One of my favorite movies growing up was called “The Sandlot.” It is a story about a group of young boys who spend the summer playing baseball and hanging out together. In one scene, one of the boys holds up a bag of chewing tobacco and says, “Big Chief!” So the boys stuff their mouths full of this cancer juice, go on a carnival ride, get very nauseous, vomit, and go home sick and full of regret. Can you relate to this experience? I think we all can in one way or another. The story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15 shows how loving and accepting God is to anyone who repents from their sinful living and returns home to Him.

Verses 11-32.

After giving an example of a lost sheep and a lost coin, Jesus concludes His trifecta of parables with the parable of the lost son. While the first story is about an animal that wanders off and the second is a misplaced item, this third story is about actual human beings who possess an assortment of emotions and motivations. The first two parables take up a total of ten verses, but this final parable covers 22 verses, and squarely addresses the Pharisees and scribes’ objections with “this Man” who eats with tax collectors and sinners. The first two parables were just a warmup, but this final parable is the main event. This final parable about the prodigal son is perhaps the most dramatized, discussed, and beloved of all of Jesus’ parables. Growing up in church I myself have been in at least three drama productions on this parable and the story elements have been weaved into countless other narratives. 

The story is about a father who had two sons. The younger son seemed to have enough of life at the parentals. His older brother was a “goody tushu’s,” always walking in lockstep with his father’s wishes and getting on him whenever he stepped out of line. I mean, he was a real bummer. So, being in his late teens the younger son wanted some freedom. His father had a nice chunk of property with hired servants so he knew there was a decent inheritance waiting for him, although it was only half of what his older brother received but he figured that was just the rules. Whatever. 

Typically, the inheritance would be received upon the father’s death but the younger son just wanted out. “Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me,” he said. Perhaps surprisingly, his father acquiesced. In Jewish culture, fathers were warned to not break up their estate too quickly but in this story the father divided his livelihood between his two sons. 

Jesus never says what the older son did with his share of the inheritance. He probably did nothing. The younger son, though, traveled as far away as he could and wasted everything he had with prodigal living. This term for prodigal can be described as debased, loose, and extravagant living. Jesus doesn’t give examples of his lifestyle yet his older brother later accuses him of devouring his inheritance with prostitutes. Think of the many young professional athletes and celebrities who quickly amass fortunes and blow through it with prodigal living. 

Then the famine hits. Alongside disease and war, famines are amongst the most devastating events that occur in the Bible that bring mass starvation and death. In desperation, he finds a citizen of the country who apparently hires him to feed swine. Yet the citizen cares little for the starving young man because he didn’t even feed him, so the lost son craved the pods that the unclean pigs ate. How many people have squandered what they have, run into trouble, and come face-to-face with swine feed? This is called rock bottom.

In verse seventeen, the son “came to himself.” Have you ever been on a theme park ride that seemed exciting at first, but after a minute you just wanted to get off because it was uncomfortable and made you sick to your stomach? Sin is like a roller coaster of death. It may start off fun and exciting, but after a while it becomes miserable as you get twisted and flipped all over the place. Adrenaline is replaced with sickness, misery, and heartbreak. Sometimes it takes a near accident or a rebuke for us to come to our senses. At other times, as is the case with the younger son, our whole lives have to completely fall apart.

The younger son came out of his fog, surveyed his life, and he was ready to repent. That Greek word metanoia doesn’t just mean to say sorry. It means to stop what you are doing and change course. For the first time in his life, the younger man wasn’t living the life of a son awaiting an inheritance. He was a hired hand that wasn’t even fed by his employer. At least his father’s hired hands were able to eat, and here he is starving to death! He was in so much pain that he didn’t desire anything more from his father than to simply be a day laborer. In fact, he considered himself unworthy to even bear the status of sonship. He had tasted the forbidden fruit and hated it. It was rotten and full of vermin. 

The younger son literally turned his life around as he left his life of loose living that ended in despair and returned home. He was so over this rebellious life that he wasn’t even going to ask his father to be a traditional servant, which in a sense made you a part of the family. He just wanted to be a day laborer with no family ties. 

As he neared home his father had compassion, a deep emotion from the gut that compels someone to loving action. Remember when Jesus had compassion on the crowds that followed Him, because they were like a sheep without a shepherd? Now the wandering sheep was the man’s own son who found his way home. The father was so moved with compassion that he literally undignified himself by rushing over to his son, fell on his neck and kissed him repeatedly. 

His son repented but his father wasn’t even concerned with his words. He was just ecstatic he was home. The son just wanted to be the hired help, but the father said “nonsense.” He will have the best robe in the closet and a ring on his finger that seals his sonship. The fattest calf in the barn is dinner and it is time to have a party; “for this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found” (24). 

Then the story takes a twist. As the father celebrates the younger son’s return, the older son is minding his own business in the fields. Then he hears something. At the house, there’s music and dancing. What’s going on? So he calls a servant over. The name for servant here is paidos, which can also be translated as child. Children tend to just say things as they see them and this servant probably wasn’t aware of the older brother’s ire, “your brother’s home safe and sound so your dad’s firing up the sirloin to celebrate.” 

Instead of rejoicing along with his father, he stamps his feet and pouts. In Gene Wilder’s “Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” a teenage girl named Veruca is always jealous and demanding that her parents give her more and more things. She is never content. At one point her weakwilled father tries to buy a human-like candy maker called an Oompa Loompa for his demanding princess. Wonka replies, “they’re not for sale.”

In the same way this older son received twice the inheritance of his younger brother yet is irked that his father killed the fatted calf for him and didn’t so much as kill a young goat for him and his friends. So as a result, he’s going to cross his arms and refuse to come in despite his father’s pleading. His defense is that he never ever has broken any of his father’s commandments yet this despicable son of his devoured his livelihood with harlots, and he gets the steak dinner!

Instead of giving him a stern scolding. After all, the older son is acting like a four-year-old, he calls him “child.” This word for child is teknon, and is a word for tenderness and affection. “Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours,” he says in verse 31. In no sense does the father view his son as unworthy or even beneath him. He is holding nothing back. But in the last verse of the story he does not cave into the older son’s complaints. He teaches him the truth. It is the right thing to do to celebrate not just his son but “your brother.” The father will not let his pouting son disown his brother. Why celebrate? Like the wandering sheep and the misplaced coin, he was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found.

In this story, the tax collectors and sinners refer to the younger son and the Pharisees and scribes refer to the older son. The latter disdained the former because of their loose living and wanted nothing to do with them. But notice how kind the father is. He isn’t angry at his younger son for squandering his inheritance nor is he angry at the older son for being resentful. He is just overjoyed that his younger son has returned safe and sound, and that’s a reason to rejoice.

Ultimately, the prodigal son parable is about God’s unfailing love. No matter what wild oats we have sown in this life, He just wants us to repent so He can throw us a party. When we act self righteous towards people who come to church looking like they just came out of a back alley, God wants us to embrace them as He would. If you are that person who hit rock bottom, God isn’t worried about your rap sheet, He just wants to wrap His arms around you if you humbly come to Him. We have all acted in ways deserving of hell, but Jesus took those sins upon Himself so we could have a party in heaven. 

Questions:

1. What is significant about the father’s response to the prodigal son’s return? 
2. In what ways have you been a prodigal and in what ways have you been self-righteous like the older son in your faith walk? What’s God’s response to both attitudes?
3. Why do you think Jesus chose these three parables to answer the complaint in verse 2?