Year C. Fourth Sunday in Lent Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32
March 25, 2001
Lord of the Lake Lutheran Church
Web page http://lordofthelake.org
By The Rev. Jerry Morrissey, Esq., Pastor
E-mail pastor@southshore.com
Heavenly Father, thank you for loving all of us unconditionally. Amen.
Title: “Unconditional Love”
Jesus tells the story of a young man who repents of his sin, apologizes to his father, and is joyfully accepted back into his family, despite the objections of his older brother who resents his father’s mercy.
This is a parable in narrative form, sometimes called an “example parable.” It is set in the context of the two preceding parables, the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin, that express the joy of one who finds something that was lost. While it has been called “The Parable of the Prodigal Son,” it is really a story about a father who had two sons. The spotlight is on the father. It is told by Jesus to answer the Pharisees’ complaint about his association with sinners. They are shown to be like the elder son in the story, resentful of God for being merciful. Jesus is showing that his love is like that of God. The story illustrates God’s attitude toward a sinner not only after repentance, but even before.
Verses one to three, set the stage for three parables about joy at finding what was lost. The Pharisees took offense at the way Jesus related to sinners who were supposed to be shunned. They felt their sin disqualified them from not only associating with God, but with them, the righteous, as well. They were quite sure they were right.
In verse eleven, “There was a man who had two sons,” this parable is similar in structure to others- that of the two debtors, the Pharisee and the toll-collector, the two sons, the wise and foolish virgins -wherein two types are contrasted with each other. Even though it is about two sons, it is the father’s attitude and behavior that is central to the story. The father, clearly symbolic of God’s unconditional love, is, in the story, a well-to-do Palestinian farmer.
In verse twelve, “The 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.” The younger son seems to be unmarried and about twenty years old or so. By law the eldest sin was entitled to two-thirds of his father’s estate with the remaining third to be divided among the other sons. In this case, there is only one younger son who would get the entire remaining one-third. The property could be given during the father’s lifetime, a rare case in which the son would have no further legal claim on the father’s goods. If the son sold the property, the buyer could not take possession until the father died.
In verse thirteen, “A 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.” In Greek this phrase means he converted everything into cash.
In verse fifteen, “So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.” To a Jew the pig was unclean and to be shunned. To land a job as a swineherd was the lowest of the low and an immoral occupation to boot.
In verse sixteen, “He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.” The pods on which the swine fed: The pods were the fruit of the carob tree, today often called St. John’s bread. The tree is found all over the Mediterranean area; its fruit was used for animal feed, though humans could and did eat it as well.
In verse seventeen, “But 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!” Coming to his senses means he repented, changed his attitude, admitted wrong and resolved to set things right.
In verses eighteen and ninteen,facing facts, he rehearses his apology. He is sorry for what he has lost, but more for what he has done, sinning against God and his earthly father.
Verses twenty and twenty-one, the father, always on the lookout for his son, drops all formality and runs to kiss his son. The son does not get a chance to finish his rehearsed speech, so eager is his father to get on with the next step: a feast.
In verse twenty-two, The son is treated like an honored guest, a son returned from war, not a servant, not punished or demoted. He is treated better than he deserves and better than he expects or asks.
In verse twenty-four, dead…come to life…lost…found: The changed situation causes joy on the father’s part. What the son did is now lost and dead. The son is alive and found and that’s all that matters. “Life” would mean life in the family or spiritual life, that of a reformed penitent.
In verse twenty-eight, “he became angry…father… pleaded with him, the father is good to both sons. He does not reject the older one because of his resentment over his generosity and mercy.
In verses twenty nine to thirty, the elder son reveals that he was no more a son than the younger. He describes his fidelity to his father’s wishes as “slavery.” He resents his father’s treatment of the younger and expresses his feelings of being taken for granted. A goat would have been of far less value than the fatted calf.
When your son returns: The elder could not call him “my brother,” he is so angry. Instead, he says, “that son of yours.”
In verses thirty to thirty-one, the father reminds the elder son that he loses nothing by his younger brother gaining forgiveness and re-instatement as son. He has no real basis for resentment, since he is not affected. His good fortune remains intact.
In verse thirty-two, we never learn about the elder son’s response to his father’s point of view. Did he go and greet his brother? Did he join in the celebration? Or did he become the one who was really “far away,” instead of his brother? The question is left open as a challenge to all.
This is really a parable about “the forgiving father” as much as it is about “two sons.”
The parable teaches that God is waiting and willing to forgive any and all who repent. In fact, he stands in the “forgiving mode” at all times. It is the sinner who postpones and prevents the moment of union and loving embrace by staying “far away.” The two sons represent two different modes of estrangement from love. Neither knew what being a son meant. One physically moved away, the other stayed at home, never straying, yet never really being at ease with the father. One concludes he is a “hired hand,” the other a “slave.” Both saw their father in terms of work, deeds, jobs, tasks. Yet, the father’s mercy exceeded all expectations- theirs and ours- as he treated them both better than they deserved.
