Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
March 14, 2010
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
From the many parables that Jesus told, this parable of the Prodigal Son is the one that I have preached more on than any of the others. When I was in high school, I preached my very first sermon on a Youth Sunday using this parable by identifying with the younger son. I thought it was acceptable and necessary for young people to demonstrate independence and autonomy in order to come of age. It was appropriate for us young people to protest and question the status quo.
Later on when I became a father of our children and saw how they seemingly were getting back at me for the things that I did to my parents, I identified with the father in this parable. While I was saddened to hear that our children had differences between them, I tried to mediate and pray that they will become more patient and respectful of each other’s view of the world. I wanted them to come together to party and celebrate when they were both together.
As Asians, we have often identified with the older son, Number 1 Son, who was obedient and stayed at home. He’s the one with the family’s name that would carry on the established history of the family onto the next generation. This is the son who is learning all of the home economics so that when the time comes to take over the responsibilities from the father, he would be ready. As Asian American parents, we like the Number 1 Son because he is a good boy.
The Parable
The 15th chapter of Luke actually contains three parables. Before the Prodigal Son, Jesus told the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. Jesus’ telling of these three similar parables was in response to the Pharisees and scribes’ complaints that Jesus was welcoming of the marginalized and outsiders. These religious insiders whom almost no one would have considered “lost,” began to grumble about “this one”—Jesus who welcomes sinners and eats with them.
The story begins with the younger son asking his father for the share of the inheritance that will belong to him. The father gives him his portion and the son travels to a distant land where he lived it up, squandered away all the money and was forced to work like a common laborer but even worst in a pigsty. This type of work was offensive to devout Jews.
After some time, this younger son realized the damages that he did to himself as well as to his father so he decided to come home, seek for forgiveness and was willing to be treated as one of the hired hands in his own father’s house. When the father saw his son coming home from far away, he ran toward the son, hugged him, kissed him and he quickly put a robe on him, a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet and directed his servants to prepare for a homecoming party.
Now if there was a younger son, there must be an older son, Number 1 Son. This son was out in the fields as he always was, working to help the family business thrive. When this older son came close to the house and heard singing and dancing, he asked one of the servants what was going on. When he learned that his younger brother came home, he was angry. The father came outside to invite Number 1 Son in but he refused and complained that for all the years that he was working like a slave making sure the family business was going well, he never was rewarded with a party. He never had a time to invite some of his friends over to celebrate.
As Asians, we may not necessarily like how Number 1 Son pouted and was jealous of what his younger brother got. But we still like the Number 1 Son better because he didn’t waste all that money. He was still a good and obedient son. We can deal with a sometimes pouting and complaining son but we would never tolerate the son who was wayward and irresponsible.
Culturally speaking, both sons treated their father with disrespect. By demanding his portion of inheritance, while his father remains alive, the younger son essentially told his father that he wishes he were dead. The older son acted disrespectfully by refusing to accept his father’s invitation to join the party, not to mention the way he apparently accepts his own inheritance prematurely when he told his father that his brother “devoured your property” thinking that his share was reduced in the process. Furthermore, the older son was thinking that it was his share of the inheritance that was paying for the homecoming party for his disobedient brother.
Older Son
Most of us understand this parable from the perspectives of either the younger son or the loving father. We like the thought that in a culture when the authoritarian father gives up his stature and runs toward the disobedient son that we can find God’s love when we sin against him. The son did not return so much as the father went out to greet and accept him.
But maybe the real point of this parable is not necessarily verses 11-24 but rather verses 25-32. The parable has a long ending about the response of the older son who threw a fit over his younger brother’s return. We overlook that story in order to identify with the prodigal who has returned. But Jesus wanted his audience to identify with that older son, Number 1 Son.
The older son represents the “in-group,” the righteous and good Jews in Jesus’ audience, faithful believers who led pious lives like the Pharisees and the scribes, the established church membership of the 1st century Greek church for whom Luke was writing to. The older son represents the solid, middle-class regular members of our churches today.
The parable is about good folk, it is about us. We prefer to view the parable as all about the prodigal because it takes the heat off of us, and our real need to identify with the older brother.
The older son did not want the younger brother to return. The older brother did not wish to accept the sinners, tax collectors, and even Gentiles to whom Jesus proclaimed the message of the coming kingdom. The older brother did not wish to reach out in spiritual or physical ministry to the slaves, the poor, the outsiders, and the non-Greeks in the 1st century churches. The older brother in modern churches feels uncomfortable admitting into his or her congregation those who are different, marginal, or poor.
