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"The Prodigal Parent " Luke: 15 (The Shepherd with 100 Sheep; The Woman Who Loses a Coin; The Prodigal Son) “Ally ally oxen free!” In a game of hide-and-seek those who are still successfully concealed can come on in. I want to give credit here to Ken Bailey. His name is one that some of you will know from various adult ed. things here. Ken Bailey is a wonderful Biblical scholar who was born and grew up in the Middle East, his parents were missionaries there. He came to the United State and got his PhD. in Biblical Literature and has gone and lived most of his life back in the Middle East so he knows this culture. And there is so much more to these familiar parables than what we normally get if we just grew up in Minnesota. Let me tell you, friends. Listen carefully. Luke chapter 15 is one of the most important pieces of literature in human history. It reveals the heart of God in ways that had never been known before that time. Jesus is in the midst of his public ministry and he’s getting a lot of criticism. The Pharisees, the proper defenders of the religious status quo, are horrified at Jesus’ practice of eating with undesirable folks. It’s one thing for a nobleman to feed lower class, less-than-respectable people. That’s fine. But in that culture the nobleman would never actually eat WITH them. For in that culture to break bread with another is to grant a special kind of acceptance, to share life, to acknowledge worth. The Pharisees are scandalized by Jesus’ behavior. So he tells them a story. And then another. And another. Parables. A word similar to parabola. It means to cast alongside. One scholar says that a parable is like a Trojan horse. We listen to the story and nod and go, “Uh huh…Uh huh…” and ten suddenly realize we’ve been sucked in and we realize with a shock that this story is not just about THOSE people, it’s about us. These are familiar stories to many of us and it is easy to yawn and go “Ho-hum.” I hope I can help us see how mind-blowing these would be to the people of Jesus’ day. First of all the parable of the Shepherd…Now we have the 23rd Psalm and lots of nice things in scripture about shepherds. But In Jesus’ day shepherds were on the bottom rung of respectability. Their vocation kept them from following the religious purity rules so they were always “unclean.” And they were considered so disreputable that they were not allowed to give evidence in court. Yet Jesus begins his first parable, “Which one of YOU having a hundred sheep…: “This is an indirect and yet very powerful attack on the Pharisaic attitudes toward certain professions. As Ken Bailey notes, “The modern Christian has a kindly attitude toward Rahab (the prostitute way back in the Joshua story). But woe to any preacher who begins his sermon, ‘All right ladies, supposing one of you….’” (Poet and Peasant, 147). Then he tells the story of the shepherd who after wandering from pasture to pasture during the day has led the sheep to the sheepfold, probably a stone-walled enclosure with an opening in front of which the shepherd sleeps at night. So the shepherd takes the sundown counting….1, 2, 3,… 78, 79,…96, 97, 98, 99…Where is number 100? The shepherd leaves the sheep and goes to seek the lost until he finds him. (Bill searches through the sanctuary, eventually finding a stuffed toy sheep in the organ. He throws it over his shoulders and brings it back to the fold.) And the shepherd comes back and celebrates with the other shepherds and they’re so happy that all the sheep are there! 99 out of 100 is not good enough for the shepherd. And Jesus is clearly saying that this shepherd is God. And He gives us a picture of a God who doesn’t just wait for the penitent person to come and ask for forgiveness. Many faith traditions have deities who offer forgiveness for the penitent sinner who comes humbly and contritely seeking forgiveness. But none is described as going out and seeking the lost. Jesus is greatly expanding the human race’s idea of what God is like. Jesus concludes, “Just so I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents…” What? These sheep in the story represent people and the shepherd is symbolic of God? A God who SEEKS! An entirely new thing! “Just so I tell you there will be more joy n heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous person who need no repentance.” That lost lamb didn’t repent. She just got lost and then found by the shepherd. “This parable sets out a radically new understanding of the nature of repentance.” (Bailey, p. 155.) Jesus seems to be saying “The shepherd sought the lost. I seek the lost and so should you.” Lost coin. The coin is especially valuable because in the economic system of the day in which the vast majority of trade was done on the barter system there wasn’t much cash around, so the lost coin is of far greater value in a peasant house than the day’s labor it represents monetarily.” Also, it may well have been part of a necklace, possibly a wedding necklace, part of her dowry which would have been of great sentimental value. The coin is lost. Women in that society don’t get out much so she knows it has to be in the house. The woman turns the house upside down. When she finds it, she rejoices and calls together a party of her neighbors to share in her joy. There is more joy in Heaven over a sinner who repents. The God figure this story is a woman! Similar theme. But a woman? Using a shepherd and a woman as the main