Which Son was Lost?
Recently, there was a contemporary version of today’s Gospel story in Dear Abby. The writer had a younger sister, Jane. Jane has been divorced three times, had numerous affairs, and is now engaged to be married. The problem is that Jane’s older sister is now dating one of Jane’s cast-off men. The older sister admits she’s always been the good girl in the family and doesn’t understand why her parents tolerate Jane’s behavior, but won’t accept her own blossoming relationship with Jane’s former sweetheart. It just doesn’t seem fair.
Jesus lived two thousand years before Adler described the impact of birth order on siblings, but Jesus got it right. A man had two sons: the older one conscientious, responsible, and high achieving; the younger, a charmer who is unafraid to try his luck. The story Jesus told is a classic story of human behavior.
The younger son wanted to get out and see the world, so he asked his father for his inheritance. The father, delighted by his younger son and used to giving him what he wants, agrees to divide his property. He sells off the younger son’s share, gives him the money, and the boy sets out. He squanders what the father has given him. When the money is gone, he takes the only job he can find—tending pigs and eating the garbage brought out to the pigsty.
In our culture, tending pigs might seem dirty and unpleasant work—but remember, the boy in this story is a Jewish boy. He couldn’t have found any job more degrading than this.
As he sat in the mud and filth of the pigpen, he thought to himself, “At my father’s house, even the servants have more than enough to eat.” In the words of the Gospel writer, the young man came to his senses.
A great many sermons have been preached on this text, and many of them focus on this younger son’s moment of illumination. A good many preachers have held up this moment as a primary example of repentance. The young man decides to go home. He is willing to be his father’s servant, if only he can live under his roof again.
Richard Swanson, professor of religious classics at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota was an oldest child—and a keen observer of his younger siblings. As he reads this story, he says, “Not so fast. This is a younger brother Jesus is talking about.”
Those of you who have parented children may have observed that youngest children learn to play their parents for all they are worth. They know how to pick the right words; how to hold just the right expression; how to get what they want and need.
Swanson suggests that maybe we’ve leapt too fast into trusting the younger son’s so-called conversion. Maybe he wasn’t all that repentant—maybe he was just smart. He knew the bottom line. There wasn’t any future for him here in the pigpen—that was clear. But if he appeared contrite, if he’d go to his father with seeming humility, surely he’d be let in at home.
So the younger son heads home. Even before he can make his well-rehearsed speech, his father comes running down the road to meet him. No self-respecting, wealthy Jew would run down the road—what would the neighbors think? They might be momentarily shocked, but this was probably not the first time the father has exceeded the limits of decency when it came to that boy. Swanson speculates that this was probably not the first and only time the boy’s behavior and the father’s reaction had stretched the limits of propriety.
The father escorts his son home and tells the servants to get ready for a party. And that’s when the older brother blows a gasket. Enough already! The younger son has always gotten off easy. “What about me?” the older brother fusses. “I’ve stayed here, I’ve worked hard, I’ve been responsible, I’ve done everything you’ve told me to do—and would you throw a party for me?”
A great many sermons have been preached on this text, and many of them focus on the father’s response—“Look, everything I have is yours. But this brother of yours was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and has been found.”
Tradition has made much of this story, but let me put it in its literary context. The story is actually the third of three parables; the two others are very short. The Pharisees and scribes are complaining about the company Jesus keeps. In response, Jesus asks them a question: if they had 100 sheep, and lost one, would they not leave the 99 in order to search for the one who was lost? And then Jesus tells the story of a woman who has lost a coin. She lights a lamp and diligently sweeps her house and searches carefully until she finds it. And then there is this story—intended, most scholars would say, to be parallel to the two previous stories.
If the first story is about a shepherd who seeks a lost sheep; and the second is about a woman who seeks a lost coin; is not this story about a father who seeks a lost son?
In spite of the text’s final words about the younger son, “he was lost and has been found,” I recently noticed this: the father in this story does not search for the younger son; he waits for him and welcomes him home.
But, when the older son disappears, the father searches for him. I began to suspect that the point of this story may be less about the younger son, who returns on his own, but more about the father’s seeking the older son.
What does this story mean if a primary emphasis is the father’s search for the older son? What if this story is about God’s seeking those who have been faithful all along? Those who have been responsible and conscientious in the way they’ve lived? Those who have never ventured away from the father’s home? In some ways, they have never been lost, and have little of which to repent. Does it surprise you that such persons need to have God seeking them?
Who are you in this story? Are you In need of God’s welcome because you’re ready to come home? Or are you a bit more like the older brother?
You live a respectable life. You haven’t engaged in scandalous behavior. You have a certain amount of security. You haven’t strayed far from the right path. You’ve worked for what you have and you have reason to be proud of what you’ve done.
If that’s who you are, there is good news in this story for you. God comes looking for you. If petty jealousies gnaw at you, if you occasionally wish you felt free to be less responsible, if you sometimes envy those who appear to be more carefree or self-serving—God comes looking for you. God puts an arm around your shoulder, reassures you that you are loved, and invites you to come to the party.
God searches for you—and reminds you that you, too, are part of God’s family. You cannot be faithful and conscientious, responsible and hard-working—and hang out in the barn by yourself. God calls us into community.
I can think of no better definition of reconciliation in our world than this picture of younger siblings coming home and older siblings giving up a sense of entitlement and privilege in order to be part of the party.
Reconciliation is not easy work. We live in a society haunted by sibling rivalries. Tension between Muslims, Christians and Jews. Tension between first world and developing worlds. Tension based on skin color and ethnic heritage. Tension between the haves and the have-nots. Tension that threatens to destroy the very world in which we live.
Most of the tensions that divide the world are the issues played out in sibling rivalries: What does it mean to be responsible? What is rightfully ours? How do we respond to those who seem less responsible? God calls us to be reconciled to each other; to participate together in community.
Can we heed God’s great desire for reconciliation? Will we respond when God seeks us? Come on in, and be part of the family.