The preacher’s problem with the exceptional parable of the prodigal son—actually one of many best tales ever instructed—is deciding the place to focus. So many choices! Does one begin with the pink flag of its opening line: “There was a person who had two sons”? In that case, we’re subtly reminded that that is an previous, previous story. Additionally it is a problematic one, for from the start of scripture Genesis is rife with sibling rivalry and the countercultural choice of the youthful over the elder. Consider Abel and Cain, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers.
Or would possibly one shift gears and be aware how Luke frames all three parables in chapter 15 by putting them throughout the dynamic of Jesus’ early ministry? Think about his viewers made up of “tax collectors and sinners” on the one hand and spiritual leaders on the opposite. How can he eat with the previous and bear the fixed reproach of the latter? Extra to the purpose, will these people ever sit down collectively?
Or does the preacher supply an evaluation of every of the parable’s brothers that can communicate to the inevitable sibling conflicts identified firsthand throughout the congregation? Certainly in nearly each household there would be the beloved “dangerous” little one who’s welcomed residence after their newest main mess, in addition to these others (little question higher represented in church on Sunday) who at all times obey the foundations and resent by no means being thanked adequately for his or her reliable advantage.
Checked out in any gentle, each brothers within the parable are recognizable and unattractive varieties. The youthful asks for his inheritance whereas his father is alive, travels far and spends disgracefully, finally ends up with nothing to eat however pig’s meals, and eventually decides to return residence the place he can at the least count on to be fed like a hireling. A gifted rhetorician even at demise’s door, he prepares a fastidiously contrived speech to be delivered upon his return. An empty stomach, not regret, sends him again to his father.
The elder is all resentment and rage, turning not a lot in opposition to his ne’er-do-well brother as in opposition to the daddy who refuses to behave like a correct patriarch. Consider the scene reported to him by the family employees. The daddy has scanned the horizon and ultimately seen the bedraggled one on the street. He’s so crammed with “compassion” on the sight—the noun splanchnizomai describes a gut-level craving—that he forgets all decorum by taking off on a run, hugging and kissing the miscreant, interrupting his well-rehearsed speech, and calling for a treasury of items. Rapidly, no much less, carry a gown (“the most effective one”), a hoop for his finger, and sandals for his toes. Then for the pièce de résistance of a celebratory meal—prepare the “fatted calf”!
That delicacy seems to be the final straw for the elder. Pay attention, he says, I’ve labored like a slave, by no means disobeyed a parental command, by no means requested even for a minimal get together with my pals. However when “this son of yours” reveals up—after doing God is aware of what with God is aware of whom—you spare no expense and go for broke!
That is certainly the case, however take a look at what he fails to notice. To start, simply as the daddy runs towards the youthful son to welcome him residence, so he leaves the feast to plead along with his different son to affix in. Nor have they ever been estranged. They’ve at all times been collectively, and certainly the elder is sole inheritor to the property: “all that’s mine is yours.” Moreover, now addressing his firstborn as teknon, “beloved boy,” as a substitute of because the extra impartial noun huios used elsewhere within the parable, the daddy in impact verbally caresses his filial accuser with a time period of endearment. He additionally transforms the elder’s repudiation of his sibling (“this son of yours”) by forging a connection between them, calling the youthful, “this brother of yours,” thus bringing them collectively. Lastly, the daddy reminds everybody inside earshot of the excessive stakes concerned in these occasions, not as soon as however two occasions. It’s essential to rejoice, he says, “as a result of this brother of yours was useless and has come to life; he was misplaced and has been discovered.”
In contrast to the previous parables of coin and sheep, there isn’t a decision to this story aside from the resonance of the daddy’s repeated phrases, no reported rejoicing in heaven over the restoration of 1 who was misplaced. Nor do we all know whether or not both brother is remodeled by his expertise: their future collectively is a clean. As an alternative of a cheerful ending, Jesus conjures an open-ended fiction through which a paterfamilias extends forgiveness and with it gives what Paul speaks of as a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). Within the face of loss and demise, Jesus gives the opportunity of reconciliation to be found provided that everybody at odds comes into the feast, the “dangerous” and the “good” alike.
The story poses a selection: Will you come inside or not? As soon as there, with whom will you sit down and eat? It might be a matter of life and demise.
