The Two Lost Sons and their Prodigal Father

All Age Talk – Luke 15.1-3, 11-end

Who can remember the story of Aladdin? Can you remember what Aladdin’s three wishes were?

1.       To become a prince

2.       To be rescued from the sea

3.       For the Genie who granted his wishes to be made free

Did the story have a happy ending? Yes of course!

In today’s Bible passage Jesus also tells a great story – one of the most famous stories in the whole Bible. He tells this and two other stories as an answer to some religious leaders who were grumbling about Jesus “This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.” The sinners are also in the audience and the story is for them too.

It begins with a young man (we assume he’s young anyway) who, like Aladdin, has three wishes:

1.       To get rich quick without working

2.       To run away from his responsibilities and travel

3.       To be in charge of his life

He doesn’t have a Genie to grant his wishes, but he does have a very unusual Father. A Father who Jesus uses in the story to show us what God is like. When the young man asks his Father for his inheritance that is actually a very hurtful and insulting thing to ask. Its like saying:-

·          “Why should I wait until you die to get my share of your money; I want it NOW.”

·          and what’s more…  “I REFUSE to help run the family farm a minute longer. Its boring, its dirty and it SMELLS. I want to get as far away from THIS DUMP as my legs will carry me.”

·         and while we’re on the subject…  “I’m sick of you controlling my life and telling me what to do. You’re not the boss of me any more. I’m going to live as if you don’t even EXIST.” 

(He didn’t say all those things of course, but his Father knew him so well he knew that was what he was thinking!)

How should the Father respond? Well in all the Parenting Skills Manuals I’ve seen (and believe me I’ve tried a few J ) the answer is clearly “No!” Here is a situation where the child (teenager? Young adult?) needs to learn boundaries, patience, respect, discipline. In the time and place that Jesus was speaking, those same values held just as much importance and a son like this would be put very firmly in his place. But the Father in Jesus’s story surprisingly gives him exactly what he has asked for.  (hand younger son a big bag of money and he walks off)

(Adult voices from congregation):

Pharisee:            This Father is a reckless fool!

Scribe:                  “Why does he act like this? No real Father would act in this way!”

Servant:              “Can’t he see what the consequences will be?”

Elder Son:           “This son has brought disgrace on his family. God will bring disaster on him!”

Consequences

As the story goes on, disaster does eventually come on the son, not caused by God, but by a combination of the son’s own wasteful behaviour and the pure misfortune of a famine in the place where he has gone to live. When his money runs out, so do his friends and he is left in poverty and hunger, working on a pig farm (the very worst job for a Jew) and even wishing he could share the pigs’ food (Yuk!).

This is finally what it takes to bring the son to his senses. Even the servants in his Father’s house have plenty to eat –

“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 servants.”

We can imagine him on the long, journey, weakened by hunger, struggling along and practising his little speech as he goes. We can also imagine the Father, watching and waiting day after day, hoping against all odds, that his son might return.

Powerful emotions are at work on both sides.

Coming Home

You know how the story ends. The wonderful reconciliation as the Father runs out to meet his lost son, back from the dead. He doesn’t even let the boy finish his speech and receives him joyfully back into his household, not as a hired servant but as a son, with all the privileges and responsibilities that brings. The forgiveness of the returning stray is unconditional. The Father doesn’t wait to see if he has reformed and learned his lesson, he welcomes him home and loves him unconditionally. Surely many of the despised sinners in Jesus’s audience would recognise their own story in this surprising reconciliation.

So the story ends and everybody lives happily ever after, yes?

Not exactly. Not everybody is happy. Not the fattened calf of course L …  and then there’s the other lost son... WHAT? I thought you said there was only one lost son. No, there were two! Because it turns out that the older son, the one who stayed at home and never strayed, the one who lived by all the rules, slaving away resentfully, knowing that he was right and good – was also lost. He might have been physically close to his Father, but spiritually and emotionally he was a million miles away. The way this showed up in Jesus’s story was in the reaction of this elder son when he saw his Father celebrating the return of the stray, the younger son.

Elder Son:           What’s going on? Where’s all that party noise coming from?

Servant:              From inside the house. Your Father is throwing a party to celebrate your brother’s return. The fattened calf is in the oven and your Father wants everyone to join the celebration. Isn’t this the best good news ever?

Elder Son:           NO this is NOT good news!

Pharisee:            HOLD ON … He’s telling this story about us!

Scribe:                  Don’t be silly, its just a made up story about a man who had …

Pharisee:            No, you don’t get it, we’re the elder brother.

Scribe:                  What do you mean?

Pharisee:            WE’re the ones who are angry because HE’s welcoming these filthy sinners and eating with them.

Scribe:                But we are right to be angry!                     

Elder Son:          Who does he think he is anyway?

And so the story ends with one lost son found and the other son, who didn’t know he was lost, standing outside his Father’s house… lost - in anger, jealousy and pride. Perhaps the Father will after all have to settle for one out of two? … But no, look!

The Father comes outside the house, away from the party, to find his second lost son.

Father:                 Son, please come inside and join the celebration.

Elder Son:           Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.

Pharisee:            We kept all His commandments!

Elder Son:           You never threw a party to celebrate my obedience … but when THIS son of yours…

Scribe:                  This load of unclean dropouts (pointing at congregation)

Elder Son:           When this son of yours who turned his back on you and wasted everything you gave him FINALLY decided to come home …

Pharisee:            You forgave him (and them) too easily

Scribe:                  You accepted him as a son and welcomed him

Elder Son:           You even killed the fattened calf for him and threw a big party.

And the Father said -

Father:                 My Son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again, he was lost and is found.

Here the story does end, leaving us to wonder what happened next. Did the Elder Son go inside and make up with his Father and his Brother? Did the Younger Son really change his ways and become a resposible family member? Did these religious people in Jesus’s audience change their attitude towards Jesus and all the sinners he was eating with?

Maybe it is up to us to decide how the story ends, as we recognise how like one or other of these two lost sons we are, how like these religious people we can be. As we respond to the love of this Prodigal God, who has only two wishes: that ALL his lost children will be found and that they will love each other, even as much as he loves every one.

Through story and through his actions, Jesus reveals the full extent of God’s endless mercy and love. What will our response be and how will the story end?