Grace and the Prodigal Son

Don: We have left Matthew to sojourn briefly in Luke 15, to study the parable of the prodigal son. It will help to answer our questions about grace and about how it is possible to pull a spiritual plastic bag over our heads.

The context: Jesus is attracting sinners to him, and the Pharisees and the scribes don’t like it. He addresses their concern through three parables: The lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son:

The Lost Sheep

Now all the tax collectors and the [a]sinners were coming near Him to listen to Him. Both the Pharisees and the scribes began to grumble, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

So He told them this parable, saying, “What man among you, if he has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the open pasture and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I tell you that in the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

The Lost Coin

“Or what woman, if she has ten [c]silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost!’ In the same way, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

The Prodigal Son

And He said, “A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.’ So he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living. Now when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be impoverished. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him. But when he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.”’ So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet; and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ And they began to celebrate.

“Now his older son was in the field, and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. And he summoned one of the servants and began inquiring what these things could be. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.’ But he became angry and was not willing to go in; and his father came out and began pleading with him. But he answered and said to his father, ‘Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends; 30 but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.’”

As the parables progress, notice the escalation in the percentage of lost objects: Only one percent of the sheep is lost, then ten percent of the coins, and finally 50 percent of the father’s two sons. Does this escalation mean anything?

But our present concern is chiefly with the third parable—the parable of the Prodigal Son. I would call your attention to the historical context as well as to the spiritual implications of the following points:

• The younger son’s request to be given his share of the estate while his father was still alive would have been seen at that time and in that culture to be highly disrespectful, yet the father indulges him and grants his request.
• The son goes a long way away from home, to “a distant country.” How significant is the distance?
• Just at the time he loses all his money by squandering it, famine strikes the country and he ends up on the equivalent of skid row, eating with pigs.
• When he came to his senses (or “returned to himself” in the Greek translation, which suggests that he left not only his father but also left himself) he assesses only his own personal need, his desperate hunger, his privation. He seems concerned about nothing and no-one else.
• His plea to his father is similar to that made by Pharaoh to Moses in Exodus 9:27, after plagues struck Egypt, so the idea is not original to the prodigal son. Is it true repentance? (It was not in Pharaoh’s case.) Is it a calculated approach by the prodigal, perhaps suggested to him by his reading of Pharaoh?
• The key character in the parable is the father, who is clearly longing for his son’s return, so much so that he runs to him (an undignified act for an elder), cuts off his son’s attempt to explain, and calls for the banquet.
• The son is given a robe to cover his filthy rags, a ring to restore some sort of authority to him, and sandals. These are all evidence that he is being restored as a son and not merely as a servant (servants went barefoot in those days.)
• The statement in verse 24, “…this son of mine was dead and has come to life again…” is significant, because the idea of going from death to life is an important concept in relation to grace.
• The older son, introduced in verse 25, may perhaps be likened to the scribes and Pharisees who were concerned about Jesus consorting with sinners. Like his younger (prodigal) brother, the elder brother too apparently had a less-than-perfect relationship with his father, since he became angry with his father and was unwilling to go in. Is this unwillingness to join in the festivity suggestive of the plastic bag on the head? It leaves the elder son on the outside looking in, and causes the father to come out to talk to him.
• The elder son also has a justification (v 29) ready for his father. He paints himself as having acted humbly, almost in the role of a servant (and recall that it was servitude that the prodigal had decided to beg his father for.) But he, the good elder son, never got the fatted calf. The father responds that there was no choice but to be joyful. It was imperative, or perhaps it was inevitable. “He was dead, he was lost, and now he is back and he lives again. So we have to celebrate.”

It is a story of great complexity and simplicity, and it speaks to our questions about grace. How?

Harry: [audio quality very poor here, much missed] Jesus is fighting for the neglected sinner, i.e., for the younger son. The parable is trying to point out to the Pharisees that they are sinners as well.

Chris: [bad audio]

Alice: It seems to me the story can be interpreted in two ways:

1. As a statement of fact: “Everyone will be saved (in the end)”, or
2. As a guiding principle: “This is the way to be saved.”

Which one is it?

Also, the words “has been found” (v. 24) seem to imply that someone was out looking for the prodigal, rather than that he came back of his own volition…?

David: In the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd does not attempt to stop his sheep from straying. He only goes after them after they have strayed—[postscript] or rather, and this could be even more significant, if it is read as being active rather than passive—after he has lost them. In any case, the implication seems to be that we have free will to get lost, to leave the flock, any time we like, but it is the shepherd’s job to come after us only after he has lost us or we have strayed, deliberately or not. In health care, we want prevention rather than cure, but god seems to offer only cure, not prevention.

The prodigal is in need of a cure—in need of grace. He wanted the good life, so he left, but he could not have wanted the indignity of becoming a servant. Instead, he ended up needing that indignity for his very survival. The parable implies that he took action in search of his father’s grace, but I wonder if this is not a misinterpretation. It seems to me from other biblical context, especially the Beatitudes, that grace is not something you seek. If you are in a position to need it, it is there for you. You do not have to ask for it.

Harry: I agree. It is God’s grace to give, not ours to beg.

Jay: There is no seeking in the prodigal son, whereas there is seeking in the parables of the lost coin and the lost sheep. The prodigal parable is about what happens after the lost is found. We tend to equate being “found” with a return to some sort of structure, following some sort of protocol. But the parable is saying there is no protocol—there is only: “Come back!” Also, we tend to think of the elder brother as a villain, but the father evidently does not. Remember that the elder son also gets positive feedback from his father. He is not rebuked for his (by historical norms) bad attitude toward his father.

