Finding Grace in the Lost and Found

Introduction

            During my girls’ elementary school and middle school years, we made more than a few trips to the school’s lost and found. Unfortunately, more things remained lost than were found. However, there was great relief and sometimes joy when something of perceived value was actually recovered. I’ve heard friends tell me some great stories of finding something of great value they thought they had lost—a family heirloom, a pet, and even a wedding ring. However, absolutely nothing compares to the stories of personal redemption that people have shared with me. People lost in their substance abuse, lost in their sex addictions, lost in their abusive relationships and lost as they turned their back on God. Stories of how God never stopped waiting for them and looking for them and when they were at their lowest point and they cried out to God for help, how God came running to take them back and love them back to wholeness. This is the essence of Jesus’ story of the Prodigal Son. Do you know why I love this story? Because it’s my story! It’s probably everyone’s story to a certain degree—it applies to those who don’t know God yet eventually call out to Him when all else has failed them and it applies to those who have known and loved God yet have been entice by sin to turn away from Him. This week I want to take a close look at the story of the Prodigal Son and maybe you’ll see yourself in the story as I see myself in the story.

Luke 15:11-32

            ¹¹ Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. ¹² The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. ¹³ “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. ¹⁴ After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵ So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. ¹⁶ He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. ¹⁷ “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! ¹⁸ I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹ I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ ²⁰ So he got up and went to his father. “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. ²¹ “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ ²² “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³ Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. ²⁴ For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate. ²⁵ “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶ So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ²⁷ ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ ²⁸ “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. ²⁹ But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰ But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ ³¹ “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³² But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”

Context

            It’s hard to keep track of what’s going on in these chapters of Luke’s gospel because Jesus begins to tell story after story after story. So let me remind you of the setting within which Jesus is giving us this teaching. Chapter 14 tells us that it is the Sabbath and Jesus has been invited to eat at the house of a prominent Pharisee. Well wherever there’s one Pharisee, there’s bound to be more together with teachers of the law, and this occasion was no different. But try and picture this, large crowds were traveling with Jesus and among them were tax collectors and “sinners” who gathered around Jesus to hear him speak. The fact that there were uninvited guests in the house was not necessarily unexpected. As stated in a previous lesson (See previous post—Title: “A Life Transformed,” Label: Pastoral Care, Date: 6/13/12) it was customary at high-profile gatherings such as this to leave the door open so that the public could enter or stand outside the door if there was no room so the discussions inside the house could be heard. Unfortunately for the Pharisees, those who usually followed Jesus lived unpopular, ordinary and usually very messy lives—I guess some things don’t change regardless of how much time passes. But it’s the perfect setting for the story of the Prodigal Son so let’s take a look at Jesus’ teaching.

Parable Explanation

            Jesus begins his story in vv. 11-12 by introducing us to a man with two sons. The young son insists that his father give him his share of his father’s estate. The younger son would customarily receive half as much as the older son. However, the father had the right to do whatever he wanted with his wealth. It was generally understood that inheritance would have been distributed upon the father’s death. However, exception to this practice could also be determined by the father. Nevertheless, Judaism frowned on the practice of inheritance distribution prior to death stating: “‘To son or wife, to brother or friend, give no power over yourself while you live; and give not your goods to another so as to have to ask for them again.’”[1] But don’t miss something very crucial in this exchange. The son is not just saying that he wants his inheritance, he’s in essence telling his father that he wishes he was dead! “The son clearly looks to sever his relationship to his father and go away.”[2] Think about the pain and insult the father must have felt. Nevertheless, the father honors his request and lets him go.

            In vv.13-16 we have the unfolding story of the son’s new-found freedom apart from his father. Come on! This isn’t too hard to imagine is it? Most experts believe that the young son is just a teenager. So now we have a teenager with a wad of money in his pocket and without the constraint of rules from his father’s house…what could possibly go wrong? Well we soon find out that a carefree life without rules is not always what it’s cut out to be. Nevertheless, the son leaves behind the familiarity of home for the adventure of a distant country. “‘A distant country’ already suggests the non-Jewish world, and this identification is helped along by the prominence of pigs, abhorrent to Jewish sensibilities, in the story.”[3] The text tells us that he squandered his wealth on wild living. The Greek word used for squander paints a picture of “Tossing one’s possessions into the wind.”[4] No sooner had he run out of money when a famine envelops the entire country where he is currently living. That’s when things go from bad to awful.