The younger took the approach that the grass was greener in other pastures. He had the wanderlust for life, wanted to “see the world,” experience everything firsthand, especially the forbidden fruits. Only when he was completely disillusioned by the unfulfilled expectations of life did he come to his senses, an expression for repentance, a change of attitude, did he realize that in going astray he had lost more than he had gained, ending in extreme poverty and ignoble servant hood.
His repentance was real and his apology a classic example. He did not regret so much what he had lost as what he had done- to God and to his earthly father. The emphasis was not on him but on them. He apologized without excuses. He did not claim childhood abuse, neglect, deprivation or lesser treatment than his elder brother, as did the elder brother. He accepted responsibility for his actions.
The elder son appears to be, at the end of the story, where the younger one was at the beginning: far away from home, estranged from his father. Actually, he always was estranged. He stayed home, was a good boy and did his chores religiously. Yet, he did them grudgingly, without love, more out of a sense of measuring up to his own, inflated, self-image than love for his father. And his self-image was not so great when it was scratched. He reveals that he feels more like a slave than a son. While he did nothing wrong, neither did he do anything joyfully. Thus it was that when the father showed mercy to the “bad” one, he would have none of it.
The younger was now “in the home” celebrating, finding at home what he had foolishly sought among the counterfeit pleasures of a far away country, and the elder was “outside” brooding. He was as far away from home and father as the younger had ever been. He could not join in the celebrating or music or joy. It did not seem fair to him. The younger should be punished, demoted, even rejected, but not forgiven with impunity. He represented the Pharisaic reaction to Jesus’ message of forgiveness of the repentant and could not stomach it. He felt all his proving himself was unappreciated by his father and certainly un-rewarded. He was angry because he felt he was treated less than justly and jealous that his brother had been treated more than justly.
The father could have reprimanded him for his selfishness. Instead he addresses him with the same compassion as with his other son. He went out to greet the one and to plead with the other. He points out to the elder that his generosity to the younger one takes nothing away from him. He still has two-thirds of his estate, all the father has left. This older child, still like a baby born into a royal family unaware of how richly blessed he is, can only pout, complain, resent and rebuke his father. The years of pent-up negative emotions now come pouring out during a family feast. There is never a good time for bad news, but his timing was as bad as his attitude. What family has not known this or a similar scene during a festive occasion? The son has no sense of or appreciation for his father’s joy, even while accusing the father of the same sort of thing regarding his misery.
No one knows love until one has been loved unconditionally, loved for “being” and not just for “doing.”
Forgiveness means treating others better than they have treated you, better than they “deserve.”
To love unconditionally and to forgive requires loving like God loves and requires his power, the indwelling resident Holy Spirit.
Sincere apology requires no excuses or blaming, only personal responsibility.
God forgives us even before we know it, but knowing it empowers us to love again and better.
The father stood his ground. So did Jesus. He did not let the disapproval of the religious people interfere with his ministry. Those who take a pan-scale, even-steven approach to justice and life never know joy and can never truly celebrate life. The father was so different from his sons one wonders what if anything they learned from him. He was loving enough that he could rise above the rejection of the one and the resentment of the other. He knew he could not force his sons to love him. They were free to hurt him and themselves. He tolerated it and continued loving them anyway, unconditionally. It was they who had the conditions. He had faith that his wayward son would one day choose good, once he had experienced the effects of evil. He must have had the same faith, though the story ends without telling us, that his observant son, who never really rejected him but never really accepted him, would one day do as the younger son. Perhaps, the question is left unanswered because more of us resemble the elder than the younger. If the younger son’s example raises questions like- Do I constantly dream of being somewhere other than where I am? Do I equate “seeing the world” with merely traveling? Do I apologize without excuses?- then the elder’s example leaves us with- Do I resent the good fortune of others? Do I interpret forgiveness as weakness? Do I resent the way God forgives others and the way he is? But mainly, there is the question raised by the example of the father- Can I love like this father who loves me like this?
God’s love is unconditional. He stands ready to forgive. Indeed, according to this story God may well forgive us long before we know it. The father in the story was not so much estranged from the son as was the son from the father. However, the son needed to formally apologize and hear the words of and feel the gestures accompanying forgiveness. It is not enough for us to believe or hope that God forgives us, especially in serious matters. We need to be assured that God, in fact, has forgiven.
In our, "Brief Order For Confession And Forgiveness," we confess our sins and receive absolution from the Pastor, who holds the office of the keys as given to Peter by Christ, because there are just some offenses that require a formal request for forgiveness. It should be short and to the point, without excuses or justifying explanations. Then, the Pastor, as a representative of Christ,in praying the prayer of absolution, provides the language and gestures which assure us our request for forgiveness has been accepted. We are embraced by God and restored to son-ship or daughter-ship. Then, let the celebration begin. We celebrate by going to excess in our joy, love and mercy. Though there are many situations in which an informal apology is quite enough- a smile, the first one to speak, an act of kindness- there are some situations in which we have damaged a relationship so much that only a formal act of requesting forgiveness will do. We can become so miserable as a result of our foolish actions and the subsequent loneliness and poverty of life we suffer, that we are motivated to return to the person or God we hurt and do whatever we need do in order to be restored to love. Amen.