Harry: We want the elder son to be punished, but the father did not.

Jay: The elder son couldn’t figure out why none of the really good stuff in life—fatted calves, and the like—had not fallen his way.

Chris: [poor audio, may have misinterpreted] The reason is that he himself was lost, yet there was never a time in his life when he was found, and therefore needful of the fatted calf, of grace.

Michael: It’s clear that the elder son did not get the point.

Jay: The father sounds as though he did not see any problem at all with the elder son. If he had, why would he say “Everything I have is yours”?

Michael: The difference between the older and younger sons is like that between the Pharisee and the tax collector.

Robin: The parable has many meanings. We think we know better than father. We think the good things in life are away, some distance, from the father. The elder son’s struggle is with envy or a sense of injustice. God is the one who judges. It’s the same story as the workers who came in from the fields after working all day yet were paid the same as those who only worked an hour. The message is that god is the only one with the ability to judge. We have no business trying to second-guess him.

Harry: [poor audio]

Jay: The parable is about the giving of grace. We agonize over who should get it and how much of it they should get. We want to control it. But the parable is telling us we cannot do that. This is softer than the story of the unpardonable sin. The older son seems to be way out of line in telling the father what to do, yet he gets only affirmation from the father.

Don: It shows that the father’s grace is uniformly extended to both sons.

Nick: [uncertain audio/interpretation] If my son asks me for money for a purpose, I try to assess whether he will succeed or fail. If I think he will fail, I might not give it to my son. But in this case, the father just gave the money anyway, allowing him to succeed or fail. Had he succeeded, great. But in failing, he perhaps had the greatest learning opportunity of all.

Don: There is a dramatic difference between this and a passage in Deuteronomy that recommends that a rebellious son should be stoned!

Deuteronomy 13:6-11

“If your brother, your mother’s son, or your son or daughter, or the wife you cherish, or your friend who is as your own soul, entice you secretly, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods’ (whom neither you nor your fathers have known, of the gods of the peoples who are around you, near you or far from you, from one end of the earth to the other end), you shall not yield to him or listen to him; and your eye shall not pity him, nor shall you spare or conceal him. But you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. So you shall stone him to death because he has sought to seduce you from the Lord your God who brought you out from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and will never again do such a wicked thing among you.

Harry: I would never allow my son to make bad choices if I had control. That is because I am driven by my fear of what might happen to my son. But in this case, god is the father, and god is in control.

Don: The parable talks about the prodigal regaining his senses, returning to himself. It’s as if the prodigal went outside of himself, out of his senses, and it’s only when he returns to his senses that he sees himself eating with the pigs. What does “return to his senses” mean?

Harry: He never seems to think about his father, only about his own distress. He seeks only to assuage his own hunger.

Nick: To me, it meant he realized he was off the right track and had to get back on it.

Alice: He was unconscious, in the sense that a drunk is unconscious of his actions.

Jay: He comes to a point where he needs something to sustain his very life, and he realizes that he cannot get it on his own. It’s his recognition that there exists a life-sustaining factor that is the turning point.

Robin: Jesus asked who is going to love more? He who is forgiven much, or he who is forgiven little?

Luke 7:41-47

“A moneylender had two debtors: one owed five hundred denarii, and the other fifty. When they were unable to repay, he graciously forgave them both. So which of them will love him more?” Simon answered and said, “I suppose the one whom he forgave more.” And He said to him, “You have judged correctly.” Turning toward the woman, He said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave Me no water for My feet, but she has wet My feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave Me no kiss; but she, since the time I came in, has not ceased to kiss My feet. You did not anoint My head with oil, but she anointed My feet with perfume. For this reason I say to you, her sins, which are many, have been forgiven, for she loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.”

Rimon: The prodigal’s motive in returning home was truly selfish, yet the father took him back anyway. It doesn’t matter to god what our motive is. It seems that the bible and Jesus stress that every single one of us should and will be sustained, saved.

Nick: I suspect the prodigal’s heart, if not his words, was reaching out to his father, and this was when he was closest to his father.

Rimon: To me, it’s as if the prodigal was cunningly preparing what to say to his father, was calculating what to say for best effect.

David: Robin has pointed out that the parable has many meanings. I see it as having one meaning but on many levels. The ultimate level of returning to one’s senses must mean to return to the spirit world whence we came, to the kingdom of heaven. It means to die. This is the time when one is most in need of grace. Grace is indeed like a banquet, and one can see the joy of it in the faces and eyes of those who receive the banquet of grace on earth. One does not see this joy in the faces of ordinary, righteous, people, because they are already well fed and have no need for a banquet (however much they might want one.) The statement “Everything I have is yours” is reassurance to the righteous that they too will receive grace if and when they need it. The question to me is whether, at the level of meaning of grace on Earth: If you do receive it, does it stick? There’s no question that at the ultimate level—the level after death—the answer is yes, it is forever.

Don: The parable of the publican and the sinner, and the parable of the workers who toiled different hours but were equally rewarded, address these issues. Next week we’ll look into the significance of “the distant country.” What is the spiritual significance of the distance? Why does the prodigal have to go so far? Is it possible to find yourself far enough away to be alienated from God’s grace? Jay’s take that even the petulant elder son will receive grace from his father is interesting. One wonders what the Pharisees and scribes would have made of that.