Day 1179 - There Was A Man Who Had Two Sons

A Reflection on Luke 15: 1,2,11-32 at the Bible Study of Second Presbyterian Church, Chattanooga, TN, March 3, 2016

Gospel Reading: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32;

This parable is often called “The Prodigal Son.”  That title greatly shortchanges the magnitude of the parable. This is especially so if we remember the preceding two parables in this chapter address the “lost sheep” (verses 3-7) and the” lost coin” (verses 8-10).

The better title is the one Luke gave it in its opening sentence, “There was a man who had two sons.” Fred Craddock, a very insightful pastor suggests a good title may be “The Parable of the Loving Father” because the focus of the parable is not on the sons but on the compassion of the father.

Fred Craddock also suggests we do the parable and listener an injustice by trying to explain it. He says like an explained joke, it may fall flat.

Keep in mind only these historical details; Jewish tradition says a father may give inheritance to his sons by will or gift. The elder gets 2/3, the younger 1/3; to eat or even tend swine is to become a Gentile outside the covenant; and the carob tree is very common in Palestine and its seed pods were fed to animals and often eaten for food by the very poor. Listen to the parable keeping in mind only these historical details as explanation. Click on the link and download the reading/audio file here, otherwise you may read the text below.

Luke 15:1-2,11-32  Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.  ² And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

³ So he told them this parable:

¹¹Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons.  ¹²The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them.  ¹³A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.  ¹⁴When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.  ¹⁵So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.  ¹⁶He would gladly have filled himself with the (carob) pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.  ¹⁷But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!  ¹⁸I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;  ¹⁹I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’  ²⁰So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.  ²¹Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’  ²²But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  ²³And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;  ²⁴for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

²⁵“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.  ²⁶He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. ²⁷He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’  ²⁸Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.  ²⁹But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.  ³⁰But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’  ³¹Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.  ³²But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

Reflection:

Is there any justice in the world? Donald Trump gets to run amok in his business life, marital life, even among his Republican foes and wins elections.

You’ve heard the expression expressed about some one who screwed up royally but some how manages to get out on the other side better off than when he fell in? I clean up a little here, it is about “someone who falls into a pig sty and comes out smelling like a rose?"

You may look around and think, “The rich get richer but the poor get poorer.”

Maybe you have worked you self into the ground at your place of employment to show you are qualified for promotion but some “jackleg goof-off” who curries the boss's favor gets the promotion.

We live in a world where we make every effort to put things in a balance and weigh the good against the evil and expect the rewards to pay out accordingly to the good and loyal servant.

Some seminary students fight and cheat to get the top grade. Professors abet this motivation by honoring those who get it right the first time over those who take a little longer. They do this in spite of the fact that studies on retention of knowledge show that a person who flunks a course and gets an ”A” the next time has better knowledge of the subject matter than one who takes the course once and gets an “A.”

We even do it with our criminal justice system. Do we really believe in recovery if we hold the criminal past against a person no matter how thoroughly that person may have been rehabilitated?

This is the way we so often see “justice” in the world, justice is supposed to be the consequence of being an upright and moral person. We even apply this kind of thinking to social justice, a person is supposed to be rewarded on account of their particular social circumstance, either one of accomplishment or one of historical discrimination. There always must be some measure of goodness or worthiness for reward.

When a conservative, evangelical preacher makes the news for a moral failure, we laugh, even if privately, over the sinner and think that preacher really isn’t such a good person even after he atones for his failure. He or she is just no longer “good enough” for those of us who did not succumb to the temptation.

So I ask you to consider these questions. Does this parable upset the kind of thinking my examples depict?  Why did the father put primary emphasis on being lost and then found than on being dead and then alive?  What is of greatest importance? Is it steadfast loyalty and never stumbling? Or is it enjoying the most powerful and complete compassion that exists, the compassion capable only of the Father who created and found us? Why did the lectionary committee place verses 1-2 with the parable?

The Greek word used for compassion of the father is splagchnizomai. (or see this for another preacher’s take on it). It means heart-rending compassion and it is used in the Gospels only to describe the emotion of Jesus towards humanity except in two parables, the Samaritan who saw the beaten man in the ditch on his way back from Jerusalem and had compassion for him, and here the father who sees his lost son coming down the road back home. I wonder, did Jesus uses this parable to define the model of compassion expected of us who were lost but now are found?

Amen.