovered when it comes to understanding and interpreting this parable of Jesus regularly called “The Prodigal Son,” for the parable is not really centered on the two sons. Its heart and soul is the father of those two sons. We forget that far too easily because we find it so tempting to focus our attention on the two sons!

Perhaps part of the difficulty comes when one considers the key word in the way this parable is usually referred to is “Prodigal” without realizing what the word “prodigal” really means. That word has nothing to do with waywardness or foolishness or other such ways of describing the younger son. Many suppose the word describes him as one who is “misguided” or “unwise” or “rebellious.” Such words are marks of this younger son, to be sure. The word “prodigal,” however, is actually rightly defined as “given to reckless extravagance” or “characterized by wasteful expenditure” or “lavish.” (Webster)

The word was probably applied to the parable because the younger son was, to be sure, guilty of a “wasteful expenditure” of both the father’s and his own resources. But if the son was guilty of such “wasteful expenditure of goods and material,” mark well that the father is characterized as giving out far MORE of a “reckless extravagance” of fatherly love and concern in the way he dealt with either or both of his sons than the younger son spent on earthly goods in reckless fashion!

Yes, it is the FATHER who is extravagant, overgenerous – dare we call it excessive, even? – so filled with forgiveness and pardon, love and tenderness, grace and mercy that he would throw a party for a son who has returned home from a far country in which his diet consisted of pigs’ fare or to come out from that party in order to plead with a petulant, sullen, brooding son to come in and join the party even though, for the moment, that son was resisting all such supplications, preferring to disconnect himself from both the returned brother and the loving father who begged him to share in the love and mercy that was so characteristic of the father.

A Prodigality Beyond Prodigal

Even an earthly parent most willing to receive an alienated child back into the family circle cannot compare to the father exhibiting the compassion and care of THIS father who is none other than the One from whom the entire human family had estranged and separated itself in spite of a garden of delights and the warmth of a Creator’s love constantly surrounding them and available to them.

Even using the word “prodigal” in the sense of “a radical extravagance of fatherly love and forgiveness” still falls far short of describing the Father around whom this parable is woven, for he not only wraps his arms around children who return home from the far country with words of penitence and contrition, but he sends his own Son into the far country to call all wayward children back home.

Even when those insubordinate children reject the Father’s Son, nailing him to a cross upon which the redemption of the whole world took place in that foreign land, this Father kept / keeps on sending his Spirit throughout the world, coaxing the most defiantly insolent in that far country to return to him with the words “Welcome Home” ringing out over the entire circumference of the estranged earth. The waters of baptism, like those waters of the original creation, part darkness from light and the manna poured out on the refugees returning to the Holy Land from the far country of their enslavement continues to be made available in the bread and wine within which the Redeemer feeds his people with his own body and blood.

The Ever-new Old Word of the Father’s Prodigious Love

What, then, as we asked in the opening sentence of this sermon, can be said that is “new” about such an old and well-known parable? The Old and the New intermingle here – the old word of need in the face of the far country of sin and death and the new word of grace and mercy breaking apart the iron shackles of that sin and death enabling its former prisoners to return home!

A superabundance of grace! A radical extravagance of tenderness! An almost wasteful expenditure of mercy! A prodigal father embracing estranged children with prodigal love!

None of those phrases are really “new,” but for those who recognize their miserable imprisonment in the far country of sin and death, they never ever cease to be new when they are made flesh in the person, life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And for those who have returned or are returning to the Father’s home from the far country, they are the most marvelously wonderful words one can ever hear because death has died in this home, prodigal life abounds, and the lost are newly found every day!

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Ordained Lutheran Minister of the Word (Retired) Hubert Beck
Austin, Texas, USA
E-Mail: hbeck@austin.rr.com

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