First Mennonite Church
March 23, 2025
Text: Luke 1511-32
Last week, Lilian and I were listening to a presentation addressed to parents of young and teenage children. “You should allow your children to reap what the sow,” was the refrain, almost. The speaker was telling parents that not allowing their children to reap what the sow in the end will hurt both the parents and the child. If a parent runs to save his son or daughter from suffering the consequences of their poor choices or of mishandling their money, the child will always be happy but the parents will always be miserable.
The parable of Jesus about the father of two is quite the opposite.
The fifteenth chapter according to the Gospel of Luke is one in which Luke records three related parables of Jesus on the theme of something or someone getting lost and being recovered. We saw the first two stories last Sunday. Then from verses 11-32, Jesus tells the story of the lost son. And although each of these stories has a great lesson in itself, it is very important for us to see the reasons Jesus told them. Verses one and two tell us the reasons: 15:1 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 15:2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” On the one hand, sinners and tax collectors were coming closer to listen to Jesus. On the other hand, the Pharisees were grumbling because Jesus was so welcoming to those coming to him.
The pious religious class was having trouble with Jesus. They rather be found dead than mingle with sinners and tax collectors. I wonder how we would feel if Jesus were alive today and we saw him in the company of those who make a living by exploiting the weak or with those who do not fit the marks of basic morality. The Pharisees and the teachers of the Law were not at ease with the kind of people Jesus was surrounded by. They thought if Jesus was indeed the kind of man he said he was, or what people said he was, he would avoid sinners and tax collectors.
Sinner is the term used by the religious people of Jesus’ time to describe those who led immoral lives: adulterers, swindlers and people who followed a dishonorable occupation which involved immorality and dishonesty: prostitutes, tax collectors, donkey drivers, peddlers or tanners. These were people considered too far away from God that their chances of returning to Him were few, if any at all. The word “Pharisees” means “separated ones,” thus for the sake of upholding their identity they could not have fellowship with immoral people.
But mingling with sinners was more than Jesus’ pastoral strategy, it was his mission, especially toward those Luke tells us were coming to him.
For that reason, he told a third story, the Parable of the Prodigal Son. This story has many troubling cultural elements in it.
There is this man who has two sons and the younger of them requests his share of the inheritance. Such a request for inheritance during the lifetime of a parent is not only disrespectful but also implies: “Why don’t you just die?” And even if the father may have dissuaded his son about his request, he gave the son the established portion for a non-firstborn son. Because not everything that was given was in cash, it is likely the son hastily cashed everything for whatever price he could get and took off to a faraway land.
It must be very difficult for parents to see their children make wrong choices. It also must feel very helpless to see your child go where you do not approve. This is the case of this young man. The act of selling everything and heading to a faraway land implied that this young man thought of never again laying foot in his hometown. He thought he was leaving for good.
Whatever money he had he “squandered it all in wild living.” And soon he was without money and without friends. Then a great famine came to the land. He was in need. He had to turn on to one of the citizens of the land. He was sent to care for pigs. I can imagine the gestures of repulsion expressed by the listeners when Jesus mentioned the kind of job the young man had to do. Even more so when according to the story, this young man came to the point of wanting to feed himself with animal feed for pigs. That was so humiliating. That was as we say, “hitting rock bottom.” If the story had ended here, the Pharisees would have felt just affirmed, for this would be the natural consequence for anyone who wanders away from home and away from God. But the story did not end there. It continued.
The young man came to his right mind and remembered that even the hired hands at his father’s house were faring better than he. They had their dignity intact; they had food to eat, and a place to live, while he was starving and nobody wanted to give him anything to eat. His coming to his right mind only happened when he hit the lowest point in his life. He then remembered his father’s house. So he formulated a confession and said, “I will get up and go to my father and will say to him…”
Nobody savors more the incomparable joy being alive, of having God’s salvation, or the love of God than a person who has experienced a close call with death, or been living with guilt, or in the depth of moral, spiritual or social misery. It is only when a person has known what it is to be without love, or been tormented in his or her soul that the peace of God’s grace is like bringing light where there was utter darkness, where his love is like living in a new world, and his eternal hope like waking up in a new world.
