Paul Walker, “Will The Parable’s Real Name Please Stand Up?”"
Today we have the parable of the Prodigal Son, perhaps the most famous of all Jesus’ stories. We call it the parable of the Prodigal Son, but it could also becalled the parable of the Unforgiving Elder Brother. Or it could and perhaps should be called the parable of the Gracious Father.
There is actually one more name for the parable – the name that captures the deepest meaning of the parable. It really is the key that opens the locked door, the X on the treasure map, the aha moment that brings all the pieces of the puzzle together. However, a good sermon should be like a good mystery novel, or a good joke, so I’ll hold the punch line till the end. I bet you all are really on the edge of your pews now!!
The Prodigal Son, the Unforgiving Elder Brother, and the Gracious Father all make strong plays for the starring role. To give us a cast description, I’ll call on C.S. Lewis. Lewis says that there are 3 types of people in this world. “The first class”, he says, “is of those who live simply for their own sake and pleasure, regarding Man and Nature as so much raw material to be cut up into whatever shape may serve them.”
To this class of people belongs the Prodigal Son, of course. The raw material he cuts up into pleasing shapes are his father’s money, an overflowing liquor cabinet, and a steady supply of prostitutes. That, by the way, isn’t reading into the text. That is what is meant by “dissolute living.” And to make matters worse, he is guilty of a kind of patricide. He demands his inheritance. Obviously, you get an inheritance when someone dies, not before. Absurdly, his father agrees. I mean, can you even imagine doing that?
I’m not going to spend much time on the younger son, although he is the juiciest of the characters. Because if you are in church, you are probably not a true younger son, simply and solely living for your own sake and pleasure. Of course, you have some younger son in you – some part of you is dying to go on Spring Break. Every time I listen to The Doors I get a little itchy. But those pleasures don’t ultimately fulfill you, even when you break on through to the other side. If you are in church, you probably realize that. There really isn’t much there on the other side.
I’m not sure that is exactly what happens to the Prodigal Son. He just spends every cent father’s money on bar tabs and brothels. And as he is out of options, he has no choice but to go back home. He concocts a canned speech to give to the father that he symbolically murdered: “Father I have sinned against heaven and before you….” I’m not sure he believed this schtick, but he sure hoped his father would.
Let’s leave the Parable of the Prodigal Son there, and go to the Parable of the Elder Brother, who resides in Lewis’ second type of person – “those who acknowledge some other claim upon them – the will of God, the categorical imperative, or the good of society – and honestly try to pursue their own interests no further than this claim will allow. They try to surrender to the higher claim as much as it demands, like men paying a tax, but hope, like other taxpayers, that what is left over will be enough for them to live on.” Lewis says that most of us belong to this class of people and most of us are “are always and necessarily unhappy. The tax which moral conscience levies on our desires does not in fact leave enough to live on. As long as we are in this class we must either feel guilt because we have not paid the tax or penury because we have.”
The Elder Brother is definitely in this class of people. He is like the Steve Martin character in the movie Parenthood, who, saddled by the demands of job, marriage. When his wife asks “Do you really have to go on that business trip?”, he responds, “I feel like my whole life is ‘have to’”. He says as much to his father: “Listen! For all these years I have working like a slave for you.”
Do you feel like this? There are, of course, obligations in the world that we must fulfill. That is part of being a responsible human being. But, when it comes to God, there is no “have to.” And here were turn to the Parable of the Gracious Father. He is clearly in Lewis’ third class of people. People who “have got rid of the tiresome business of adjusting the rival claims of Self and God by the simple expedient of rejecting the claims of Self altogether. The old egoistic will has been turned round, reconditioned, and made into a new thing.”
Having been completely humiliated by his younger son (imagine what the neighbors say!), he further humiliates himself by waiting on his front porch each day looking for his son’s return. While his son is still “far off”, he spots him. The Gracious Father, pulls up his robes (more humiliation) and runs to his wayward son. Fathers aren’t supposed to do this.
I have friend with a “father wound.” He goes to see his dad, really out of obligation, out of have to. When he enters his dad’s house, his dad just stays in his chair. The visit is usually tense. “Why haven’t you called me?”, his father says. He wants to say, but doesn’t, “Well, dad, you have a phone too. Why haven’t you called me?”
Not so for the father in the Parable of the Gracious Father. He is “filled with compassion”, runs to his son, wraps him in a big bear hug, and doesn’t even listen to his son’s canned speech. Instead of lesson learning and retribution, he throws him a raging party. The saddest scene in this story is the Elder Brother, arms crossed, refusing to go into have a drink, deaf to his father’s pleading.
Okay – time to do the big reveal. Will the parable’s real name please stand up? As salacious as the Prodigal son is, as relatable as the Elder Brother is, and as extraordinary as the Gracious Father is, the real star of the show is found elsewhere. While holding his profligate (and likely malodorous) son in his arms, the father says, “'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!'” And they began to celebrate.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Parable of the Fatted Calf Who Was Killed. It is the Parable of the Lamb Who Was Slain Before the Foundation of the World for the Sins of the World. The fatted calf gave his life so they could “celebrate.” Just as Jesus Christ gave His life so we could be wrapped in our Father’s arms, robed in the righteousness of Christ, and seated at a table laden with food and wine.
I’ll close with a snippet from Amor Towles new novel, The Lincoln Highway. A nun at juvenile detention center says, “Boys, in your time you shall do wrong unto others and others shall do wrong unto you. And these opposing wrongs will become your chains. The wrongs you have done unto others will be bound to you in the form of guilt, and the wrongs that others have done unto you in the form of indignation. Jesus Christ our Savior is there to free you from both. To free you from guilt through (His) atonement, and to free you from indignation through (His) forgiveness.”
The Parable of the Fatted Calf. What does the great hymn say? “My chains fell off, my heart was free, I rose, went forth and followed Thee. Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou my God should die for me?”
Amen.