If we are the older brother, the Number 1 Son, are we welcoming of all those who may be different from us? When we are mostly middle-class people, are we comfortable with people who are poor? When we are almost all Chinese-Americans, are we comfortable with people who are not Chinese, not Asian, not Americans? When we are English-speaking, are we comfortable with Cantonese-speaking. When we are Cantonese-speaking, are we comfortable with English-speaking?
When we come together as Christ’s church joined in Christian fellowship, how open are we to welcome home those in our communities who don’t know Jesus Christ yet? Are we so possessive of our possessions that we are unwilling to throw a party for those who were once dead but are now found alive to celebrate and rejoice?
Foolish Father
If it were up to the older brother, Number 1 Son, the younger son would not be getting a welcome home party.
The father in the parable is blissfully and some of us may say, “foolishly” generous with his financial resources. We might even accuse him of living wastefully. One member in my Bible study said that she would never give away such a portion of inheritance. “It’s foolish!”
This father gives away his estate to his sons prematurely. He throws a huge party when there should have been repayments and recriminations. The father appears quite fiscally irresponsible—and so disinterested in the kind of materialistic calculations that occupy his two sons. He is only concerned about relationships; by contrast, his sons were focused on money and what they were going to get.
Notice that the father always determines his own actions. He gives the inheritance away of his own choice. He ignores his younger son’s misguided attempts to define reality to be one of the hired workers when the father runs toward his son showering him with hugs and kisses. The father entreats his older son to join the celebration brushing off his rude refusal to enter the house.
The father remains deeply concerned about his sons’ needs and feelings, and yet he always makes his own choices about how to respond to their bad behavior because he is concerned for their overall well-being.
When the older son describes his brother as “this son of yours,” the father gently but firmly redirects the older son’s attempt to distance himself from his brother, he said, “this brother of yours.” The father is seeking to restore damaged relationships.
When Jesus told this parable, he wanted the Pharisees, the scribes, the well-behaving religious leaders and people to rebuild relationships with those who were the sinners, tax collectors and Gentiles. God wants them to be brothers again.
When Luke included this parable for the 1st century Greek churches, he wanted them to welcome all those who were not yet Christians to become a part of the kingdom of God.
When we today in 2010 as the First Chinese Baptist Church hear this parable, Jesus wants us as the older brother, the Number 1 Son to stop being so self-righteous and to see if we have the gracious love that the father has to seek reconciliation and relationships with all those who are different and marginalized and poor in the world. Can the older brother be as gracious as the father?
Open Arms
The parable of the loving father and his two sons was designed to invite self-righteous Pharisees and scribes to see how they had become the older brother, failing to experience the joy and celebration that God does when wayward sinners come home. But it was also designed to remind us all of the embarrassing lengths to which God, in the person of Jesus, would go to make that homecoming a reality.
Lent reminds us that the story of Jesus inevitably moves toward the cross, the ultimate picture of failure and disgrace, much worst than feeding slop to the pigs. Jesus was willing to risk embarrassment of being stripped, beaten and hanged naked to die and to be held up as a sacrifice for the whole world to see on that Friday.
The Apostle Paul puts it this way, “The cross was and is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God’s weakness is stronger than human strength” (1 Cor. 1:23-25).
In his book Six Hours On Friday, Max Lucado wonders if Jesus used his hands while telling the parable of the loving father and his two sons. When he got to the point in the story where the overjoyed father runs out to meet his wayward son, did he open his arms wide to illustrate the point? Whether he did that day or not, I don’t know,” says Lucado. “But I know that he did later. He later stretched his hands as open as he could. He forced his arms so wide apart that it hurt. And to prove that those arms would never fold and those hands would never close, he had them nailed open. They still are.”
As the Number 1 Son, let us stretch out our arms to welcome the sinners, tax collectors, the poor, everyone who is different from us, those who have yet had the grace of hearing the Good News. Let us build relationships with those who need to be members of God’s family.
As a father myself, I strive to do everything I can to ensure that our son and daughter will have strong older brother and younger sister bonds for the rest of their lives.
Just as the father in this parable, God sees us from afar and runs towards us with his arms opened wide to welcome you and me home.
Let us pray.
Merciful God, you love us with a profound, outrageous love, and you generously give to us all that you have. Yet we fail to appreciate you or to respond in gratitude to your love. Like the younger brother, we stubbornly choose our selfish ambition rather than receive your wise counsel. Like the older brother, we hold ourselves aloof and apart, judging others and withholding compassion and mercy. Neither of these brothers understood that their truest treasure lay in their relationship with the Father—and that is our sin as well. We ask for your forgiveness and your grace, merciful God, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.