Lost: A Tale of Two Sons.
Reading time: 9 min
Tax collectors and other notorious sinners often came to listen to Jesus teach. This made the Pharisees and teachers of religious law complain that he was associating with such sinful people—even eating with them!
Luke 15:1-2
The stage is set for three of our favorite parables from Jesus. He has two types of people standing around listening to Him. One is this sect of overzealous Christians with good intentions but bad results, and the second is the rest of the normal people who also have good intentions but find themselves with bad results.
Jesus is known for preaching, healing, and teaching, but about 35% of His time is spent telling stories. Jesus often uses stories to address specific issues and we can gain a lot by identifying the reasons prompting these styles of pedagogy, or teaching.
So what's the issue here? We have a group of religious elite who teach that perfection is the only way to God's heart and, as a result, we have the common people who believe they will never be good enough for God. This is how the devil started confusion in the first place, by misrepresenting the character of God. So Jesus scans the court, reads the defense, and prepares to take His shot in explaining more about Himself.
We now get three parables back to back, intended to drive the point down further and further each time: The Lost Sheep, The Lost Coin, and The Lost Sons (plural). They are used to unpack the concept Jesus wanted to bring to His original audience and it is still very applicable to us today.
You probably know the last story so I don't need to go through it deeply. A younger brother disrespects his father by asking for a portion of his father’s will. Then, he leaves the safety and provision of home and gets swept up in hard times. However, the father never forgets him. If he had a cell phone I can imagine him calling every chance he got, patiently waiting for the off chance that his son might come home.
The younger son finally changes his mind about the direction he is going and thinks to himself that his father's care may have been a better situation. He turns to come back and the father is more than ready to accept him. No questions asked, he is already on his porch waiting for his son to turn back. The father sees his son still a long ways off and, breaking the expected protocol of someone of his stature, runs to his lost son to embrace him! He doesn't reprimand, instead, as his son expects unrequited love, he decides to show him how much he still loves and chooses him. We may assume the son wouldn’t be accepted back, but he is. The father isn’t embarrassed by the son. He doesn't hide him or publicly embarrass him because of his return. The father is actually more than elated and tells those around him to rejoice because his son has come back home. He gives the son a new robe and ices out his wrist. He cooks their prized meat and throws a party to celebrate the son who left him. Crazy right?
We love this. We focus on how God loves us even when we run from Him and spit in His face. We remind ourselves and others how we're never too far gone to be loved. But we don't study the other son. Jesus actually introduces the story as a story of a man with two sons. We made up the “prodigal son” title. Jesus is responding to an audience of two groups, right? So we may be missing out on a message by negating one of the sons in the story.
The other, older son has been working and doing the right thing. As he comes home, he hears music. He is told that they are celebrating his long-lost brother’s return, but instead of being happy and running to see his old playmate, partner, and friend, he is angry and starts to complain about how his brother is being celebrated. The same father who ran after the younger son now runs after the older one. He leaves the party and patiently begs his oldest son to come into the safety of the home and celebrate with everyone!
“All these years I have worked for you and you've never celebrated me like this,” I can imagine the older son complaining. “But when your son squanders our money... your money on prostitutes, you celebrate him? What about discipline? What about consequences?”
And I think we can understand the hang-ups the oldest son has. We see the hurt, the confusion. I can imagine he doesn't feel seen. He thinks, “This guy does nothing right and seems to get more love than me? I put in extra credit for my father. I should receive this celebration.”
But, based on the father's response, it seems the father can see that the son doesn't just feel left out, he feels like he's done everything right but hasn't seen fruit. He hasn't seen any positive response to His perfect adherence to the family laws or the cultural constructs. The son assumes that he deserves an overdue celebration because of the work he has put in. Yet the father responds, “You have spent this entire time working, but you forgot what you do have. You have access to all of my provisions already. You don't even need to work and stress about where your next meal will come from. But you do. I have rest and provision for you if you would only come to me. I already provided all of your needs—short and long term—not because of your work, but because of my love.”
So often, we stay around the house that is the love of God but work ourselves to the point of never going in to experience it.
The father continues, “Yes, my younger son left. But adherence to the law was never a prerequisite in receiving my love. Yes, he messed up and you didn't, but good works were never a payment. You had the same access to everything I had while in the home. You just never tapped in.”
I think it's easy to look at others and think they don't deserve God's blessings or love based on what they have done. But that assumes your actions were the payment for said love and further assumes you do deserve it. No one deserves grace, it's a gift to all of us. Salvation cannot be bought by action. Jesus already paid for it. You just need to accept the gift and live in it.
Good behavior doesn't buy salvation.
If it did, that's like saying you have to be sunburnt in order to earn time in the sun.
On the contrary, spending daily time living in the sun will most likely result in your being sunburnt. Loose analogy but that goes to say that the fruit of the Spirit… love, joy, peace, etc, are just that.. Fruit. The behaviors are fruits of grace, they come after you receive the “seed” of the Spirit. Jesus already bought salvation for you. And in you stepping into that rest and trusting Him, you allow Him to be Lord and start changing the responses of your heart.
Jesus was trying to explain this to two sets of brothers in his audience… The people who had been told they were too far to be loved, and the people who looked down on others because they thought they deserved more love.
The Pharisees are the religious leaders and heads of synagogues. They are the leaders of local congregations like the pastors of today’s local churches. They may seem familiar to you, maybe you act like one sometimes. They “keep the law” and make new laws to help “keep the law”. They say they go to church on the right day. They “expertly” await the return of their Messiah, but don't recognize Him when He is with them.
Their name means “separated ones” and they believe they are the only remnant and the only ones with a valid interpretation of scripture. They meticulously study scripture, but often forget to love the people it commands them to love. They believed scripture gave them the authority to look down on people who were not like them… or approximately the other 90% of the Palestinian population. Sound familiar yet? It reminds me of some of us. No disrespect, I just want us to honestly look at what God may be trying to change in us.
The Pharisees were the teachers of the Bible and taught that God viewed sinners the same way they did. And it caused a huge misrepresentation of the character and love of God.
Similarly, when we think the effects of God's grace only come into play when we get our act together, it's easy to get like the Pharisees. It's easy to spend all our time trying to earn God's favor instead of living in it. It's easy to point fingers and force others to live like you when you focus on your work and not the work of the Holy Spirit.
Not only does your work for God not increase or diminish His love for you, but it also doesn't change His grace and love towards others. Just like both sons had access to the same home because of what the father had already done, God loves and offers the same home to all of us if we would just accept His love.
On the other side of the coin, when you realize God chose you despite your mess and before you, outlined a plan to save you from your brokenness, you experience joy, healing, and trust. It brings true peace.
8 God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. 9 Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. 10 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:8-10
The rest found through Jesus is free to all of us. The peace and joy He brings are equally available. You can be a part of His household and never have to “work” for your own peace again.
Just come back home, no matter which son you are.
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