Christians really like talking about the prodigal son, but what if the prodigal wasn’t the one who really was lost?
Luke 15:1-3,11b-32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Psalm 32; Joshua 5:9-12
We’ve all heard this parable; in fact, we’ve likely all heard this parable a lot. It’s one of a set of three parables in response to Jesus’ being accused of accepting “sinners” by the Pharisees and teachers of the law. The first is about a shepherd with 100 sheep, who would leave 99 in order to search for one who is lost, and then throw a party to celebrate. The second is about a woman with 10 coins, who loses one and then tears her house apart trying to find it, then when she does throws a party to celebrate.
The third parable is a little different, because now instead of being a sheep or a coin, a person loses himself. A son goes up to his father, asks for all his inheritance, is given it, and then promptly goes out to spend it all on “wild living”. As one could expect, the son quickly runs out of money, and starts working with a pig farmer.
Now I’d like to point out a few things here. First, working with pigs is a smelly, messy job. Second, this would be more than a little degrading for the son, having gone from a rich heir to a poor hired hand. Third, if we assume the farmer and his sons were Jews, it would be especially degrading to have to tend pigs, which were “unclean” animals they weren’t even supposed to have contact with.
Back to the story, apparently the son could barely even make enough money to feed himself, as he was tempted greatly by the pigs’ food. So, one day (we don’t actually know how long) he “came to his senses” and said to himself, “I bet if I went home, I’d be able to eat! I’ll go to my father and say, ‘Father, I really messed up. I’ve wronged you and I’ve wronged God; I don’t deserve to be your son. But please, let me work for you as one of your hired hands.”
We know how this ends, of course. As the son is coming home, his father sees him and runs out to him, hugged him, and kissed him. His son tried to make the speech he had prepared, but the father wasn’t having any of it. The son was dressed in the best clothes, given a ring and shoes, and then thrown a party to celebrate the son’s return.
This is where we usually end the parable. The “lost son” was found, just like the lost coin and lost sheep. But then Jesus throws in a twist. We get to meet the older son, the one who stayed home and worked as a “good” son should. He comes in from the fields, sees the party, and then becomes angry that his reject younger brother should get a party when he already wasted most of the family’s money! So the father went out to the older brother, and pleaded with him to celebrate, but we don’t actually know if he went in or not.
Here’s the twist Jesus adds. In the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd sought out the sheep who was lost. In the parable of the lost coin, the woman sought out the coin that was lost. In the parable of the lost son, who did the father seek out? It wasn’t the younger son; he came home from his own free will. No, the father sought out the older son, and the Pharisees and teachers of the law hearing this parable would Jesus was talking about them.
We always think of this parable as being about the younger son – the prodigal. But if you really look at what Jesus says, that son is fine! It’s the older brother who is disconnected from the family. Instead of celebrating the return of the younger brother, the older brother grew bitter and felt unappreciated, playing the “but you never threw me a party” card, and choosing not join with his father in welcome his brother home.
So it’s not the younger son who is lost, but the older, and that should be a rather cutting warning to us. Remember that these parables are in response to Jesus interacting with, accepting, and loving people who were considered “sinners”. Jesus is saying two things to the Pharisees: first, he’s going to seek after those who are “lost”, especially these people who they call sinners; second, the Pharisees are really more “lost” than the “sinners”, because the “sinners” are spending time with Jesus.
What does that mean for us, today, when we quite often ignore people who we would now consider “sinners”? Guess which crowd that lands us in. And let me tell you, Christians have done an overly successful job of labeling people as “sinners” lately and then choosing to treat them with derision. The kinds of people we label as sinners may have changed from Jesus’ time, but the label itself has not. We each have different people we call sinners, for some of us it’s those who have had or perform abortions, for some it’s homosexuals, for others it’s people who hold different political views, for some it’s those who allow women to serve as pastors, and so much more.
Then to top it off, when other Christians seek to reach out to those “sinners”, they are told that they’re doing the Christian life wrong. I’m getting on one of my own soap boxes here, so I’ll try not to go too crazy, but the Christian church has become the “older brother” in the parable. We’ve forgotten what it’s like to be, as Paul writes in 2 Corinthians, a “new creation” in Christ, and that God wants all people to “be reconciled to God, [for] God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
That’s why Jesus spent time with “sinners”; that’s why Jesus did everything he did, so that no one would be excluded from the party the Father is throwing. That’s why Jesus answered the Pharisees in this way, to show them that God wants those who are “lost” to know and love him as God knows and loves them, no matter if they’re lost because they’re “sinners” or lost because they’re “not”.
Our challenge today to realize that we, too, are sinners in need of reconciling with God and becoming, in Christ, a new creation, and then, having been re-created in Christ, to become his ambassadors, seeking out those who are lost and showing them God’s love by sharing our lives with them and loving them, just like Jesus did.