The Lost Son

I found one of my printed out sermons lying around, re-read it, liked it, and decided to post it here. For those not used to church services, the sermon/homily/reflection/talk is often based on one or more set Bible passages. The passage for that Sunday that I used was from Luke (Luke: 15: 1-3, 11-32)
 

Jesus tells this parable to a group of Pharisees who have criticised him for eating with outcasts - beggars, tax collectors(!), and other undesirables. Pharisees usually appear in the Gospels as the Smug Self-Righteous, more concerned with obeying religious laws than real people.  He also tells two shorter parables about a lost coin and a lost sheep, and the joy when they're found again.

Here beginneth the sermon:

In my Good News Bible, this parable in Luke is called the Lost Son. It’s more familiar name, is, of course, the Prodigal Son. Prodigal means recklessly and wastefully extravagant, and therefore it’s quite clear which son is meant. The Lost Son however can be seen as a bit more ambiguous. There are two sons here – are we quite sure we know which one is to be seen as ‘lost’?

I want to state up front that I like thinking about different shades of meaning and unusual perspectives, even radical perspectives. To me, they give me something to think about, and encourage me to go deeper into a passage. I think one of the most dangerous tendencies in religion – and elsewhere- is the desire to establish something as dogma. Something not to be questioned or discussed, but just accepted. A line in the sand, used to decide who is in and who is out.

Which is exactly what the Pharisees are trying to do here. Eating with outcasts is just Not Done, and puts Jesus’ whole credibility into question. Jesus responds with 3 parables about lost things, the desire to find them again, and the joy when they are found.

The first two parables are about a lost sheep and a lost coin. A lost sheep and a lost coin are both valuable objects, so being happy when they’re found and making an effort to do so are not difficult to understand, even if it could well be argued that the search for the one sheep put the others at risk, and the celebration on finding the coin may cost more than the coin’s worth.

But coins and sheep are not responsible for their own lost-ness. Once found, the owners does not have to ‘forgive’ them. There’s no offence given to make the owner think ‘good riddance to bad rubbish’ and decide not to look for them. It’s not reported in Luke, but it’s easy to imagine the Pharisees making these points in between the parables. Sheep and coins can’t be thought of as ‘sinners’.

So in the third parable Jesus raises the stakes. This time it’s about a human being, and one who has definitely brought all his troubles on himself, and upset as many people as he could, as badly as he could, while doing it. It’s hard for us to really feel just how shocking his actions would have been in the Palestine of 2000 years, so perhaps consider one possible modern day version:

A young woman in a Western country runs away from her parents’ house. She travels to Syria, and joins up with ISIS. She denounces her family. One of her duties with ISIS is to report on other women – whose burka is too tight, who is not covering up. Women are severely whipped as a result of her actions. Eventually she falls from favour and decides to return to the West.

It is a lot harder to imagine this return being received as a joyful blessing. But Jesus insists that it is so. People have value, in spite of their mistakes and errors and crimes. The son has not destroyed his value in his father’s eyes by his actions – the Father still loves him, will protect him. This is a deep challenge to the Pharisees, and to us. To truly imagine unconditional love for an adult human being is almost impossible. For most of us, love of parents, friends, partners, will survive the normal ups and downs that require forgiveness and understanding. But the wasteful son’s actions are extreme. And also, we (and the Pharisees’) think, shouldn’t the Father care more about sin? Shouldn’t a Holy God be a bit tougher than this? What about consequences?

Someone definitely thinking these things is the other Son in the parable, the older son, the ‘good’ son. The one who stayed home, did all the things he was supposed to. The one who obeyed the Law. But when he speaks to the Father, we realise that he too is a Lost Son. Again it is hard for us to see just how disrespectful this ‘obedient’ son is being. But he disobeys his father by not joining the party so his father must go to him, rather than the son coming to him, and he doesn’t address his Father using the traditional respectful address. Instead he orders his father to listen up. This is insulting. Consider this as a modern ‘translation’ of his complaint:

 ‘Just shut up and listen to me for once, old man! I’ve stuck it out here at home, obeying your stupid commands day in and day out. I work like a dog here, but do you ever notice? Ever say thanks? Of course not. And now your no-good son turns up and you roll out the red carpet for him.”

This, implies Jesus, is what the Pharisees are saying when they complain that Jesus is eating with outcasts. And this speech says loud and clear that the older son is not in a right relationship with his father. How long has the son being carrying these resentments? The speech shows us that he is also a lost son, that his relationship with the father is also broken. While the outward laws were kept, the true love and respect for the father, the sense that in working for his father he is also working to build his own inheritance and to pass it on – all that has withered. The Father has re-gained one son, but discovered that his other son is also lost – or in danger of becoming lost.

So not one lost son but two. Both sons need to repair their relationships with their father. It is also clear from the Father’s speech to the older son that repairing the relationship between the sons is necessary in order to repair the relationship with the Father.

The two sons also represent the two groups in conflict in Jesus’ own life at that moment. The older son in the parable represents the Pharisees, and the younger the outcasts. So we have many more lost sons.

And even more, if we think of all the people throughout the last 2000 years who have heard or read this parable and recognised in themselves either the obedient, but jealous and resentful older son, or the wasteful, immoral, but returning son.

Jesus’ parable of the Lost Son is his answer to the Pharisees grumbling about his eating with outcasts. He is saying two things – firstly that obvious sinners and outsiders are not the only ones who are lost, and secondly, that the Pharisees complaint is, literally, un-Godly. God’s acceptance and forgiveness is miles beyond that of the Pharisees who claim to be acting out of their obedience to God. It was an enormous challenge to the Pharisees, and is still an enormous challenge to us today.

But there is one more Lost Son I want to talk about. And that is Jesus. To the Pharisees, and to many others since, who you keep company with is who you are. So can the prodigal son be, not only the outcasts he eats with, but Jesus – and therefore God – himself? This is the suggestion posed by David Henson, an Episcopalian priest in the U.S. I read his article while preparing for this sermon, and while I don’t think it completely fits the parable, part of it shines an extremely bright light. And it's certainly a radical perspective! So I want to finish by reading the final part:

“Jesus isn’t the father.

Jesus is the prodigal.

He asks us whether we will accept him, even if he reeks of what we think is unwashed sin.

He asks us whether we will embrace him, unclean and unsavory to our tastes, with the lavish grace of a banquet.

He asks us whether we will run out to meet him when we see him lost, alone, bedraggled, and abused; whether we will be eager and expectant to do the irresponsible thing of living out the Good News.

He asks us whether we, like the father in the story, have the generosity to accept him as he appears; or whether we, like the brother, will demand that God not be so irresponsible and insist that God come to us only in the ways we find acceptable.”