Joshua 5: 9–12 / Psalm 32 / II Corinthians 5: 16–21 / Luke 15: 1–3, 11b-32
This
is the homily given at Flohr’s Evangelical Lutheran Church (ELCA) in
McKnightstown, Pennsylvania on Sunday March 30, 2025 by Fr. Gene Tucker.
“WE CAN’T, BUT GOD CAN”
(Homily text: Luke 15: 1–3, 11b –32)
This morning, we encounter the familiar
Parable of the Prodigal Son.
Our Lord’s teaching in this parable (remember that He is a master story teller) centers around the idea of something that was lost, but then is found again. In Luke’s Gospel account, chapter fifteen, this parable follows two others which also have to do with lost things: The Parable of the Lost Sheep (verses one through seven), and the Parable of the Lost Coin (verses eight through ten).[1]
The theme of these three teachings,
then, is to focus on something that is lost, but then is found by the owner/keeper/father.
In the last of these three parables,
the lost item is, by far, the most valuable: The father’s son.
The contrast in this last parable
couldn’t be sharper, for it centers on the lost (and deplorable) condition of
the younger son, compared to the security of the father.
Before we look at the implications of
the lessons to be learned from this parable, let’s mention a couple of
unresolved aspects of the parable:
·
Once
the younger son has spent all of his father’s inheritance, does the father
restore that inheritance again? (My guess would be that the father doesn’t
restore or make up for the lost wealth, and – I think – the text seems to
support that conclusion.)
·
Why
does the father not call the older son out from the fields once his younger
brother has returned home? Why does the
father initiate the celebration, but leaves the son out of it? (Here, I think,
the reason might be that the father is so overjoyed at the younger son’s return
that he overlooks calling for the older son to come in from the field.[2])
In the very early Church, a common way of interpreting the meaning of the Scriptures was to use analogy. By that we mean that, essentially, analogy is this = that. So, the purpose of this parable might have been for our Lord to portray to his listeners (God’s chosen people, the Jews) that their true spiritual condition resembles the older son’s state more accurately than the younger son’s. We might explore this idea a bit…The older son relies on his achievements as the basis for respect in the father’s estimation. “I have always followed your commands,” he says. In a similar way, God’s chosen people at the time of our Lord’s earthly ministry relied on their faithful adherence to the Laws of Moses (Torah). In response, Jesus reminds them that God requires “mercy, not sacrifice”.[3]
To follow God’s commands so closely
does indicate that God’s people are somewhat aware of God’s sovereignty and
God’s nature and God’s desire to possess a people for Himself.
So, we can say that – like the older
son – that son (and God’s people, by analogy) get “half a mark” in their walk
with God.
But Jesus makes clear that it is the
younger son who finds favor with the father (God, by analogy).
How so?
The younger son “comes to himself” in a foreign land, but only when he’s reached the very bottom of existence: He works for a farmer, feeding pigs. (Recall that, for God’s people, pigs are unclean animals. This means that the younger son is also unclean, by being with unclean animals.) By this time, Jesus tells us, the younger son’s money and whatever assets he took with himself when he left home are gone. Jesus tells us, furthermore, that no one in the foreign country gave him anything.[4]
Now, the younger son realizes where he
can get help: From home, and from his father.
It’s interesting that Jesus relates to
us the rehearsal of the younger son’s speech, once he encounters his father
upon his return home. But note that the younger son doesn’t get to finish all
of that speech, for the father interrupts him midway. (I think this is an
important aspect of the story, and one which shows how eager the father (God)
is to welcome the new life that the younger son’s return means. It also mirrors
the two previous parables in chapter fifteen, when Jesus tells us that the
finder of the lost sheep and the lost coin each say, “Rejoice with me, for that
which was lost is found”.
Perhaps the point of this parable is to
make clear that we are to be mindful of God’s goodness, God’s holiness, and
God’s love, all three. At the same time, we are to be mindful that – absent
God’s presence and God’s intervention in our lives – we’d be pretty much in the
same boat as the younger son who’s fallen into the depths of life.
Once we see the contrast between God’s
love and God’s holiness and our condition absent those things, we can see how
central the movement of the Holy Spirit is to make us aware of our lost-ness
absent God’s work and presence, and to see how blessed we are when some measure
of God’s desire for the way in which we live our lives enables us to move
closer to God’s ideals. To be sure, absent the movement and work of the Holy
Spirit, no amendment of life is possible. We must remain aware of that reality.
We pray then, for the Holy Spirit to
come before us and ahead of us, to prepare our hearts and minds to see
ourselves as God sees us, as extraordinarily important creations of God,
deliberate and beautiful creations, and yet, as creations that require remaking
and remolding into the image of God. Such a remaking and remolding begins, as
it did for the younger son in today’s parable, with the need each of us has to
“come to ourselves” and realize how helpless we are to move toward God’s
ideals.
AMEN.
[1] It’s possible that Jesus didn’t tell all
three of these parables in the order in which Luke presents them. Luke may have
had in mind presenting these three related parables together to emphasize the
importance – to God – of the recovery of things that are lost, and – in
particular – people that are lost.
[2] If we follow the analogical method of text
interpretation, perhaps the Lord is pointing out that God’s chosen people will
be left out of God’s plans if they do not realize their own need for repentance
and amendment of life. By the time of Luke’s composition of his Gospel account,
this reality was beginning to take shape, as the Gospel message went out into
the Greco-Roman world, where it was embraced by Gentiles.
[3] Matthew 9:13
[4] If we think about it, this is the essential meaning of Baptism, for it is to be buried in a death like Jesus’, but to be raised to new life in a resurrection like His (see Romans 6:3 – 9). Baptism is a sort-of “bottoming out”, an admission of our own helplessness to bring about new and godly life.
