The Parable of the Loving Father Luke 15:11-32 I Have to Ask Myself

The Parable of the Loving Father Luke 15:11-32 I have to ask myself, because I’m not sure, if I would have gone to the party. If this family had lived next door to me, and had made a last-minute invitation for an impromptu gala to welcome home this hellion of a son, would I have gone? Or would I have gotten on the phone to another neighbor to discuss the bad parenting technique (whether or not I actually knew anything about parenting techniques) of the father, who is clearly reinforcing bad behavior by rewarding this wasteful, disrespectful, bratty younger son, who has – and the gospel doesn’t mince words here – just squandered his fortune in dissolute living. I can just hear myself on the phone in my most gossipy (Southern) voice, saying, “Did you hear? The neighbor’s throwing a big party – killed the fatted calf and everything.” “What’s the occasion?” “That younger boy’s finally come back.” “Well hallelujah! His daddy has been watching for him for years. Did he say where he had been?” “Off in Gentile country somewhere.” “Gentile country… Why’d he come back?” “He had to - he had wasted all that money his daddy gave him and he was going to starve to death.” “All that money?” “Yes, ma’am - I heard he spent it on liquor and prostitutes.” “You don’t say.” “And bless that older one’s heart – he’s been working so hard to make his daddy proud all this time and what does he get? Bunch of nothing.” “Well that just isn’t right.” And in imagining so clearly my gossipy phone conversation, I have perfectly aligned myself with the people for whom this story was originally told: the Pharisees, who had been grumbling that Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners. They were afraid he was condoning sin by rewarding sinners. Instead of arguing with them, Jesus told three stories: one about a shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep to go after one that’s lost; one about a woman who scours her house for a lost coin; and this one, in which the Pharisees are represented by the older brother. Remarkably, dozens of scholars and preachers have written that the reader (or hearer) of this parable is meant to identify with the younger son: the father in the story is clearly representing God, they say, and we – rebellious sinners all – need God’s grace and acceptance, so we are the younger son. Moral of the story: come back home to Jesus. Case closed. But I have to disagree, because I don’t think it’s that simple. While I can relate to the younger son in a sense – I, too, have gone far away from home, spending a LOT of my parents money to find freedom and experience the world – and I, too, have made a long journey home while preparing a speech in my head to explain some of my behavior while away. And I have run from God and come back and I get all that. But I also identify with the older son, because the voice that keeps ringing in my head is saying those immortal words that we have all said at one time or another: “That’s not fair.” And it’s true. This story isn’t fair. The older son gets gypped. The younger son gets a lavish party when he deserves to be the slave that he is prepared to be in his father’s house, and we want justice. Both of them should get what they deserve. Right? If we’re honest with ourselves, we’re not really sure – because we also want the younger son to be welcomed home. We think it’s entirely appropriate that he’s welcomed so graciously, because he’s penitent, after all – and that’s what we want to happen when we mess up and squander our inheritance, too. And so, the complexity – and the 1 power – of this parable lie in this tension: that it both fulfills and violates our sense of what is right and good and fair. I come away from this story thinking, “Well of course,” and at the same time, “Wait a minute…I’m not sure.” And the reason I’m not sure is that the older son is right. The younger son should not have asked for his inheritance before his father was dead. And he should not have gone off to a distant land and squandered it all in dissolute living. But he does. And then, in dramatic fashion, there’s a famine, and since he has no family nearby, no one gives him anything. He has to hire himself out to a Gentile, to feed the pigs, no less – an unclean animal for the Jews – and somewhere between the barn and the feeding trough and the constant grumbling of his empty tummy, he finally “comes to himself,” realizing that his very best option is to go home, repent of his sin, and see if his father will take him on as a slave – because then, at least, he would have food to eat. So he gets up and makes the long journey home, practicing his speech of confession and contrition the whole way: “Father,” he says, acknowledging the relationship that he rebuffed so long ago, “I have sinned against heaven and against you.” I’ve broken God’s law and I’ve disrespected my family. “I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me like one of your hired hands.” I can imagine him going over and over it in his head on the long walk home, practicing, preparing, bracing for his father’s response. What he doesn’t know is that while he’s walking, worried, his father is sitting at the door waiting for him, watching the horizon, just like he has done every day since the younger son left home. The father is the character I have the hardest time identifying with, perhaps because I have been a daughter (which is kind of like a son), but I’ve never been a parent. So I can only imagine what it must have been like for this father to hear his son ask for his inheritance, and knowing that it wasn’t a good idea, but that he needed to learn the lesson for himself, giving him the money and watching him walk away – how it must have broken his heart to lose his son in that way. I imagine him scanning the horizon every day until finally something about the figure on the far hill is undeniably familiar. And I imagine him running, not caring what the neighbors think, bucking the tradition that said that for a grown man to run was to give up his dignity, to see up close, to touch his face, to be sure that the dead really had come back to life. I imagine both of their hearts beating wildly, unsure of what’s about to happen. And then the story says the son takes a deep breath and starts in on his well-rehearsed speech. But he doesn’t get far before his dad has turned around to tell the slaves that are panting after him to kill the fatted calf and bring out the royal treatment because his lost son has been found. And the father doesn’t even wait for the older son to come home from work before the party begins. While this younger son is breathing a sigh of relief and wondering if he’s dreaming, this is where it starts to feel unfair. Because yes, we want the relationship to be restored, let the penitent come home – but a party? Shouldn’t we make sure he’s learned his lesson? Shouldn’t the father give him a long speech about the consequences of his actions or punish him for acting so rebelliously – after all, the law said a rebellious son could be taken into the middle of the city and stoned to death. But there are no speeches for this one, no punishment – no “go think about what you’ve done.” It’s music and dancing right away. So when the older son comes in from the field, where he has been working, the older son who was not watching the horizon for his little brother, but who, perhaps, was growing more proud of himself with every passing day because he was so good in comparison – when he comes in, he finds the grandest of celebrations for this one who has squandered his fortune. And the older brother is angry – so angry that he doesn’t want to acknowledge relationship with either of them: “Listen,” he says, instead of beginning with the traditional address, “Father.” “For all these years I have worked like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command – not even once – and you have never given me even a little party so I can celebrate with my friends.” “It’s not fair,” he says. “Have you not noticed how good I have been all this time that your awful son has been 2 gone? Sure he was lost” – which, the story suggests, is worse than being dead – “but it was his own fault.” He is angry and stubborn but we mustn’t be too quick to judge the older son; he isn’t angry because he’s bad or mean or spiteful: he’s angry because he doesn’t understand. He has worked hard, and he wishes to be rewarded for his goodness.

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