Lose Something ?
Luke 15:11-32
March 25, 2001
We’ve all experienced misplacing something at one time or another. How many of you have searched endless for your keys ? Keys seem to have a strange way of finding the most unsuspecting places to hide. I heard about a man who came out of a local pub and had lost his keys. Several of his friends came out of the pub only to find their friend on his hands and knees searching for his keys by the streetlight.
They all began to help the man search for his lost keys. After searching in vain for several minutes one of his friends asked the man where he last had his keys. The man said up the street about 50 feet or so. The friend said, “Well then why are you down here looking for the keys?” The man looked up from the ground and said, “Because this is where the light is.” Sometimes we loose things and look in the wrong places to find them.
In this morning’s Scripture, Jesus talks about loosing things. This is really a three-part parable in which Jesus talks about three lost items. In the first section of this passage Jesus tells the parable of the lost sheep. The shepherd has 100 sheep, and one wanders off and becomes lost. The shepherd leaves the 99 sheep to go and find the one who was lost. There is great rejoicing when the lost sheep is found.
In the second parable, Jesus tells the parable of the lost coin. A woman has ten coins. She loses one and sweeps the entire house clean looking for it. When she finds the lost coin, she calls all her neighbors together and says, “Celebrate with me for I have found my lost coin.” And finally Jesus tells the most gripping of all three parables, the parable of the lost son, and that is our focus this morning.
In the opening section of this passage, Luke tells us that Jesus was telling these parables to “tax collectors and sinners.” He was telling these parables to the outcast of society, but within the very earshot of the Scribes and Pharisees who were grumbling because Jesus was associating with the riff-raff of society again.
When we hear this story, we can’t help but wonder, “Who is the real audience that Jesus is trying to reach ? The tax collectors and sinners, or the Scribes and Pharisees. I think there is a message for both groups.
This morning’s story is commonly known as the Prodigal Son. (Prodigal really means extravagantly wasteful and reckless.) This is one of those passages of the Bible that Preachers get real excited over. We get excited because there is just so much meaning contained within the story. There are so many different roads you could go down, and they would all be very worthwhile traveling.
You could look at this story from the perspective of the younger son who took his inheritance early and left town, only to return later after he had spent all of his inheritance on partying. You could also look at this story from the perspective of the older son who stayed home and diligently worked side by side with his father. The older son who was so ticked off as his younger brother returned home. Or, you can look at this story from the perspective from the father who loved both of his sons equally.
Like I said, there are so many ways to look at this wonderful parable that I could very well preach for an hour on each different perspective! But since hour-long sermons aren’t too popular around here, I’ve choose to narrow my perspective down at look at this story primarily through the eyes of the father. But we can’t do that without first taking a quick look at this story from the eyes of the older son.
I must admit that our human tendency is to immediately identify with the older son. I mean after all, isn’t he the one who comes up on the short end of the stick in this deal ? It just doesn’t seem fair, does it ? Here we have the younger brother who has taken his share of the family inheritance before his father is even dead. He packs his bags and literally walks off the farm saying, “See you chumps later ! I’m just not cut out for this working life ! I’m going off to the big city and have myself some fun! No more slave labor for me !”
Then, we don’t know how long, but say maybe a year or two later, after never hearing a word from this guy, all of a sudden he shows up one day walking down to road to the family farm. The father sees him and runs out to him. The younger son confesses his sin. And what does the father do ? He embraces him, puts a robe on him, a ring on his finger, new sandals on his feet and tells the farm hands to get one of the fatted calves ready for slaughter. There’s going to be a big party !
Meanwhile, the older brother who has been out working in the fields comes in for lunch. As he approaches the house he hears music and dancing. There’s a party going on and he doesn’t even know about it ! He takes a peek inside only to see his younger brother has returned. There he sits in the middle of this party as the featured guest. He can’t believe his eyes ! There he sits wearing a new robe and new sandals on his feet. Everyone is doting on him.
The father sees the older brother and goes out to him. They have words. The older son says, “Listen ! I have worked my fingers to the bone for you ! I have never disobeyed you. When I had my friends over, you never even offered us as much as a goat so I might celebrate with my friends. But now this creep shows up, this son of yours, after blowing all his money on prostitutes and wild living and you have a party for him ! Well if that doesn’t beat the band !”
The father tries to reason with the older son. He says, “All that I have is yours. You were always here with me. But your brother was dead and has come back to life. He was lost but has been found. That is why we are celebrating. Now come in and join us, please !”
Luke doesn’t tell us what eventually happens. We are left to our own imaginations. Did the older brother stay outside pouting ? Did he eventually come in and join the party ? Or did he say, “I’ve had enough of this !” and walk off the farm himself. We just don’t know.
That’s the beauty of the parables. It leaves us to figure out some things for ourselves. I love what my New Testament professor said about parables. He said that parables were meant to tease the mind and startle us in to new ways of thinking. He said that parables were stories that could not be merely reduced to moralistic rules. The parables of Jesus challenge us to look for the deeper meaning of a simply allegory.
On the surface, we can look at this parable of the prodigal son as a simple message of sin and repentance. That’s what immediately jumps out at us. The younger son had sinned against his father and family by taking his inheritance and spending it on a wild lifestyle. When he spends it all and finally hits bottom, he recognizes his sin and returns to his father asking for forgiveness. He repented of his sin. That’s pretty simple, sin, repentance and forgiveness.
But I think there is a greater message buried underneath the topsoil of this parable. I think the greater message is the message of death and resurrection. It is a message of death and new life. The lost has been found. The dead is alive and restored to new life. This is truly a message of new beginnings and that is what is really at the other side of Lent and the whole Easter story. The dead coming alive to a new life, an everlasting life.
Yes, there is definitely the recognition of sin in Lent. I’ve talked about that for the past three weeks. And that recognition hopefully leads us to repentance, but underneath all of that, and beyond the death of Jesus on Good Friday, is the joy and celebration of resurrection and new life on Easter morning. That is what I think this story points us to. New life. The son who was lost to a life of sin, has found a new life.
When we look at this story from the perspective of the father, we can see that the father is really a stand-in for God and the way in which the father treats the wayward son, as well as the faithful son, is the same way God treats all of us wayward, as well as faithful sons and daughters of Christ. We are all given the opportunity for new life.
We can all identify with the feelings of the older brother, angered at what does not seem fair. We can also identify with what it is like to be the younger brother. Some of us have run off and become estranged from God. We’ve also done things that have caused us to be estranged from family and friends. Like the younger son, some of us have experienced what it is like to be welcomed back and forgiven by God and those people in our lives that we have hurt.
But how many of us can identify with the father in the story ? How many of us can say we have forgiven and welcomed back those in our lives that were once lost and are now found ? When we can identify with the father in the story, we will then truly be able to fully comprehend how God feels about us. We will be able to understand just how much God loves us, how willing God is to forgive us, and how eager God is to have us back into a right relationship with God.
And maybe, just maybe when we connect with those feelings, we will be able to come into a new life ourselves. We will be able to put our past behind us. We will be able to go on to live the new life that God has called us to live.
This is a story of the radical grace of God that is available for each and every one of us. A grace that can be scandalous when we stop to think about it, scandalous because it is so undeserved. But just the same, it is a grace that is freely offered to all.
Like the shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep in search of the one that was lost, and like the woman who still searches for the one lost coin, even though she still has nine, God searches for every lost human being. God will not rest until all are safely gathered in.
Let us return to the source of life. Let us who were once lost be found. Let us who were once dead, come back to life. Let us return home knowing that we will be welcomed with open arms by a God that offers such a scandalous grace that we can scarce believe. AMEN!
