The prodigal son (the lost son) Luke 15:1,2  11-31

The early years of my relationship with wife Annie were wonderful. She was warm, intelligent and fun. Best of all she laughed at my jokes. It all seemed too good to be true. However as the years went on things did not stay the same. Annie was still warm, intelligent and fun but she no longer laughed at my jokes. This seemed strange, because my jokes were as good as ever. In fact most hadn’t changed at all. But somehow over the years through repeated retelling they had lost their punch. Familiarity breeds contempt we are told, and this is precisely the problem for many of us when we come to the better known of Jesus’ parables. Like a good joke, parables make their impact from the unexpected twist that remains lingering in our minds long after they are told… and again like an old joke, being over familiar with them can rob them of some of their power to disturb and challenge us.

Today’s passage,  the parable of the prodigal son, is one of the better known of all of Jesus’ parables… and because of its familiarity to many of us, we will need to work a little harder to allow it to impact us, challenge us, transform us…

Tom Wright usefully uses another analogy for the parables of Jesus. Hold a mirror up to a small child, he says, and you’ll notice how their expression shifts from smiles and giggles to a recognition that it’s their movements and expressions which are reflected in the glass in front of them, as if to say “that’s me” ….
So too as we look at parables we move from identifying the characters with them, as someone over there, to recognizing ourselves in the story. That recognition can be disturbing or affirming. But it should linger with us and not leave us unchanged.

As so often happens in Luke the parable we are looking at this morning does not occur in isolation. It comes as part of a set of three connected parables, and it is as we compare and contrast all three, that their impact is made. In this case the other two parables are the parable of the lost sheep (vs. 4-7) in which we see a farmer’s joy on locating the one out of a hundred sheep that went astray, and the parable of the lost coin (vs. 8-10) in which we see the joy of a woman on finding her lost savings. 
Both these parables are interpreted for us as illustrating God’s heart to seek out lost people  vs. 6,7 “Rejoice with me I have found my lost sheep” In the same there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who do not need to so ” and again in vs. 9,10 “rejoice with me I have found my lost coin, In the same way  I tell you there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God, over one sinner who repents…

So its not hard to see why the NIV has chosen to label our parable the parable of the lost son… for this parable has the same theme, just look at the conclusion in vs. 31 “we had to celebrate and be glad because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again, he was lost and now is found.”

So these three parables are tied together by the joy over recovering something very precious that was lost. They show us God’s heart for religious outsiders. Finding them, reconnecting with them, is the driving passion behind all that he does in the world. As Luke 19:10 puts it … The son of man, Jesus, came to seek and to save the lost. And still today that is what moves God’s heart and is the primary thing God is doing in the world today whether that be here in Oxford, or overseas in places like Tanzania. He is seeking lost people. And the extent to which that is our heart also is a powerful measure of how connected we are to the father

Now while well known, the parable of the Lost or Prodigal Son is not particularly well named. For it contains two lost sons, not one. The younger son’s lostness is legendary, but in his own way the stay at home older brother is equally lost.
In fact these two characters are carefully constructed by Jesus to connect with his immediate audience. They are shown to us in vs. 1, 2. There are Pharisees who would identify themselves with the respectable, hardworking, oldest son, and then there a group of social and religious outcasts who would connect with the younger son: these were tax collectors (who had about the same social standing as Nazi collaborators in WW2) and “sinners” meaning the non-religious, they seem to have had plenty of time for Jesus but no time for institutional religion with its endless traditions, rules and regulations … 

First let’s consider the youngest son… the religious rebel
Vs 12 he said to his Father “give me my share of the inheritance.” Or in other words dad I wish you would drop dead so I can get my hands on your money.”  
Amazingly his father gives him his share without protest or rebuke. Shortly afterwards (vs. 13) he sells his half of the farm, and sets off into the sunset without as much as a thank you or a goodbye.
And he goes off to live it up in a far away land. But after each short-lived high he finds himself a little emptier until both he and his money are completely spent. That’s the way it always is when we live for the moment, doing what we want when we want

As U2 put it “you gave me what I wanted, it wasn’t what I wanted”

CS Lewis described our addictions and indulgences, as an increasing desire for something less and less satisfying… and that is the nature of sin… it promises autonomy, fulfilment, and happiness here and now, but in the end it cannot deliver, and it leaves us empty and disillusioned..  CS Lewis goes on … “Its no use asking God to make you truly happy apart from himself; for there is no such thing.”

