Is Jesus’ ministry (un)like that of the prodigal’s father in Luke 15?
This Sun's lectionary reading is the parable of the prodigal son in Luke fifteen, though it is peradventure too chosen the parable of the loving father, or the parable of the father and the 2 sons. (I realise that many will exist focussing on Mothering Sunday, but it would be a shame to miss out on preaching on this passage if you follow the lectionary in your preaching.) It'south a passage I take known well for a long time, and can notwithstanding remember quite vividly listening to the late Michael Light-green teaching on it during a student mission when I was an undergraduate. Only I have recently come beyond 2 quite different readings of the parable which highlight some of import bug in how we interpret it.
The start was in Jane Williams' Lent book for this twelvemonthThe Merciful Humility of God.In her introductory chapter, she takes 3 of the short pages to explore the parable, and rather than seeing it every bit an exposition of Jesus' ministry, she sees information technology as a notable dissimilarity:
The space patience of God is more active than that of the father of the Prodigal, because God does more wait; in Jesus Christ, God enters into the way of the Prodigal so that even here, while the Prodigal is still assuming that he is fine on his own, the love of the father is present…The life of Jesus means that we tin plow and observe God beside us, everywhere.
I take explored previously some of the theological issues with this reading, but we ought to note how strange this is as a narrative reading. After all, this chapter in Luke is introduced by the complaint of the Pharisees and scribes that Jesus 'receives sinners and eats with them'. In other words, Jesus tells these three parables in response to the comment that he is too close to the 'prodigals', so information technology would be odd if the very parable he tells us contrasts and then sharply with the ministry building that it is explaining.
The 2nd interpretation came from a friend with whom I was in conversation a couple of years ago, and likewise draws attention to the location of the male parent. God does not take please in us, my friend said, in an unconditional sense, simply only delights when we plow to him. Afterward all (he went on) I don't please in my son if he wastes his fourth dimension or squanders his gifts, but only when he applies himself or does well—merely equally the way my begetter delighted in me when I did well. After all (he clinched his argument), the father in the parable does non follow the son into the strange country, but waits for him at the gate of his property.
Both these readings make the same point, but in support of opposite conclusions: the father doesnon pursue the son, and either that is a bad thing which Jesus contradicts or information technology is a good thing we should learn from.
Jesus' parables are challenging to interpret, and even his all-time-known ones are unremarkably (and demonstrably) misinterpreted in contemporary preaching and instruction. This is partly considering they are narratives making an implicit betoken, rather than prose discourse that presents an explicit statement; partly because Jesus uses provocation and hyperbole to make his point in a dramatic way; and partly considering much of the touch on of the parables relies on contextual information which is not explicit in the text.
Some years ago, German scholar Joachim Jeremias argued (in hisThe Parables of Jesus) that the parables had essentially one main point, and so we should wait for that rather than focussing on the minutiae of the other details. This was made in reaction to earlier tendencies to allegorise Jesus' parables, which often allowed readers to go on flights of fancy in their readings which became detached from the narrative and context of the parable itself (the best known being interpretations of the parable of the skilful Samaritan). But the trouble with Jeremias' thesis is that Jesus explicitly makes several points when interpreting his own parables, the well-nigh obvious being in the parable which is also a parable well-nigh parables, the story of the sower in Mark 4 and parallels. In explaining the parable, Jesus is clear that each of the sower, the seed, and the unlike soils all 'stand up' for something. And in the parable of the prodigal, at that place are at least iii key narrative foci in the iii main characters.
But we too need to note that this is the third of iii parables, and opposite to the cut-and-paste job suggested by the lectionary, I recall we need to read all 3 together—and carefully! The first tells u.s.a. nearly a foolish shepherd, who is so anxious about the one lost sheep that he abandons the other 99 ('in the open land', Gkeremos 'wilderness') in search of the one, and continues to forget about the others whilst he has a party! This is hardly a model for pastoral ministry! The second story, of the woman and her lost coin, is less obviously foolish, but once once again focusses on urgency of the search and the rejoicing when it is successful. In other words, these two are about the one doing the searching, rather than the ones existence searched for, and they make the elementary point about the searcher'due south passion.
In the third of the three parables, the emphasis shifts decisively. The story itself has much more than detail, includes a more complex situation, introduces three main characters with some realism, and involves a shift of focus. Much of the emotion on the part of the male parent is implicit and borne in the narrative detail, whilst the focus is turned decisively to the characters being 'sought', the younger and the older son, with their emotions existence described explicitly, in contrast to the previous parables where the things being sought played no existent part in the story.
The story opens with the younger son enervating his inheritance now, rather than waiting to the due time, and this is where we begin to run into the importance of reading in cultural context. Unlike our context, where we might indeed desire to pass on an inheritance early, for Jesus' hearers this is similar the son maxim that he wishes his male parent were dead—and the father, shockingly, agrees to the asking. Our contextually attuned ears can hear the audible gasps of Jesus' audience. The parable suggests that our ain acts of rebellion, in which we take from God the life and the blessings he offers, but refuse to acknowledge his say-so over our lives, is effectively wishing him dead. Sin is decease-dealing not merely to usa, merely to God himself, every bit nosotros wish him dead in the claims he makes over the states.