“Had he possessed his initial, relative wealth he might have been able to ride out the ensuing period of depressed economy. Having spent all he had, however, he had little recourse but to locate himself in a situation wherein he has not only shamed his father, but has plummeted from his status as the son of a large landowner to that of the ‘unclean and degraded,’ for whom even the life of a day laborer would be preferable.”[5]

            In our culture, it is difficult to see the gravity of the son’s situation. He was left with the choice of dying or herding pigs—as though one would be better than the other for a Jew. Pigs were an unclean animal. This represents the absolute bottom for him. He is so low that even the despised pigs are eating while he is starving. He would gladly eat with the pigs at this point if someone would allow it. Let me try and paint a picture of what his life looks like: He insulted his father, he has no money left, he’s starving, he has committed countless sins, he is working in and among unclean animals and no one will help him—he is all alone, he is at the end of the line, he has hit bottom.

            In vv. 17-20a we see that there at the bottom, he begins to realizes that something has to change. He recognizes the irony in his situation that his father’s slaves are better off than he is. They have more than enough food while he is starving to death. At this point he devises a plan to return home to his father—but after what he’d said and done, how could he?

“The struggling son decides to acknowledge his folly before God and to his father. This combination is a merism to indicate that he sinned against God and his father…The son will act quickly and humbly. He knows he has forfeited all rights to sonship and inheritance, but it is better to cast himself on his father’s mercy than remain in a distant land, living a life lower than the unclean beasts and suffering hunger. The confession pictures his repentance, coming to the father bearing nothing but his need…He accepts the consequences of his choices. There are no excuses, only confession and a humble request. The picture shows what repentance looks like: no claims, just reliance on God’s mercy and provision.”[6]

            The son acknowledges to himself that the “something” his father’s servants has is better than the “nothing” he has so he sets out on his way home.

            Vv. 20b-24 lead off with my favorite part of the entire story. The text says that while the son was still a long way from home, his father saw him and started running to him, when he reached him, he took him in his arms and kissed him. This scene touches my heart at the deepest level. As a father, I can recognize my girls from a long way off. I know how they look from the back, from the side and from the front even at a great distance. But that’s not what I want to bring to your attention. The text leaves us with the distinct impression that the father was watching for him. Maybe he happened to be in the right place at the right time or maybe he was regularly watching for him. Don’t forget, this is a parable, it is a story with a deeper meaning. I believe it paints a picture that the father is waiting, watching, always anticipating and hoping for the son’s return. I want you to notice something else in the text that we generally breeze right over—the father “ran” to his son. This may not seem unusual to you and me but in that culture, it would be quite rare to see a wealthy, respected and elderly man running anywhere! Add to this the public display of affection of the very son that had shamed him publicly and we see a beautiful picture of the father’s merciful and compassionate heart.

            The son, however, is not deterred from his plan. No doubt he recognizes the warmth and acceptance from his father but he, nevertheless, confesses his sins to his father with the deepest humility and no expectation to be treated as a son. I envision the scene in my mind as the father is holding his son’s face in his hands and looking at him intently as his son is speaking but acts as though he hears nothing his son says. Instead, even before his son is finished speaking, he directs his servants to drape the son with a robe, place a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. “The embrace, the kiss, and gifts of robe, ring and sandals—these are all emblematic of the son’s honorable restoration to the family he had snubbed and abandoned.”[7] Thereafter the father orders the celebration to begin and the party is on! But why? Why did the father make such a big deal out his son’s return? Well because the son’s shame and abandonment meant that he was dead to his father and family. He was lost, his father had lost a son. I can’t even imagine the anguish of losing a child spiritually or physically. Sadly, some of you have so you know very well what the father must have been going through when his son returned. What had been lost was now found and the only response was joy and celebration.

            In vv. 25-32 the older son re-enters the scene. There must have been some party at the house because the older son could hear the music and dancing from the field. When he asks a servant what is going on, he is told that his brother has returned and his father has ordered a celebration. He is incredulous! So much so that he won’t even go into the house. The older son tries to make a case for himself to his father as the faithful son who served him and honored him while his brother did neither. But it appears the older son, even while he stayed behind and fulfilled his proper duties, didn’t know his father very well. How could he not know that his father would react in this way to his brother’s return? The older son is angry—he sees himself as having done everything right while his brother has done everything wrong yet his brother is celebrated and he isn’t. He wants his own celebration, he wants his own fattened calf, he doesn’t want a celebration for his brother, he wants justice! The father addresses the older son gently, in love and understanding—the Greek is translated in our idiom as “my child.” But the father makes it clear that celebrating the younger son’s return in no way negates the value of the older son’s faithfulness.

