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The parable of the other son

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19/08/09

"An eye to which nothing is shown but black objects judges something dirty white or even darkly mottled to be whiteness itself." For the Pharisees and Scribes, grace hurt. The dark objects of legalism and religion had become resident in their hearts and minds. With no frame of reference for an unconditional love, the message of Jesus was difficult to take. Their frustration translated into accusations and questions that would eventually lead them to plot and kill the very God they professed to worship. In our culture where everything from money to affection is earned, unconditional grace needs to be guarded. Unless we are deeply affected to the core by the saving grace of God, how will anyone ever be able to write words akin to "my chains fell off, my heart was free I rose went forth and followed thee"?

This parable is Jesus’ answer to the Pharisees and Scribes. The accusation is brought that “this man receives sinners and eats with them”. This statement alone captures the heart of Jesus’ mission and purpose. He stands at the door of humanity and knocks, if the door is opened he will enter in and eat. Who was Jesus accused of receiving? He was accused of receiving the self employed freelance con artist tax collectors. Despised by society and occupying the same step on the social ladder as prostitutes. These were the very people the Pharisees and Scribes would not associate with for fear of becoming ritually unclean. The commonly used word for ‘receive’ in the New Testement is ‘dechomai’. However, here the word ‘prosdechomai’ is used, which means to welcome into fellowship or to sit down and talk with a person, accepting him as a friend ( Mark 9:37, Rom 16:2, Phil 2:29). The counter cultural mandate of the life and message of Jesus is clear.

In a context such as this when guests are received for a meal, the one receiving the guest eats with them. To eat with someone 2000 years ago in a middle eastern culture was an incredible public sign of acceptance. You ate with those you wanted to be seen associating with. If you hosted a meal, something which Jesus may have done, you began by saying how much honor was brought on your house by the guests being there. This was a serious offense to the onlooking Pharisees. Especially when the people you are eating with are the outcasts of society! Even in the east today you may feed those lower than you but you never eat with them. Like the returning prodigal we have every reason to be rejected by Jesus yet he longs to eat with us.

‘Dad I wish that you were dead. I hate you and I wish that today was your funeral.’ Are the words that reverberate between the lines at the beginning of this parable. Echoing Genesis Ch 3 the relationship between the father and the first son is shattered by one simple request. Dad can I have my inheritance? To the listening crowd, the conclusion of the story had already formed in their minds. The son had committed an unforgivable act. Under Jewish law the father must give the son the inheritance that is due to him with a share given to the older son. It is interesting that the older son is nowhere to be seen. The crowd would have expected him to fulfill his duty to protect his father and step in. The older son readily willing to receive a third of the money from the father remains silent.

With his inheritance gathered together, the son sets off for a far country. The essence of the word ‘gathered’ has a more literal meaning, hinting that the son liquidated his father’s inheritance turning it into hard cash, therefore adding to the offense. Did the son leave because he was fed up with a quiet rural existence? Or was his relationship with the father so irrevocably broken that to live with his father in the same house and community would have been impossible? For those listening a ‘far country’ would have meant Gentile land. Squandering your father’s inheritance in your home town was bad, but in a Gentile country this was far more serious. For those brave enough to return home after committing such an offense meant facing the ancient Jewish ‘cutting off’ ceremony, Kezazah.

Kezazah would start with the returning son sitting outside of the family residence where the whole community would gather. As a symbol of the shame and dishonor caused to the family by the wayward son, a large clay pot would be smashed in front of him. A thousand shattered pieces laying in the dust as a symbol of a broken relationship. Having lost all his rights as a son he might then work as a slave in his father’s house. The contrast in the listeners’ expectation and the way the story would eventually end is vast. Such is the unbelievable nature of Gods grace.

With his money spent and a severe famine sweeping the land, the son finds himself in a desperate place. Such is the situation that he needs to find work and hires himself out to a citizen of the country. The literal meaning of the word hire is to ‘join yourself’ or ‘glue yourself‘ to someone. That someone would have been the Jews’ arch enemy, a Gentile.

In an honor culture the word ‘no’ is rarely spoken. Rather than turn an unemployed traveller away, the polite way to deter him would be to offer him the job of feeding pigs. Accepting the job working with an animal detested by Jews shows how desperate the son’s situation is. So bad is the dilemma that he longs or lusts after the pigs’ food. For a Jewish male, the situation could not be any worse; he had hit rock bottom. A plan is needed.