Now when we are in the wrong place, it doesn’t matter how we got there. The important thing is to swallow our pride, put our hands up, and get back to where we once belonged. In doing this the younger son demonstrates for us the nature of true repentance 

There he was in vs. 16 starving and feeding pigs… about as degrading as it can get for a Jewish rich kid, he comes to his senses and realizes even a slave in his father’s house is better off than the dead end he has got himself into. So he determines vs. 18 “I will set out and go back to my father and say to him “Father I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son, make me like one of your hired men”…
Here is a man who is not just a little embarrassed by his sin, or even humbled by it. He is broken over it. He does not skip home; he limps home willing to face the consequences, however bad they might be…

True repentance is not just or even necessarily a feeling of being sorry about our sin, it is a genuine brokenness over it and the adoption of a new attitude involving a clean break from the past and a willingness to do whatever is necessary to put things right again.

Such a posture of repentance is not just necessary for reconnecting with God, it is vital for our ongoing walk with Him. So those of us we who have been believers for some time need to ask ourselves when was the last time that we really repented? 
I know in my own life, since being a believer, I have done some things of which I am deeply ashamed, and there have been times of painful brokenness before God over them. The paradox of course is that when we are broken like this, and feel that we are further away from God than we could ever have imagined, that we are actually closer to his heart than we dare believe. 

Vs 20 while he was a long way off, his father saw him, and was filled with compassion for him, he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him…  Then there follows a robe, a ring and a banquet… An outrageous, extravagant, lavish welcome back home for a wretched sinner…

Ask an African what is the most striking thing about this story and chances are they will say that it’s the way the Father runs to greet his son. In the society of Jesus’ day as in many parts of Africa today, old men do not run. They sit, they talk, the dispense wisdom to those in their presence, they are dignified and respected, but they don’t run about like little children. 
But the Father cares nothing for being prim and proper or restrained. He knows what he really really wants. His heart longs for his son. And in the same way God aches for and is passionate about being reconnected with anyone who ants to return home. No matter where they’ve been. He doesn’t coerce them or force them home, but he never gives up on them either.

But then there is the eldest son….
If the younger son has lived by the script have fun, the oldest has lived by the script of be good. If the younger ran away from his father, the eldest son has drifted away. Both were lost, both had missed the heart of their father. The older brother feels hard done by and overlooked.  Vs 28 He became angry and refused to go in to the party “saying vs. 29 “all these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never even gave me a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends, but when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him” 
Come and celebrate his father says but he cannot
The youngest son was willing to come back as a slave, but this older brother has been treating himself like one for years. His heart was cold, and uncomfortably numb. 
Maybe we see some of the older brother in ourselves. Perhaps we find it hard to rejoice when we see God’s hand of blessing on another Church or ministry, while we seem a bit stuck. Or maybe we find it hard to believe God could bless someone whose theology doesn’t have I’s dotted or t’s crossed like ours. Or maybe we are just comfortably numb… with no genuine passion for seeing those around us connect with God at all. If so, then we too have drifted from the heart of God and need to repent. 
You might be familiar with film Sideways. Two friends take a break in the wine valleys of California before a wedding. Relationships come and go or struggle to ignite. One of the characters drives back a few months after his friends wedding to look up the girl he could never quite connect with. He knocks on her door. And the film ends. We never quite know if he connects with her or not. So too in this parable, we are left hanging. Not sure if the dutiful, older brother can enter the joy of his father or not.   
Maybe it’s harder for a Pharisee to really admit his need, than for a prodigal. 

Now whether we more readily identify with the Pharisee or the prodigal, I think Henri Nouwen in his book The return of the Prodigal son, was right to suggest that the parable is not really about sons at all. It is about the father. And the real point is that we to become the Father… That is we are to become as gracious in our interactions with others as the Father is with his sons. That we grow into the heart of the Father, that is reflected in how we treat others be they Pharisees or prodigals. The father aches for both of his sons. Both need to encounter Grace… The prodigal to know forgiveness, the Pharisee to know he is truly loved with no need to prove himself… Trace an act of grace, underserved kindness, in a relationship through to the end, and it always leads someone closer to God writes Phillip Yancey. Similarly trace the effect of ungrace… of unacceptance or indifference or discouragement, and it leads them further away. 
As we learn to treat others with such grace, we become the father in the parable and lead others back to our father in heaven.

Let’s pray…
Younger son, Older son, or the father, which reflection do we see most in ourselves? One son responded to grace, the other found it harder to do so. Dear Lord grant us the Grace of truly repentant hearts and help us enter into your joy….