Prodigal Jesus

 

Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32
New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE
March 30, 2025

Photo of an orange flag with the words "Every child matters" on it, with two black and white feathers on the left side. https://www.7generations.org/what-is-every-child-matters/

The story of the prodigal son is one of Jesus’ most beloved parables. One way we can tell it is beloved is that we can see ourselves in one or more of the characters. Perhaps we see ourselves in the younger son, as one who has been extravagantly wasteful, which is what prodigal means, with money or substances or relationships, but has been forgiven. Or maybe we’re the older brother, faithful and hardworking but overlooked and taken for granted. Some of us have been in the father’s position, wondering if we are enabling bad behavior. Can we be too forgiving?



Some have interpreted this story with the scribes and Pharisees as the elder brother and the tax collectors and sinners as the younger brother. Or Jewish Christians and gentile Christians, as the gospel of Luke addresses both.



Jewish New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine reminds us that any Jewish story that begins with “there was a man who had two sons” will immediately remind Jesus’ listeners of Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, as well as Leah and Rachel. In all of these stories, God favored the younger child, and so Jewish listeners would have identified with the younger child. But the younger son in Jesus’ story is irresponsible, self-indulgent and behaves shamefully, and so folks would’ve been challenged to see themselves in the older son as well as those oldest children in the Genesis stories.



In the ancient world and even still today, oldest sons were favored, becoming the head of the family when their father died. And yet God turns that on its head, having the older serve the younger, perhaps as a reminder that God also favors not the rich but the poor, the orphan, and the widow—the most vulnerable of God’s people. God desires that human beings be moral and ethical by caring for and favoring those whom God favors.



In the three parables that Jesus tells in this chapter, God favors the lost: the lost coin, the lost sheep, and the lost son. But which son is lost? It looks like it’s the younger son. His father cries out, “…for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” But the older son is lost too. The father begins the party without him. The father has two sons but he has forgotten to count both of them.



This story is less about repentance and forgiveness and more about the work of reconciliation. What if Jesus was just trying to get the tax collectors and sinners and the scribes and Pharisees to sit down and eat together, which is no small thing? What if God’s grace isn’t a competition? What if equal rights aren’t pie? What if Love isn’t a transaction or a scale to be balanced but something to be joyful about, to be wastefully extravagant with?



We don’t know if the older brother goes into the party. We don’t know if the younger brother changes his ways. We don’t know if the father is able to mend his relationship with his older son or if the two brothers will ever get along. Jesus leaves how the story will end up to us.



Will we go to the party or will we hold onto the past and our resentment? Will we wait for an apology that may never come? Will we hold ourselves accountable for the love we have squandered? Will we seek those who need to be found, even those in our own household? Where in our lives does wholeness and repair need a second chance?



Everywhere we turn these days reconciliation is desperately needed, but humanity is so focused on punishing those who squander, we could end up losing ourselves as well as each other. Prodigal Jesus reminds us that while we were still far off, God loved us first; that everything God has is ours.



Sometimes reconciliation is not humanly possible. With some places, with some people we need to keep our distance. But we can still love them.



None of us are disposable. Everyone needs to be counted. We’re all lost in some way and need finding. All of us have been invited to the party. It’s not about if we deserve it, if they deserve it. None of us do. It’s about what we believe. Do we believe in love that is unconditional, unlimited, and unmerited? For us, for all? And are we ready to look at ourselves that way, to live that way? We are dust and to dust we shall return. Love lavishly given is what makes it all worth it. Amen.

Benediction

May all that is unforgiven in you
Be released
May Holy Love seek what is lost within you
May a new compassion arise
Wider and deeper than the one before
Go with God, who goes with us
Amen