Reading 16
The son who came home
The reading
Luke 15:11-32
He said, "A certain man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of your property.' He divided his livelihood between them. Not many days after, the younger son gathered all of this together and traveled into a far country. There he wasted his property with riotous living. When he had spent all of it, there arose a severe famine in that country, and he began to be in need. He went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed pigs. He wanted to fill his belly with the husks that the pigs ate, but no one gave him any.
"But when he came to himself he said, 'How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough to spare, and I'm dying with hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and will tell him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants."' He arose, and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. 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 servants, 'Bring out the best robe, and put it on him. Put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. Bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat, and celebrate; for this, my son, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.' They began to celebrate.
"Now his elder son was in the field. As he came near to the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the servants to him, and asked what was going on. He said to him, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and healthy.' But he was angry, and would not go in. Therefore his father came out, and begged him. But he answered his father, 'Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed a commandment of yours, but you never gave me a goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this your son came, who has devoured your living with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.' He said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But it was appropriate to celebrate and be glad, for this, your brother, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found.'"
The companions
Psalm 51:1-12 (selected)
Have mercy on me, God, according to your loving kindness. According to the multitude of your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity. Cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions. My sin is constantly before me. Purify me with hyssop, and I will be clean. Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow. Create in me a clean heart, O God. Renew a right spirit within me. Don't throw me from your presence, and don't take your holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Uphold me with a willing spirit.
Jeremiah 31:18-20 (selected)
I have surely heard Ephraim grieving thus, 'You have chastised me, and I was chastised, as an untrained calf. Turn me, and I will be turned; for you are the LORD my God.' Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I still earnestly remember him. Therefore my heart yearns for him. I will surely have mercy on him, says the LORD.
A word for the week
Which of the two sons in this story are you? Hold the question, because the parable has a trap in it, and the trap is that most of us assume we are the good one. A man has two sons. The younger asks for his inheritance early, which in that culture was as good as saying, I wish you were dead, I want your things without waiting for you to go. And the father, astonishingly, gives it to him. He lets him go. Love does not cage.
The son takes the money to a far country and burns through it on wild living, and when it is gone, a famine hits, and he ends up feeding pigs, which for a Jewish boy is as low and unclean as it gets, and he is so hungry he envies the pigs their slop. And there, in the muck, comes the line the whole story turns on: he came to himself. He remembered whose son he was. Even my father's hired hands eat better than this, he thinks; I will go home and say, Father, I have sinned, I am not worthy to be your son, make me a servant. He rehearses his little speech. He is not sure he will be taken back at all.
Now watch the father, because this is the heart of it, the truest picture of God we have. While the son is still a long way off, the father sees him, which means the father had been watching the road, every day, scanning the horizon for a boy who might never come. And he runs. In that world a dignified older man did not run; it was shameful, he would have to hoist up his robes and show his legs like a child. The father does not care. He runs down the road and throws his arms around the filthy, pig-smelling boy and kisses him before the son can even finish his rehearsed speech. There is no lecture, no probation, no earning back. This son of mine was dead, the father says, and is alive again. That is grace, and it is scandalous, and it is what God is actually like.
Look at the gifts, too, because each one un-says something the son had planned to say. He had rehearsed, make me as one of your hired servants, and the father talks right over it. The robe was the best in the house, the honor he thought he had forfeited. The ring carried the family seal, the authority of a son who can act in his father's name. The shoes were what free men wore; servants went barefoot. Before the boy can finish demoting himself, the father has dressed him as a son three times over. Grace does not meet you halfway down the ladder you built for yourself. It puts you back at the table.
But the parable does not end there, and here is where the trap springs. The older son, the responsible one who stayed and worked and never disobeyed, comes in from the field, hears the party, and refuses to go in. He is furious. All these years I served you, he says, and you never threw me a party, but for this son of yours who wasted everything, you kill the fattened calf. And you realize, with a jolt, that the older son is also lost, standing outside his father's house, only he never left home to do it. He obeyed everything and understood nothing. He thought he was earning his father's love by his performance, and so he cannot bear to watch it given free to someone who did not earn it at all.
That is the trap, and it is aimed at the religious, the dutiful, the ones who have kept the rules. It is possible to be near God your whole life and have the heart of a stranger, resentful of grace, keeping a ledger, unable to celebrate a rescue. The father goes out to this son too, notice, and pleads with him just as tenderly: son, you are always with me, everything I have is yours; but we had to celebrate, because your brother was dead and is alive. The story ends without telling us whether the older son went in. It is left open, because it is a question, and the question is for you. The father is running toward both of his children. Both. Will you come in to the feast?
At the table
Which son are you today: the one who ran off, or the one who stayed and quietly kept a ledger? What is keeping you from the feast, and can you hear the father pleading with you to come in?
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain). The divine name is rendered "the LORD" in the prophet reading.