THE PRODIGAL SON
(Luke 15:11-32)
Medora A. Gordon
Assistant for Pastoral Care
What a joy it is on this beautiful spring morning to preach about the Prodigal Son. Though we have heard the parable many times, I think there are always new ways to talk about its relevance. The intriguing thing about most of our bible stories is that they tend to have a universality about them that draws us in – time after time!
The story of the Prodigal Son is an allegory. Now an allegory is a way of telling a story on one level, while really talking about a deeper meaning on another level. For Luke, this story likely originated with Jesus, or at the very least, the early Christian movement, and is all about people lost – and people found. The father is understood to stand for God. The younger son stand for the Gentiles, and the elder son stands for the Judeans or the Pharisees. Gentiles are defined as people who are not Jewish and Pharisees are members of the Jewish sect, which upheld strict obedience to the Torah. From the beginning, we can feel the tension in the story with the non-Jewish people on the one side and the deeply committed, obedient Jews on the other.
The story then is told on one level – the younger son goes off, squanders his inheritance, sees the foolishness of his ways, and comes back to be greeted unconditionally by a loving father. On a deeper level, the story represents the reconciliation of Judean with Judean in the early Christian movement. The return of the prodigal son signifies the restoration of the community – and that means it’s party time – if, the older sibling, the Pharisees, can find it within themselves to join in.
In later years, we tended to concentrate much more on the younger brother. We have always known that the father stands for God, but the real story is about the younger brother. The story becomes about individuals – a concept almost unknown in the 1st century – not about groups. The young man leaves home for a far away country, where he squanders his money by living extravagantly. Just when he has spent all of his money, a famine sweeps the land and the younger brother hires himself out to feed pigs. That is the part of the story that always caught me as a child. I had seen pigs fed somewhere in my young life and remembered it as a "yucky" process. There is mud, and strange smells, and that kind of "pigs at a trough" sound." The story goes on to tell us that the younger brother longs to satisfy his own hunger with the "carob pods" which are fed to the pigs. The moral of this more modern allegory is that the younger brother sees the error of his ways and returns to his father.
Who among us has not seen the error of our ways and returned home? Maybe we have come back to our parents after a horrible fight. Maybe we have come back to a friendship or a relationship that we had squandered at an earlier time in our lives. Maybe we seek to be reunited with our children, or maybe like the allegory, we have returned to the church family after spending years in a faraway place. We know what it is like to come back, and be greeted by someone who is genuinely glad to see us.
This is a lovely story because it makes it all look so easy. The father does not sit inside the house waiting for the younger son to screw up his courage and knock on the door. The father runs to meet his son. He doesn’t stand on the porch and say – "So, where you been?" The father, God, makes it easy to come back. Would that all of our relationships were that simple to repair.
I want us to take yet another look at the story this morning. The first part is the same. The father in this story stands for God. But I want to argue that the younger brother is the Robert Massie’s of the world – and we are all of us the older brother.
Robert Lee Massie is the man that the state is going to murder in our names tomorrow night. From the time he was seven years old he was a ward of the state. From the years of seven to ten he lived in a number of foster homes. From eleven to fourteen he lived in a state reformatory, euphemistically called a "training school for boys." From fifteen to twenty-three he was in various jails and penitentiaries. Finally, at the age of twenty-tree he was delivered to the warden at San Quentin Prison. It could be argued that Bob Massie squandered his God-given life, and along the way took the lives of others. On the other hand it could be argued that Bob Massie never really had a chance to life his life any other way.
Is Bob Massie repentant? Does he say "Father, I have sinned against heaven and affronted you?" The parable suggests that it is not up to us to know. The father runs to the younger son, and throws his arms around him and kisses him before the boy even has a chance to speak.
Please listen to some of Bob Massie’s own words: "From a very early age, I was left to my own devices and, consequently, no real moral values were made part of my education. With no perspective and no regard for the rights of others, I began committing petty crimes, which eventually caused my commitment to prison at the ripe old age of fifteen. With my limited ability to cope with everyday conflict and the anxieties produced by a prison atmosphere, I resorted to the use of drugs, which were smuggled into the penitentiary from unknown sources. I subsequently became a menace to everyone, including myself. My years of confinement from a very early age and the use of dangerous drugs combined to make me incapable of coping with the standards of free society. After I had been on death row for approximately three years, I began waking from the lethargic aftermath of prolonged use of drugs. I suddenly wanted to know the purpose of my existence. I realized the tragic waste I had made of my life and concluded that the belated inner stirrings toward self-improvement and further education had come too late."
It is my belief that God loves and accepts this younger brother. A professor of mine in seminary, L. William Countryman has written a book called the Good News Of Jesus - Reintroducing the Gospel. In this book, Professor Countryman suggests that we can say yes or no to God, but that no one of us can evade the reality of God. No younger brother, no older brother, no one of us is able to succeed in ignoring God altogether. God is a way of talking about our lives. In a world where human beings are hemmed in by limits at every turn, God is the object of our faith, not our knowledge.
Countryman goes on to say that we live in the midst of reality in one of three ways. First we can choose to live as someone who is loved without regard to deserving love. We can’t earn God’s love – it is just there. Second, we can choose to live as someone who wants to have exactly what we believe that we deserve. I don’t deserve God’s love; therefore, I don’t accept God’s love. Finally, we can choose to live as if God cares nothing about us one way or another. We can choose to live as if there is no meaning in life other than what we ourselves are able to create.
No matter how we choose to live, the Good News is it is impossible to pretend for long that God loves only the deserving. Look around – the world does not always treat the pious well. God’s love and care is not confined to those who deserve it. Bob Massie, our younger brother is loved already by God. The only question left, for Bob Massie, is whether he says yes or no to God’s love.
The larger question remains for all of us. We are the older brother in this story. The parable is no help. It does not tell us what the older brother did. Did he go into the party and welcome home his younger brother? Did he stomp off to the field with his feelings hurt? Or maybe in good self-centered style, he went to the party, after all, but hung out on the edge of the festivities, grumbling. I don’t know. I can tell you this; God causes the sun to shine on both the just and the unjust, and the rain to fall on good people and evil people alike. If we are truly the people of God, if we are believers and followers of a first century radical named Jesus, then we have to find some way to welcome Bob Massie home. We can welcome him, or we can reject him, but God loves him.
But the father said to him, "My child, you are always at my side. Everything that is mine is yours. But we just had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come back to life; he was lost, and now is found."
Amen.
[Editor's Note: Following his execution on March 27, 2001, the press typically described Robert Massey's last words as "incomprehensible." They were: "Forgiveness. Giving up all hope for a better past."]
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Jesus said, "There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."' So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.
"Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.' Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, 'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!' Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'"