“He affirms the faithfulness of the elder brother and his special place in his heart. He accepts that his son has always been at his side. He reminds the son that all he owns belongs to him; neither the father’s activity nor the brother’s return in any way diminishes the elder’s status…the elder should not lose sight of the benefits he has always had because of his access to the father. In a sense, he has always had access to the celebration. The animals are his!”[8]

But the younger son relinquished the benefits of being a son by turning his back on his father. He was already suffering the self-inflicted wounds of arrogance, pride, sin and disobedience. What would harsh justice/punishment by the father accomplish? Perhaps the father believed the consequences endured by the younger son were sufficient. In any event, the father’s focus was on reconciliation not on justice/punishment. The father refuses to focus on anything other than the fact that his son was once lost but is now found.

Application

            Although the story is known as the parable of the Prodigal Son it really should be titled the Loving Father because the father’s actions are really what stand out don’t they? I mean, many, if not most of us can associate very closely with the prodigal son, lots of us can relate to the older brother. Some of us can even associate our lives with both of them. But few of us can associate our lives with the father. The depth of the father’s love is just so foreign to many of us. We can relate to the prodigal son’s need for reconciliation, we can relate to the older son’s desire for justice, but can we relate to the father’s attitude of grace? We struggle with trying to determine exactly where forgiving sin and condoning sin intersect so that we don’t offend either.

“It was the music and dancing that offended the older son. Of course, let the younger son return home. Judaism and Christianity have clear provisions for the restoration of the penitent returnee, but where does it say that such provisions include a banquet with music and dancing? Yes, let the prodigal return, but to bread and water, not fatted calf; in sackcloth, not a new robe; wearing ashes, not a new ring; in tears, not in merriment; kneeling, not dancing. Has the party canceled the seriousness of sin and repentance?...The father not only had two sons but loved two sons, went out to two sons and was generous to two sons. Perhaps it is because of the competitive rather than cooperative spirit of our society, but the common thought is that there must be losers if there are winners. Hence, even in religion, it is very difficult not to think Jews or Greek, rich or poor, saint or sinner, publican or Pharisee, older son or younger son. But God’s love is both/and not either/or. The embrace of the younger son did not mean the rejection of the older; the love of tax collectors and sinners does not at all negate love of Pharisees and scribes.”[9]

The life of faith is in seeing people from God’s perspective not from ours. God is first and foremost in the business of reconciliation. Justice and punishment for sin is also very important which is why Jesus died on a cross to pay for all the things we did wrong so we could be reconciled to God. You see, God’s plan has always been about relationship and reconciliation to restore relationship not about justice and punishment. Justice and punishment are necessary in order to make reconciliation available. Now that Jesus has paid the price on the cross, the Father comes running to meet us as we turn back toward him. Justice has been served; punishment has been meted out. Repentance (turning away from sin and toward God) leads to forgiveness which leads to a party of reconciliation! I hope you might someday love the story of the Prodigal Son (or Loving Father) as much as I do. Sometimes we read these stories and we (ok maybe just I do) put a lot of thought into the theology of the story and miss the deep and gentle beauty of the actual story because we know it’s a parable with fictional characters that is intended to convey a deeper spiritual truth. So I wanted to share another story with you from Philip Yancey’s book, What’s So Amazing About Grace, about a teenage runaway. This isn’t a parable so you don’t need to think really hard about some deeper spiritual meaning. It’s a story about Finding Grace In The Lost And Found.

“A young girl grows up on a cherry orchard just above Traverse City, Michigan. Her parents, a bit old-fashioned, tend to overreact to her nose ring, the music she listens to, and the length of her skirts. They ground her a few times, and she seethes inside. ‘I hate you!’ she screams at her father when he knocks on the door of her room after an argument, and that night she acts on a plan she has mentally rehearsed scores of times. She runs away.

She has visited Detroit only once before, on a bus trip with her church youth group to watch the Tigers play. Because newspapers in Traverse City report in lurid detail the gangs, the drugs, and the violence in downtown Detroit, she concludes that is probably the last place her parents will look for her. California, maybe, or Florida, but not Detroit.

Her second day there she meets a man who drives the biggest car she’s ever seen. He offers her a ride, buys her lunch, arranges a place for her to stay. He gives her some pills that make her feel better than she’s ever felt before. She was right all along, she decides: her parents were keeping her from all the fun.

The good life continues for a month, two months, a year. The man with the big car—she calls him ‘Boss’—teaches her a few things that men like. Since she’s underage, men pay a premium for her. She lives in a penthouse, and orders room service whenever she wants. Occasionally she thinks about the folks back home, but their lives now seem so boring and provincial that she can hardly believe she grew up there.