characters in the parables is itself a renunciation of the Pharisees’ categories of who has value and who does not. And then it gets worse and worse. Jesus tells the story of the man with two sons. We usually call it the Parable of the Prodigal Son. What does “prodigal” mean? Because of the common title of this parable it has come to have a negative connotation, to mean “a recklessly extravagant consumer,” but originally “prodigal” just meant “extravagant.” For example, the woman who anoints Jesus feet with the tremendously expensive perfume—which happens to be next week’s lectionary lesson—that woman is showing prodigal love. We’ve heard this parable a thousand times. To us it’s dusty and musty. But to Jesus’ hearers this is the most amazing story that these people have ever heard. Let’s see why. A man has two sons and the younger comes to him and asks for his inheritance. How would that make you feel if you were the father? Not too good. And in the ancient middle East a son would NEVER ask a father for his inheritance. Ken Bailey writes, “For over fifteen years I have been asking people of all walks of life from Morocco to India and from Turkey to the Sudan about the implications of a son’s request for his inheritance while the father is still living. The answer has almost always been emphatically the same….The conversation runs as follows: “Never!” Could anyone ever make such a request?” “Impossible!” “If anyone ever did, what would happen?” “His father would beat him, of course!” “Why?” “This request means—he want his father to die.” In the literally hundreds of times I have asked the question, “Do you know of anyone who has made such a request?” only twice did I receive a positive answer. In the first case Pastor Viken Galoustian of Iran, with a convert church of Oriental Jews, reported to me that one of his leading parishioners, in great anguish, reported to him, “My son wants me to die!” The concerned pastor discovered that the son had broached the question of the inheritance. Three months later the father, a Hebrew Christian (a physician), in previously good health, died. The mother said, “He really died that night!” meaning the night the son dared to ask for his inheritance the father “died.” The shock to him was so great that life was over that night. In the second case a Syrian farmer’s older son asked for his inheritance. In great anger his father drove him from the house.” (Bailey, p. 162) In the parable when the son asks for his inheritance there is a profound break of relationship and the son is already “lost.” (Ibid. p 165). It is unthinkable that the father would grant the request. One Middle East Biblical commentator, I. Sa ‘id writes, “The shepherd in his search for the sheep, and the woman in her search for the coin, do not do anything out of the ordinary beyond what anyone in their place would do. But the actions the father takes in the third story are unique, marvelous, divine actions which have not been done by any father in the past.” (quoted in Bailey, p. 166) So this parable doesn’t make any sense to the Pharisees. (The son asks for his share of the inheritance.) In that culture, with two sons, the older would receive two-thirds of the inheritance and the younger one-third. The wealth in a family like that would all be in the land. In that culture it’s important that the land stays in the family. Well, he wants his land and he wants to go away. Normally to convert land into cash would take months, but it says “a few days later he left.” He needs to do it in a few days because once word gets out in the community he will be shunned or worse, on his father’s behalf. So he hurries up, sells the land probably at a loss, takes the money and goes to a far country and has a great old time for a little while. But pretty soon he runs through his money. There’s a great famine in the land. He’s hungry. He’s got to get a job. The only job he can get is feeding pigs. That’s not a great job for anybody. But his lad is a Jew! I have racked my brain to find an equivalent profession in our culture today, but I have had no success. There simply is no lower profession for a Jewish man. But even with that job he can’t make enough money to fill his belly. He needs to make a plan. Go back and work for his father. Live in the bunkhouse and have enough to eat. Not as a son. As a hired hand! He won’t be taking any more money from the father nor the elder brother other than what he earns by the sweat of his brow. I can identify with that. I always had a fallback. “If this preaching thing doesn’t work out I can always go back and work for my dad on the farm. Or for Cal (my brother, a recently-retired farmer).” But the lad in the story has one other problem. The village. Hard enough for an emigrant to return unless he has done well. Compounding the boy’s situation is the manner of his leaving, horribly disrespecting his father. And he has not done well. He has burned through the inheritance, lost it to the gentiles! But now he is starving. He has no option. He will return to his home village even though he knows that he will have to bear the townspeople’s mockery. So he heads home. Meanwhile, most likely the father expects the son to fail and if he returns at all, it will be as a beggar. And the father knows the reception he will receive by the townspeople. An ancient Middle Eastern writer, “Ben Sirach mentions … things that terrify him. Two of them are ‘slander by a whole town, the gathering of a mob.’” (quoted in