The narrative then follows the son on his journey down—away from his loving home, down into an immoral life, down into poverty, downward into disgrace, and finally down into hunger and neglect every bit no-one pays attending to his needs. For a Jewish audition, the son'southward job of looking after the unclean pigs shows that he has reached the lowest point possible. The turning indicate in the narrative is when he 'comes to his senses', literally 'he came to himself'—which intriguingly suggests the way that sin not only separates u.s. from others, but separates usa from our truthful selves. From this point, the son makes a journey of rise—out of the pig sty, out of hunger, out from the strange land and upwards to the threshold of his quondam home. But he cannot imagine anything similar the full restoration to sonship that awaits him.
One time more nosotros need to read intently and contextually. How does the father detect the son whilst he is 'all the same a long way off'? We tin only infer that that father has, daily, been awaiting his son's return with longing. And, though the son intends to brand the journey himself, it is non a journeying he completes, since the male parent runs to run across him—the reunion does indeed involve journeying by both parties. Contextually, this again would have been shocking, as the father dispenses with the nobility of an older member of the customs who (in the hot climate of the Near E) could never have run in public. Despite his son'south actual and ritual uncleanness, the father dramatically embraces him in the sight of all. All this flows from a key word, which appears (as in other narratives in Luke) to be actually (numerically) fundamental to the telling of the story: 'he was moved with compassion',splagchnizomai, his guts were stirred.
The son brings out his rehearsed spoken language, recognising the fault of his ways—but he is not able to finish it earlier the father lavishes on him the signs of sonship in the band, the robe and the sandals to put on his bare and filthy feet, and prepares to gloat with a feast. And where the story of the younger son reaches its climax, the story of the elder son begins with the second's jealousy and resentment. He has cast his position in the family as dependent on duty, law and obedience, and has failed to understand the nature of the relationship between male parent and son that is his true inheritance.
Where does that leave the ii interpretations that I started with? Jane Williams' observation does have a point; from the perspective of the one doing the searching, there appears to be nothing that he would not practice in order to find that which was lost, and this is communicated near clearly in the two shorter parables preceding this one. The foolish shepherd and the anxious adult female will not balance until they recover their lost possessions. Yet what she appears to miss is the reciprocal attribute of searching and finding that becomes the focus of the third parable. It is non enough to exist sought; i has to be constitute, and the one beingness found has to respond to the 1 doing the searching. Jesus makes this signal not once, but twice: the younger son has to come up to himself, and make the decision to turn and cover the father that he has betrayed, fifty-fifty at the price of admitting he was wrong. Simply the older son must also 'come up to himself' and recognise the reality of sonship and what it means. He might have been in ritual and physical proximity with his father, simply he was non in relational proximity. Although Luke does not (unlike elsewhere) note that this parable was told 'against' the Pharisees and scribes, the 2-part shape to the narrative and its certitude at the end of the chapter (following which the focus turns to the disciples) makes this plainly. They might exist in ritual and physical proximity with God (through living in the land or obeying the constabulary or coming to the temple) only they are not in relational proximity. They, too, demand to change and turn for this relationship to become a reality.
The second interpretation that I mentioned gets 1 thing correct: when the younger son is far from his male parent, at that place is a existent distance and absence in that relationship, and (co-ordinate to Jesus' teaching) that distance is not closed until the son makes his change of direction. (It is worth comparison this with the parable of the two sons told only in Matt 21:28–32; the first son does make sonship a reality until he 'changes his listen'.) And yet the possibility of restoration depends, within the narrative, on the unwavering longing and compassion of the father, which (theo)logically precedes the repentance of the son and is necessary for the narrative to attain its completion. The restless searching of God for the lost is already communicated powerfully in the first ii parable.
As an afternote, in that location is an interesting parallel fatigued on the Wikipedia give-and-take of this parable.
A like parable of a lost son tin can too be found in the Mahayana Buddhist Lotus Sutra.[26] [27] The two parables are and so similar in their outline and many details that several scholars take assumed that 1 version has influenced the other or that both texts share a common origin.[28] However, an influence of the biblical story on the Lotus sutra is regarded equally unlikely given the early dating of the stratum of the sutra containing the Buddhist parable.[28] In spite of their similarities, both parables go along differently after the two encounter for the first time at the son'south return. In the biblical story, in that location is an immediate reunion of the two. In contrast, in the Lotus sutra, the poor son does not recognize the rich man equally his male parent. When the father sends out some attendants to welcome the son, the son panics, fearing some kind of retribution. The male parent and so lets the son leave without telling him of their kinship. Withal, he gradually draws the son closer to him by employing him in successively higher positions, merely to tell him of their kinship in the end.[26] In the Buddhist parable, the father symbolises the Buddha, and the son symbolises any human being. Their kinship symbolises that any being has Buddha nature. The concealment of the kinship of the father to his son is regarded as a proficient ways (Sanskrit:upāya).[29]
The grace of God ways that the restoration of the son in Jesus' parable is not only firsthand, merely is known immediately. Here is no long, uncertain path to enlightenment, but the sudden, grace-filled cover of our heavenly begetter.
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