Almost two weeks ago, a gentleman sitting next to Lilian and me, at a church leaders meeting, told us the story of the man who designed a business card-size evangelistic track to do outreach. This man was in his mid-thirties and had everything material, but love, peace of mind, joy, and hope. He got so tired of seeking satisfaction in everything he had or could buy. One day he decided to go out and kill as many as he could with the hopes that he would get killed by the police—suicide by police to end his misery. He decided to take a shower, so at least his body would be clean, he thought to himself. While showering, he felt something in his heart to try to talk to God. So, he said, “God, if you are real, you know what I want to do today. If you are real, please do something for me.” Right then he felt something like a warm light running from his head and down through his body, like a cleansing wash that was deeper than that of the water falling on him. And he fell on his knees crying because he realized that the hatred he had for himself and others, suddenly vanished. He wanted to live, and he did not feel like wanting to hurt others either.
This young man touched rock bottom in his life, but from there God raised him to a new life.
Jesus said that While the young man was still far away, his father saw him and recognized him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
This scene is very touching!
Here is a person who had been gone for some time, who had undergone severe physical, mental, and emotional suffering—hunger and wild living, dressed in smelly rags, stumbling along the way, rejected by fair weather friends, yet he was recognized at first sight by his loving father. There are some possible cultural implications the father had to run to receive his son. Maybe the villagers had vowed that such a stubborn and wretched young man would never again set foot in town, thus the father had to secure his safety. But for whatever reason, the father’s heart of compassion overcomes everything.
Jesus, in revealing the splendor of God’s love, received even the wretched. God in no way stops loving anyone who wanders away from him. He is eagerly waiting for their return. God is waiting for us to come back to him. No matter if we come only because we are tired of living a life that was getting us nowhere. It doesn’t matter to God if we only come to Him because we have proven that wandering away from God is not the wisest choice. Whatever the reason you and I have for coming to God, he will always welcome us with wide and open arms. He will fill us with tender kisses.
The young man did not get a chance to recite his confession before he was smothered with hugs and kisses. Instead of having to repay all that he had squandered or to gain his status of sonship again, the Father reinstated him as family member by putting a ring on his finger, dressed him gallantly, and offered a banquet in his honor.
Now the older brother was in the field. When he was coming he heard the sound of dance and music. He was taken aback by what was happening. When he knew the reason for the celebration he was mad. At this point, it is clear that the whole village has reconciled with the rebellious son. However, now it is the older son who is becoming rebellious and non-forgiving to his very own brother. He was furious and did not want to join the celebration. Listen carefully what he said to his father when he was requested to join in: “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 15:30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!”
While the younger son who had spent his inheritance and wanted to be accepted as a hired man, the older son who had never left home feels he had worked like a slave. The younger son was given a great welcome and the older son now refuses to enter his own house. While the whole village celebrates a family reunion, the older brother disowns his brother and father: “when this son of yours came back”.
The attitude the father had for the lost son was the same he had for the older son. “Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 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.”
For those of us who have been in the Father’s house for many years, this parable is a good reminder that even when we have stayed here all our lives, God will love those who would come to him regardless of what kind of life they have lived. God’s love is equal for all.
Dear brothers and sisters, as I close the series on outreach, I want us to take notice of something in this third parable. In the two previous ones, the sheep went away and got lost. In the second, the coin also got lost. In these two parables, what was lost only got recovered when the shepherd went out looking for his lost sheep. The woman who lost her coin only found it when she determined to sweep the whole house, lit her lamp, and searched diligently that she found the coin.
In today’s parable, there is something completely different. The lost young man came to his senses after hitting rock bottom in his life. He remembered his father and his home.
There are people out there who either because they are hitting rock bottom in their lives or because the Spirit of God waking up their spirits, or because they are searching for real meaning in life, but the case is that there are people who want to or are seeking God. They might come to God in tatters like the young son in our parable. But the lesson for us is, let us not be like the older brother who refused to welcome his own brother. Instead, let us be like Jesus who welcomed everyone who was searching for God’s love and salvation. Amen!
Pastor Romero