Lenten Reflection based on the Gospel for Lent 4C Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

This parable is probably the best known and best loved of all the parables of Jesus, or if not then second only to the Good Samaritan. It is one of the more complex parables in that it has more than one point obvious within it; it has more than one focus. Parables are intended to engage the listener in such a way that they may identify with a character in the story, only to have the ground shift from under them. Parables invite a response from the listener – they are often open-ended, as is this one, only the listener can provide an ending, and that ending will be in their own life.

The story could have become known as the parable of the Waiting Father; the parable of the Prodigal Son; or the parable of the Older Brother.

The reason that it has become best known as the parable of the Prodigal Son is probably because it makes such a great text for evangelistic preaching, with the focus on the son who has run away and stuffed up his life and needs to find a way back to somewhere where he'll be safe and secure and maybe even loved. In this format it is often preached with more of a moral instruction than an invitation. You have run away from/turned you’re back on God: repent, turn around, return to the Father. More positively it is a reminder that God loves us and yearns for us to be close and is always ready to come running to meet us with open arms and an instant party ready to celebrate our homecoming.

This best loved of parables appears in only one of the four gospels - Luke - and the emphasis actually falls on the angry brother.

Just look at the context. Often when this story is read or told, it doesn’t include the context, but Luke clearly spells out the context. The devout religious people are taking offence at the kind of company Jesus is keeping. They reckon that he should either be steering clear of the "tax collectors and outcasts", or else giving them harsh sermons about their need to repent and mend their ways whenever he crosses their paths. Instead they see him relaxing in their company and enjoying food, drink and conversation. So far as they are concerned, this behaviour proves his lack of religious credibility.

In the face of their objections Jesus tells three stories. The first two and a half are pretty much reruns of each other. The first is the story of the shepherd who loses a sheep and leaves the other 99 until he finds the lost one. And when he finds that one sheep, throws a party in an act of extravagance - and maybe even offering the sheep as part of the party food! The second is the story of a woman who loses a valuable coin. With a sense of urgency she lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and goes searching. She is in charge of the household finances. Indeed: her power and status derive from maintaining orderly household management. So she doesn’t give up until she has found that coin. Then she throws an extravagant party, probably spending that coin and several others, in honour of the recovered coin and her selfhood.

Then the third story begins along similar lines. In the parable of the man who had two sons we meet the younger son who, after collecting his share of the family’s estate, leaves home and spends it all on extravagant living. When he returns home, broke, he is welcomed back by his father, who bankrolls, out of the other brother's inheritance, an extravagant homecoming party.

This time, though, Jesus doesn't stop with the party. There's another character in the story - the elder brother. One of the techniques used by traditional story-tellers is "broken repetition". You'd know it from the many jokes that work that way. You have a build up that keeps repeating the same line or pattern over and over until the punch line that breaks the pattern with a funny twist. The technique doesn't only work in jokes though, and Jesus is using it here. One story, two stories, three stories, and then the twist that packs a punch. The lost is found - let's celebrate! The lost is found - let's celebrate! The lost is found - let's celebrate! "I will not celebrate!!!" So suddenly, Jesus is not just saying that God and all the company of heaven celebrate over every stray who turns back to God; he is contrasting two very different reactions to those who turn back to God. The prodigal son himself is not the point at all. The focus is not so much on him, but on the two different reactions to his return. Perhaps what we have then is really the Parable of the Loving Father and the Angry Brother. And in the face of the hostile disapproval being voiced by the devout religious people, that is one very pointed parable to tell!

The angry older brother says "What are you doing throwing a party for that sinner and eating with him?" And the scribes and pharisees are saying to Jesus, "What are you doing throwing a party for those sinners and eating with them?"

So who is Jesus addressing this story to on this occasion? That's right, the scribes and pharisees. The devout religious people. A group of angry older brothers. So let's look at the angry brother's complaint for a moment. "All these years I've been working like a slave for you, I've never disobeyed you even once, and yet you've never even given me a young goat so I can party with my friends. And yet when this low life son of yours, who took off with all your money and blew it in casinos and brothels, comes home, you crack open the Grange Hermitage for him!"

There are many in the church who could relate to this. Many of you have been in the church all your lives. And you've worked pretty hard to do the right thing. The money your peers blew on debauched parties you put in the offering plate. The summers they spent surfing and passing the bong around on the beach, you spent on Scripture Union beach missions. The Saturday nights they spent getting wasted in night clubs, you spent running a coffee house for street kids. You've taken it seriously. You kept yourself for your marriage partner. You turn the other cheek. You've hardly missed a daily prayer time, apart from on holidays, for eleven years. You're always first to put your name down for working bees.

And you walk into the house, and stagger me, Jesus is throwing a party for Paris Hilton or Brendon Favola.

What do you do? You spit the dummy! You feel completely ripped off. Where's the reward for all your hard work? A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work doesn't seem too much to ask, does it? So how come the party is thrown for them?

We can relate to the angry older brother. And the reason we can, is that we continue to make exactly the same mistake he did. We misunderstand our parent just the same as he did.

"My child, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. Everything."

If the old man had been somewhat less gracious and conciliatory he would have said, "What do you mean, I never gave you a goat for a party? Listen son, they're your blooming goats. If you never got a goat for a party with your mates it's because you're a miserable sod and you're too stupid and too stingy to invite them around. So we killed the fatted calf for him. Well, we'll fatten another one. Everything here is yours, but you're such a whinging miser you don't even know how to enjoy it anymore!"

Fortunately, God is rather more gentle with us than that! But that is the long and the short of it. We keep forgetting that we are not the ones who missed out. We are the ones who have the jackpot in our hands. But the fact is that if you spend your time counting it and worrying that someone else might not deserve it as much as you, you'll never enjoy it. And if you never enjoy it, you've kind of missed the point of having it, haven't you?

You see, God is not actually in the business of adding up the time sheets and making sure no one gets overpaid. People who do that are called accountants, and with all due respect to the accountants among us, God is not an accountant! What God is in the business of doing is reconciling the whole universe to Godself. And when you're in the business of reconciliation it doesn't much matter what time the last person gets in, when they do, it's party time. The father in the story didn't throw the party because he liked the younger son better than the older son. He threw the party because what he wanted most of all was both his sons and finally he's got them both again. Unless, that is, we storm off in a huff and break his heart all over again.

If you spend your life turning up your nose at God's grace because you're not given the seat of honour in recognition of all the hard work you've done, it will only be yourself that you are hurting.

"Everything I own is yours." God's grace is all yours. It's lavished on everyone who will receive it. The only way to miss out is to refuse your seat at the table. One son almost missed out because he ran so far from the table he nearly didn't find his way back. The other may yet miss out if he refuses to sit at table with the first. The God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ will not be able to give himself over entirely to rejoicing and celebrating until both - until all - are seated at the table.

With thanks to Nathan Nettleton at laughingbird.net (South Yarra Community Baptist Church) for this interpretation.