With the sound of smashing clay pots in the back of his mind, the son formulates a self help plan. If he goes back to his father and says he has sinned then maybe there is a chance of getting back into the household as a hired servant. There would then be an opportunity to become a paid employee of his father. He could maybe earn enough money to pay back some of the inheritance which he had squandered. With a speech prepared, the goal of being a servant and his ‘justification by self’ plan in place, the son heads home. It is a kind of repentance but not as we know it. What a wonderful parallel to life in God’s kingdom where self help justification is a nonsense and servants do not exist, only sons and daughters.

With the son geographically and spiritually a ‘long way off’, the father sees him. The depth of compassion felt by the father is expressed in the use of the Greek word ‘splagchnizomai’. To feel this kind of compassion means that you are moved to the very depth of your being. Throughout the gospels, splagchnizomai is used to describe the compassion of Jesus which surpasses that of all others.

With the lost son in his sights the father does the unthinkable - he runs. For a father to run would have brought incredible shame on both him and his family. Running would have meant hitching up the hem of your garment and showing your legs, another great embarrassment. For the listeners, it could not get any worse for the father. With the sight of his father running towards him there could only have been one thought in the son’s mind: ‘I am in serious trouble’. But before the son can begin his speech the father does something quite incredible. The son who deserves nothing, not even a place as a servant in his father’s household, receives a kiss. The son who deserves to hear the sound of a clay pot being smashed gets an embrace. The kiss and the embrace display the father’s willingness to accept and forgive. The contradiction of the sin and the embrace point only to the cross where an even greater contradiction would take place; our sin, Christ’s death.

With the son unable to finish his speech the father summons his servants, the very job his son was coming back to do. Jesus’ audience may have expected the father to instruct the servants to clean his son. The father does not see the dirt or smell the pig stye but sees his precious lost younger son. The best robe would only ever come out of the wardrobe for the most prestigious of occasions. The ring on the finger was a symbol of inheritance and renewed status in the father’s house. Most Jewish households would only have one fattened calf which would have been capable of feeding more than one hundred guests. Only on very special occasions would the calf be slaughtered. For the father this is a special occasion worthy of celebration because his son was lost and now is found. As Wesley writes of Gods grace ‘he is more full of grace than we are of sin’. Our sin and wayward rebellious nature is no match for Christ’s all sufficient grace.

The party begins, but one of the most important guests is not present. The older son is seemingly oblivious to the events taking place back at the house and is working in the field. Finding out that his brother has returned, he refuses to join the party, a serious offense to his father the party host. So serious is the older brother’s absence that the father breaks another social norm and leaves the party. The very moment that the father stepped outside the party would have stopped. In full view of the guests, bringing further shame on himself, the father pleads with the older son to come inside and join the celebration. Such is the older brother’s anger that he can only bring himself to refer to his sibling as ‘this son of yours’. The blessing that the younger son has received is only understood by the older brother in terms of works done, rather than grace received. It is interesting that the son who was far away is now near yet the son who stayed near is now far away. It was telling these kind of stories which fuelled the Pharisees’ plans to murder Jesus.

The other son

Thankfully there is another son in this story, a better son. There is a third son in this parable who with open arms of grace receives sinners and eats with them. A third son who invites us to be sons and not servants. A son who brings good news not of works but of gracious acceptance. Another son who was prepared to lay aside all the glorious splendor and majestic beauty of heaven. Who was willing to hitch up the hem of his robe and run to a dirty and cold cow shed to be born in a middle of nowhere town to a teenage virgin mum. To live a perfect life and die a perfect death having seven inch stakes driven through his wrists and ankles so that the whole sin of human history could rest on his shoulders. He ran towards a death, reconciling man to God, making the way possible for the father to stand with arms open wide crying out ‘kill the fattened calf, fetch the best robe, pass me the ring. My child has come home’.

Bibliography

Kenneth E. Bailey, Poet & Peasant and Through Peasant Eyes. Grand Rapids 1983. Ch.7

Kenneth E. Bailey, The Cross & the Prodigal. Inter Varsity Press 2005.

Darrell L. Bock, Luke, New Testament Commentary, Inter Varsity Press 1995.

John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion. Westminster John Knox Press, 1960. Book one. The Knowledge of God the Creator p.38

Charles Wesley, Psalms and Hymns.1738.

Tom Wright, Luke for Everyone. SPCK 2004. p 182-192

David Capener, sermon on Luke 15. 11-32, http://www.wellspringfamilychurch.org/Media/AllMedia.aspx

Sinclair Ferguson, Parable of the Prodigal son Part 1 – The waiting Father www.reddeemer.com

Sinclair Ferguson, Parable of the Prodigal son Part 2 – The distant son

Sinclair Ferguson, Parable of the Prodigal son Part 3 – The distant son

Tim Keller, Sermon on Luke 15. 11-32,