Another take on the prodigal story

I was thinking about posting some more thoughts on the parable that I preached on this past Sunday ... there was so much there I couldn't get to it all, but this morning I read what my friend Bethany wrote to support the small group leaders and thought it was amazing. She leads the small group ministry at our church and writes weekly prompts with questions to help the groups to converse over the text and ask good personal questions. Her retelling of the story is definitely worth reading. The only change I have made is taking out the questions. The text is Luke 15.

I. Jesus is slandered (in mutterings) by the Pharisees. It's an understandable muttering. They don't say he smells or that he goes against God, but this time they are concerned w/ his company. To them, he hasn't drawn a line in the sand where people for God stand over here, and those that don't stand over there. I can see how they perceive him as a 'fence-sitter'; the worst kind to those devout. His behavior is a slippery slope. And somehow I can hear their nagging parental threat, " you'll turn out to be like the friends you keep."

I don't think they are muttering out of pure concern for Jesus' future. I think somehow they are upset that they, the faithful and the reverent to God, aren't being affirmed by this holy man. I mean, really, they've been putting in there time here! And instead of getting to be his buddy, he wants to be buddies w/ people who haven't put their time in at all!

(Note: this is the same heart of the older brother, the heart of the entitled and the presumedly jilted)

II. Instead of giving the brats a good talking to, Jesus tells them some stories. He never ceases to amaze me w/ his patience. And these stories reveal his heart. His heart is something that the Pharisees were missing. They got His law and His morality, but it was his heart (where he loves from) that they were missing - explains why I think they were so hungry, and therefore cruel.

III. So, there's a father and two sons. The youngest son, not entitled to a lot, asks for what he is due. He sees that he can get something out of being in this family, and he decides he wants to get it now; to cut and run. He sees the immediate benefit of the temporal gift and wants it, not seeing or understanding the heart of what it means to be given his portion. His portion is the composite of his father's life. His father's toils, his honor, his wisdom. To ask for it in cash contradicts the very gift. The gift is getting his father, not the material wealth that comes along w/ it.

The father gives it to him. Not gives it to him in a lecture or a swift beating, but merely, gives him what he wishes. The whole time the older brother stands by. The younger brother goes and loses it. He sinks lower than any good jew. He compromises what is important. And in the throws of starvation, he remembers his father. He remembers that maybe his father would take him back as a hired hand. He doesn't expect anything more, nor does he show signs of mourning for having lost his father to only potentially gain a new employer. He makes up a speech, a deal, a compromise.

IV. But God isn't a god of compromise and he doesn't make deals. The father in this story doesn't either. Before the younger son can speak the proposition, the father runs to him and embraces him. There is no room for the employee relationship. There is only the father/son relationship. A regal man of wealth, a man of respect in front of the whole village makes passionate spectacle of himself. There is no withholding. There is no pride that separates the two of them. Seeing the compassion that his father has, the son for the first time recognizes that it wasn't the money that he wanted and then lost, but it was his father, his relationship that he squandered. Here, the son understands the heart of his father, not one to hold something over his head, but a father who only cares about reconciliation.

VI. And then there's the older brother. The one who was obedient, and who never left. The one who put his time in. He comes home from working and there is a great party. Right there there is a contradiction for him. He is a worker, he sweats his faithfulness and somewhere there's a party that started without him. And then he finds out it's for his loser little brother who humiliated his father and his family. And he gets rewarded w/ a party! So the older son refuses to join in the celebration on principle. Just like the Pharisees, he is standing on that side of the line, indignant that his father is partying w/ a man who blasphemed the family.

But when the father comes out to him (notice the father searched both of them out into reconciliation) we find that it's not that the brother is back, but it's the private feelings of the forsaken that are revealed. It's not about the little scoundral, it's about the older brother not feeling celebrated enough. He feels he deserves affirmation. He misses the heart of the father as much as the little brother.

And instead of giving it to him, he gives the older son what he desires: affirmation. And then he invited him to be reconciled to him, and his brother.