A Homecoming Story
The story of the prodigal son is a homecoming story. I imagine that it resonates so well with us because we all long for home, for the place where we belong without having to live up to any image, where we are welcomed without having to prove our worth, where we are embraced not for what we have achieved but for who we are.
I imagine this story resonates so well with us because we can all identify with the younger son who forsakes home in pursuit of the world’s attractions: wealth, pleasure, prestige. We have all looked for love and life in the wrong places. We have all taken a hard knock or two at some point and said to ourselves, “I’ve got to turn around.”
But when Jesus tells this story, he is not addressing the waywardness of his crowd. He’s not on the street preaching judgment against the debauchery of his world. He’s not calling, “Sinner, come home.”
When Jesus tells this story, he’s addressing the people who are already “home,” the Pharisees and the scribes. Which is to say, he’s speaking to folks like you and me—folks who read scripture and pray, folks who go to worship every week and participate in various ministries. The Pharisees and the scribes are the religious insiders of their day. They might get a bad rap in the gospels, but we should be extra cautious about judging them. What we say about them, might well be said about us.
In this particular scripture, we’re told that the Pharisees and scribes have been “grumbling” about Jesus’ open-table dining policy. “This man welcomes tax collectors and sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:2). Is it a coincidence that the climax of Jesus’ story is a table? A feast? Where all are welcome, but the one who is grumbling misses out?
Justified Anger?
When he hears music and dancing, the elder son knows something is up. He asks one of the workers what’s going on and learns that his brother is home and his father is throwing a party. He becomes indignant and refuses to join the celebration.
We’ve heard the story so many times that we may lose sight of a simple fact: by the logic of our world, the elder son’s anger is justified. His younger brother had practically disowned his family with his actions. Should there not be consequences? Should he not at least be made to show his remorse and to make amends? How many prodigal sons and daughters of our world have come home to find the door more or less closed in their faces as a consequence of their actions? I remember once going to a wedding where the sister of the groom was consistently excluded from the family’s pictures. She had fallen into drugs and the wrong crowd in high school. Whether from shame or a sense of punishment, the family would not welcome her into its joy.
The Alienation of
Being “Right”
The tragedy of the older brother, which is also the tragedy of the Pharisees and the scribes, is that his insistence on “being right” and on a system of merit alienates him from his own family. To his father, he says, “I have been working like a slave for you.” In other words, he sees his father as a slave-owner. He sees their relationship in terms of work and reward. He continues, “This son of yours… has devoured your property with prostitutes.” In other words, he refuses to acknowledge the younger son as his own brother. And so here he stands, without a father, without a brother. Here he stands feeling like a mistreated slave, watching as a “sinner” waltzes into his home and receives the welcome of a king.
What drives home the tragedy of the elder son, the tragedy of his isolation, is that the feast inside is as much for him as it is for his brother. His father clearly loves him just the same. Just as the father had run out to meet his younger son, to embrace him before he could even get out his full apology, so the father also comes out of the home, unsolicited, to plead with his elder son. He does not defend himself against his elder son’s complaints but cuts straight to what matters: his love for his elder son too. “Son,” he says, reminding him of his true identity: “You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (15:31).[1]
What keeps the elder son on the outside looking in, as a stranger in his own home—what causes him to miss out on the party—is the same thing that threatens to alienate us today from God’s beloved community, the kingdom of God. Jesus says, “He became angry and refused to go in,” which is to say, he was filled with a self-righteous anger. Self-righteousness is founded on fairness, the idea of reward and punishment, the idea that life operates according to an exchange of “do this” and “get that.” And it focuses primarily on the faults of others. Self-righteousness can consume us anywhere: on the road when someone cuts us off, in the store when a clerk mishandles our situation, in the workplace when a boss plays favorites, in society when we feel our good-faith votes and values are mocked or treated as crimes, in church when others with less time in the pew or a spottier record in the world challenge our perspective, at home when we feel that our kindness and consideration are not reciprocated.
Self-righteousness effectively says, “I’m right. They’re wrong. I’ve earned it. But they have not.” It categorically refuses the idea of mercy, empathy, compassion. Which is the real tragedy. Because by refusing mercy, it refuses relationship. It refuses God. It misses out on the party.
Grumbling
Perhaps you’ve heard the question, “Would you rather be ‘right’? Or would you rather be happy?” I think Jesus’ parable poses a similar question: “Would you rather be ‘right’? Or would you rather be in relationship?”
Our world commonly conceives of God as a God of fairness. But Jesus does not. For Jesus, God is profoundly unfair because God is merciful. God cares less about people getting it right and more about people being together at the family table. God runs out to the son who practically disowned him and throws a homecoming party. God runs out to the son who is filled with resentment and pleads with him to enter his own home and join the party.
The one who ultimately misses out on the party is not the one who did wrong, but the one who is filled with resentment. The one who is grumbling. It is a common theme in the Bible, as old as the Israelites grumbling in the wilderness, complaining about what is not fair while God is literally raining down care and provision for them every day.
Today’s passage offers me this sharp and practical reminder. Grumbling may originate in a natural human emotion, but when it becomes the main script that I’m reading from, when it determines my response to a situation, then I’m likely missing out on God’s party. I’m missing out on God’s kingdom. I’m living into the older son’s tragedy of alienation, disconnection, being a stranger in his own home.
The Universal Feast
of God’s Love
The flipside to this image of grumbling is the image of a feast. It is the image of a warm home and an unconditional welcome, an open table filled with food and surrounded by music and dancing. It is the image of a father running out to embrace his children and plead for them to join.
Many of the powers in our world are acting out of fear and resentment, grumbling and shaking their fists, proclaiming their rightness as they call others names. It’s safe to say, they are missing out on the feast. We as the church are invited by Christ to be different. By telling this parable, Jesus is urging his religious audience to turn from resentment and fear toward the mercy of our heavenly father, toward God’s “unfair” love. He is inviting us to relinquish our rightness so that we might receive and share God’s prodigal, indiscriminate love. In an angry and divided world, we are called to be an embassy of God’s kingdom, an island of God’s unfair mercy, representatives of our compassionate Father who is throwing a party based not on rightness but on his own prodigal, wasteful love, a love that goes out to all his children.
Response
Before concluding, I would like to invite your response—only if you feel so inclined. There are grey slips of paper and pencils in the pews, and if you do write a response, you may decide for yourself whether you’d like to include your name or remain anonymous. (If you write your name, please know that I would still check with you before ever sharing your response with others.)
The question I’d like to ask is this: Where have you seen or experienced God’s “unfair” love? What happened?
Prayer
Who comes out to us
When we are alienated
In our own self-righteousness:
We hear your words this morning,
“Son, Daughter, you are always with me,
All that is mine is yours.”
May we find our home
With long-lost brothers and sisters
Around your table.
In Christ, whose “unfair” love saves us. Amen.
[1] Several of the insights from this
meditation have come from Henri Nouwen, The
Return of the Prodigal Son (New York: DoubleDay, 1994), 77-88.
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