Bailey, p. 181) If the son returns he will face both of those. As soon as he hits the edge of town a crowd will gather to mock and taunt him, and perhaps not just verbally abuse him but very possibly physically abuse him. The father is aware of this and we will see that each of the father’s actions is to counteract the expected reaction of the village. So day by day the father, as he goes about his work, is looking down the road in hopes of seeing his son returning. We can imagine that from time to time way off in the distance is a man the right height and build and the father’s pulse quickens…but no, not his son. But one day as the traveler comes closer and closer he looks more and more like the son. “Could it be? Dare I hope? It is!” And then the father RUNS to embrace his son. Those of us who are parents can imagine running to see our long gone son. Our 20 year-old son is just in Mexico on a study abroad semester and if he showed up I’d run to see him. But not in the ancient middle East. Have you ever seen an orthodox Jew wearing shorts jogging down the road? No. And what is the father undoubtedly wearing? A robe. If he runs he needs to pick up his robe and he will what? Show his ankles! Not done! The equivalent in our day would be to stand out on Old Shakopee Road buck naked! It’s not done. Ken Bailey notes that a pastor of his acquaintance was not accepted as the pastor of a particular church because, in the judgment of the elders, he walked down the street too fast. (p. 181) But this father does. In doing so, the father makes the reconciliation public at the edge of the village so everyone can see. Then he kisses him as a sign of forgiveness and reconciliation. “Having steeled his nerves for this gauntlet, now, to his utter amazement, sees his father run it for him.” Ibid. p. 182 In this story the “Prodigal” is the Parent, showing extravagant love! The father sends for the best robe, which would be the father’s robe. And a ring, which would be the family signet ring used to mark the sign of the family in sealing wax on a letter. Then the father says to the servants to fetch some sandals. The difference between a servant and a son is in footwear. A servant is barefoot. Remember the old African American spiritual, All God’s chillun’ Got Shoes? So now everybody’s happy, right? There is an old story in which the Sunday School teacher has told the children the parable of the Prodigal Son and asks, “Who is not happy about the younger son’s return?” A number of hands go up. “Yes, Suzie,” says the teacher. “I know: the fatted calf!” Well, yes, the fatted calf is not happy. Even this detail would not be lost for a second on Jesus’ listeners. The command is to “Kill the fatted calf.” It’s not just a chicken dinner for the immediate family. It’s not a goat or a sheep for the family and the servants. It’s a calf, which feeds a lot of people. This means that most, if not all, the village will be present that evening. The entire animal will spoil in a few hours if not eaten. As with the woman and the shepherd the joy must be shared on all sides. The purpose of such a banquet includes a desire to reconcile the boy to the whole community. (pp186-187). A grand party commences. Now. Who was it who was not happy? The older son was out in the field. Hears music. Inquires of a young boy what was going on. He is told that the younger son has returned and the father is throwing a party. Who is this older son? He’s upright. Responsible. A hard worker. He is…a Presbyterian. He does things decently and in order. He has the precise mindset of the Pharisees. The older son sizes up the situation and refuses to go in. Middle Eastern custom would require the elder son to join in the party as co-host with the father. If he wanted to complain to the father he could do so later in private. By refusing to join the party and by choosing to have a public argument with the father he is humiliating the father, a clear violation of what? The Fifth Commandment. The older son addresses the father with no title, just “Listen! For all these years I have slaved for you…,” which shows his mentality. He has the position of son, but the mentality of a slave. There is now a break in relationship between the older son and his father that is nearly as radical as the break between the father and the younger son at the beginning of the parable. And yet the Father treats him graciously as well. He uses a title, vs. 31 “Son,” and it’s not the generic “Uios,’ but the tender “Tecknos.” “My dear son, all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” Who is the prodigal in this parable, using the original sense of the word, “extravagant,”? The prodigal is the Father, who lavishes love on two very undeserving characters. We don’t know how that part of the parable turns out. Does the older son allow himself to be reconciled and join in the celebration of grace and love? Or does he stand outside, in judgment and self-righteousness? Where are we in these stories? Are we the younger son, obvious sinner? Or the older son, judgmental and harsh? And want you to come home. Or the townspeople? There is a third son in this Bible passage from Luke. The son telling these stories. The son that we claim to follow. The son that commands us to love one another. Who declares that the kingdom of God is already among us and challenges us to live into that reality: To live in grace and forgiveness and love respond in joy!
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