Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Like Father, Like Son
“It takes one to know one!” was our common reply as kids when someone called us a bad name. To think that was the best comeback we could ever think of is silly now. The basic premise of the phrase is just to insinuate that the other person was worse than we were, which never was all that great of a response. It takes one to know one... that is if someone called us a loser, we tried to say it meant they had to be a bigger loser to know what that looked like, or whatever other creative name someone would come up with. Yet, reframe the context of the phrase and there might actually be some hidden and unconventional wisdom in these words. Moving away from calling someone names, when we deal with those who are addicts for example, it takes one to know one. To understand what they’re going through and how to help them, sometimes it takes someone who has lived that life and knows the struggles in order to be able to help. Same thing with those suffering from depression. It takes one to know one. When we’ve never dealt with a particular issue before, we’re often lost and without a clue as to how to help someone. Or the opposite, our conventional wisdom that we think works so well actually harms more than it helps. The other saying that we often use is to say you need to walk a mile in someone’s shoes before you can comment or critique their decisions or life. Try to understand why they made the decisions they did.
For in our Gospel reading today, we read perhaps one of the best-known parables in Scripture, the prodigal son. And before we misunderstand this title, prodigal doesn’t simply mean lost. Prodigal means one who spends with reckless abandon. And while we often use this title for the son, there’s another in the story that is also a prodigal. For let us learn:
IT TAKES RECKLESS LOVE TO BRING BACK RECKLESS SINNERS!
I.
We so often begin this parable discussing the younger son. He’s the “main character” it seems and so much of the story is built around him, his decisions and life. But there’s a trick in reading parables. You want to focus on the first line, that is how Jesus introduces the story. This often tells us who’s really important. As we read, “So [Jesus] told them this parable… ‘There was a man who had two sons,” Luke 15: 3,11b. The basis of the parable is looking at how the father interacts with these two sons. The first point of comparison and most important is the father, not the sons. Though they certainly still have a large part to play. For as we all know, the younger son doesn’t treat his father well. As we also read, “And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me,” Luke 15:12. What this younger son does is demand his inheritance. He demands what should only come to him after his father is dead! So, yes, this son is wishing death upon his father simply so he can be the man in charge. And the father gives him exactly what he asks for! Indeed, this son becomes a prodigal. He goes off into a distant country and spends all of his inheritance in “reckless living.”
This is where we’re supposed to see ourselves in the story. How many times have we wished death upon God just so we could be our own masters, our own god? Even if you say that’s not you, how many of us have been “reckless” at one point or another? An impulse buy at the store when we didn’t have the money for it. Falling for peer pressure even when we know it’s wrong. Or embracing that guilty pleasure no matter how much God tells us it’s wrong. But lest you still feel like you don’t fit this style of reckless, we’re told of another brother. The older brother is just as reckless as the younger… only in a different way. Hear his self-righteous anger, “Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!” Luke 15:29-30. He’s reckless with his family… refusing to be associated with his own brother. He self-isolates himself from the feast welcoming his brother home. This brother is a prodigal also because he spends his passions recklessly.
II.
Indeed, we could break down further how we’re like the younger brother in our sin. We could join with him in our confession as we rightly do every week in service, saying “I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son,” Luke 15:21. Or many of us can relate to the older brother too. We’ve been the good, dutiful children. We’ve come to church every week. We give of our time for the sake of the church. We sacrifice daily for the betterment of others. However, we become self-righteous when we see sinners join this assembly. We think to ourselves, “They aren’t trying to be good like me. They don’t deserve forgiveness.” And all of this would rightly show just how much of a prodigal we are. But then we’d miss the entire point of the parable. It takes one to know one! Who’s the important one in this parable? It’s not the sons, but the FATHER! The father is the true prodigal, just as God is a prodigal with us! For it’s the Father who spends recklessly to win back his reckless sons. It’s the Father who gives over half of his estate to bring back his son into the family. It’s the Father who gives everything he has to the older brother to show just how much he cares.
This is exactly what God does for us. He spends recklessly in order to win back his children, his creation, both you and me. For God has not only given us over half of our “inheritance”. He’s given us his one and only son, Jesus Christ! God lavishes us with his grace and mercy in reckless abandon just so he can bring us back! Every time a sinner repents, heaven rejoices. Our Father rejoices as he says, “This my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found,” Luke 15:24. God has given over Jesus to death for our sake. He sends Jesus to the cross for our sins, our reckless living, so that we may be clothed in the robes of Christ’s righteousness. Yes, God has killed the fattened calf so that he may welcome us back with the wedding feast of Christ, our Lord’s Supper.
Indeed, we’re all prodigals in our own way. We’ve sinned against God and one another. But Jesus has come into our flesh so that he may be like us, to die in our place, and win us back! God has become a prodigal with his grace and mercy that He may welcome us into the feast unending! In Jesus’ name! Amen!