She has a brief scare when she sees her picture printed on the back of a milk carton with the headline ‘Have you seen this child?’ But by now she has blond hair, and with all the makeup and body-piercing jewelry she wears, nobody would mistake her for a child. Besides, most of her friends are runaways, and nobody squeals in Detroit.

After a year the first sallow signs of illness appear, and it amazes her how fast the boss turns mean. ‘These days, we can’t mess around,’ he growls, and before she knows it she’s out on the street without a penny to her name. She still turns a couple of tricks a night, but they don’t pay much, and all the money goes to support her habit. When winter blows in she finds herself sleeping on metal grates outside the big department stores. ‘Sleeping’ is the wrong word—a teenage girl at night in downtown Detroit can never relax her guard. Dark bands circle her eyes. Her cough worsens.

One night as she lies awake listening for footsteps, all of a sudden everything about her life looks different. She no longer feels like a woman of the world. She feels like a little girl, lost in a cold and frightening city. She begins to whimper. Her pockets are empty and she’s hungry. She needs a fix. She pulls her legs tight underneath her and shivers under the newspaper she’s piled atop her coat. Something jolts a synapse of memory and a single image fills her mind: of May in Traverse City, when a million cherry trees bloom at once, with her golden retriever dashing through the rows and rows of blossomy trees in chase of a tennis ball.

God, why did I leave, she says to herself, and a pain stabs at her heart. My dog back home eats better than I do now. She’s sobbing, and she knows in a flash that more than anything else in the world she wants to go home.

Three straight phone calls, three straight connections with the answering machine. She hangs up without leaving a message the first two times, but the third time she says, ‘Dad, Mom, it’s me. I was wondering about maybe coming home. I’m catching a bus up your way, and it’ll be there about midnight tomorrow. If you’re not there, well, I guess I’ll just stay on the bus until it hits Canada.’

It takes about seven hours for the bus to make all the stops between Detroit and Traverse City, and during that time she realizes the flaw in her plan. What if her parents are out of town and miss the message? Shouldn’t she have waited another day or so until she could talk to them? And even if they are home, they probably wrote her off as dead long ago. She should have given them some time to overcome the shock.

Her thoughts bounce back and forth between those worries and the speech she is preparing for her father. ‘Dad, I’m sorry. I know I was wrong. It’s not your fault; it’s all mine. Dad, can you forgive me?’ She says the words over and over, her throat tightening even as she rehearses them. She hasn’t apologized to anyone in years.

The bus has been driving with lights on since Bay City. Tiny snowflakes hit the pavement rubbed worn by thousands of tires, and the asphalt steams. She’s forgotten how dark it gets out here. A deer darts across the road and the bus swerves. Every so often, a billboard. A sign posting the mileage to Traverse City. Oh, God.

When the bus finally rolls into the station, its air brakes hissing in protest, the driver announces in a crackly voice over the microphone, ‘Fifteen minutes, folks. That’s all we have here.’ Fifteen minutes to decide her life. She checks herself in a compact mirror, smoothes her hair, and licks the lipstick off her teeth. She looks at the tobacco stains on her fingertips, and wonders if her parents will notice. If they’re there.

She walks into the terminal not knowing what to expect. Not one of the thousand scenes that have played out in her mind prepared her for what she sees. There, in the concrete-walls-and-plastic-chairs bus terminal in Traverse City, Michigan, stands a group of forty brothers and sisters and great-aunts and uncles and cousins and a grandmother and great-grandmother to boot. They’re all wearing goofy party hats and blowing noise-makers, and taped across the entire wall of the terminal is a computer-generated banner that reads ‘Welcome home!’

Out of the crowd of well-wishers breaks her dad. She stares out through the tears quivering in her eyes like hot mercury and begins the memorized speech, ‘Dad, I’m sorry. I know…”

He interrupts her. ‘Hush child. We’ve got no time for that. No time for apologies. You’ll be late for the party. A banquet’s waiting for you at home.’”[10]

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[1] Darrell L. Bock, Luke, The NIV Application Commentary, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1996), p. 412.

[2] Darrell L. Bock, Luke 9:51-24:53, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1996), p. 1310.

[3] Joel B. Green, The Gospel of Luke, The New International Commentary on the New Testament, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997), p. 580.

[4] Bock, Luke, ECNT, p. 1310.

[5] Green, Luke, NICNT, pp. 580-581.

[6] Bock, Luke, ECNT, pp. 1312-1313.

[7] Green, Luke, NICNT, p. 583.

[8] Bock, Luke, ECNT, p. 1319.

[9] Fred B. Craddock, Luke, Interpretation, (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1990), p. 188.

[10] Philip Yancey, What’s So Amazing About Grace, (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1997), pp.49-51.