I cannot say often enough how much I love reading the gospel of Luke. This is simply because of all the gospels, Luke presents Jesus’ involvement with human situations and experiences of the kind that all of us can relate to in one form or another.
In our text for today, Luke recalls Jesus’ telling the disciples an account of a man who had two sons, one the older brother stayed home and was dutiful to his father’s business, and the other, the younger brother, wanted nothing more than to get away and live his own life out of the shadow of his family. Already this sounds like a situation that does occur in many families today. Perhaps you have had the experience yourself or you know of someone who has had this experience.
The story as Jesus tells it suggests that the younger brother is a rebel at heart who cares nothing for the efforts of his father which allows him to have a good life. He just wants to go into the world and enjoy his life fully in the way that young people are prone to think and act. There are several things we do not know, and we are not asked to speculate on those unknowns, for example, we have heard no mention of his mother in this story or what could have been the real issue that made the younger brother leave home. Did he have a bad relationship with his brother? Did he feel undervalued and neglected in the family? Was the father showing preferential treatment to one brother over the other? We will not know these answers, but we can surely explore these and any other that comes to mind in a Bible Study one day.
What we do know is that the younger brother went off and did enjoy life for a time including gaining many new “friends” until the money ran out. At that point no one cared about him, not even his new “friends.” After suffering for a while from neglect nearly to the point of starvation, a light comes on in his head and he decides that he will go back home and do two things. First, he will confess the error of his ways and seek forgiveness and secondly, he will ask for a lower place in the home. He wants to be treated no better than the hired servants. What a turn around? What a transformation? It all began with one simple statement, which is one of the key points in the text. In St. Luke 15: 17 we read, “When he came to his senses…” As we read this parable we are being asked to reflect on a few things.
- The value we place on something or someone that is lost decides the extent to which we will search for it.
It is difficult to read and contemplate the story of the lost or prodigal son without reflecting on the other two incidents of lost things which Jesus mentioned earlier, the lost coin and the lost sheep. All three are lost in one form or the other but the importance of the text is found in what the owners do about these lost things. Do they move on and forget about them? Do they search for a while and then give up in frustration? Do they keep searching until they find that thing which is lost? Obviously, we know from the story that each searched diligently for his sheep and her coin respectively, until they found what they had lost. They did this because the sheep and the coin were extremely important to both. Most of us would not take the effort to even search for a lost invaluable coin but to this woman the coin was too important to her to ignore or simply forget about. The same can be said about the man and his sheep. There are people who couldn’t care less about an animal being lost especially if they have a great many of them, but to this farmer even one stray lamb was as important as the whole herd. The value of the lost thing or person decides the extent to which you will keep searching for them. The obvious analogy that Jesus was making then and wants us to grasp today as well, is that God similarly searched for and is still searching for lost human beings who are the lost sheep who he is inviting to come back to the fold. The searching is sacrificial, and it is greatly risky especially for the shepherd who must go into all sorts of places and face all kinds of danger to find that lost yet seemingly insignificant sheep. You and I are that lost and insignificant sheep that God values and loves so much that he was willing to pay the ultimate price of death so that we can be saved. Remember what Jesus told the disciples in St. John 15, “Greater love has no one than this that he lays down his life for his friends.” (St. John 15:13 NIV) The love we have for something, or someone will decide what you are willing to do to save that person or thing, as Jesus did on Calvary for all of us.
- Who is really lost? We may be really surprised to know.
In this well-known story of the prodigal son or the lost son, most of us have heard plenty of sermons about the wayward younger brother who caused such heartache to this father and presumably other family members too. I will concur that he was lost, but most often we miss the other lost son? In fact, this story I think ends sadly because there is no evidence of a reunion between the two brothers and evidently there is a distance between the father and his elder son. The dutiful older son may have stayed at home and physically is not lost but emotionally and spiritually he is indeed lost. The real tragedy of this account which many of us miss is that ‘right under his nose’ so to speak, that father, who without a doubt loves his two sons, was losing a second son or perhaps had already lost his older son without realizing it because that son remained in the home dutifully fulfilling the role that an elder son was expected to do. Were there signs of the older brother’s anger or pain that the father missed? We will never know for sure, but we are forced to ask ourselves whether we may also, like that father, become so caught up in other things, be it our work, our other children, our busy schedules and our own personal issues and problems that we do not notice that we are losing our children or our spouses or possibly our friends. Do you know what is even more tragic? Is it possible that right here in our churches we may be losing some of our own without realizing it? Whether they are our young people or some of our older ones among us we do lose members of our church family and only notice it when it is too late. Is it possible that our divisions and our divergent interpretation and practice of our faith serve to frustrate and turn away many who came to find peace and healing but are instead fed confusion and differing ‘truths’ about scripture? Is it possible that our tendency to be hypocrites behaving one way on Sunday and completely differently at home or in the community, cause many to be lost because they are completely turned off by what we profess as true Christian living? Many of the lost are not just in the world but they are right here in church. These are people who are looking to find the way to a deeper relationship with Christ while many of us argue over doctrines and practices. Many are in the church being lost after spending decades as church members but they have not found peace with difficult issues they have had to deal with in their lives. Is it possible that we may be enjoying church so much that we fail to notice the persons who are really getting lost spiritually because the church and Christianity as a whole is not giving them the answers to those issues and questions that they are struggling with? I have seen prominent people in church lose their faith in Christ and eventually leave the church altogether because they struggled for years with challenging issues of faith and life that were never noticed or addressed by the community of faith that they were a part of. As we think of the lost son today, we may be truly surprised at those in our church and in the wider society who are being lost today.
- Expressions of joy must be our response to God’s intervention to God’s healing and restoration among us.
There are many points in this story to reflect on which we do not have enough time to do today. One of these is the influence of society on our young people. Many young people, like that younger son in the story, are lured into the bling and attractiveness of what the worldly life seems to give them. This young man was clearly drawn to the attractive vibrant lifestyle that he felt he could have in the world while discovering himself rather than being stuck in the boring hum-drum of his home life or just perhaps it was a life filled with tension and conflict too. Maybe, as we hinted earlier, this young man was trying to escape from a life that was draining his spirit. We cannot be sure. When young people go out and make terrible mistakes in their lives it can be sometimes hard to forgive them and to entrust them with important responsibilities thereafter. Again, we cannot really know how the relationship between the father and his younger son evolved in the days and months after the son’s return. It is important though to notice that a key element of this story is the father’s joy at his son’s return. It is equally important to note that the father’s joy was not kept to himself. He invited everyone to share in this reunion or welcome home event. This is the ultimate point that runs through all three stories. Having found the precious thing that they were looking for, whether a coin, a sheep, a wayward son, all persons involved invited everyone around to share in their joy. The expression of joy is the culminating response to God’s intervention to restore the lost among us. It is important to note that the restoration of a lost or wayward relative, the healing of an illness that seemed hopelessly far gone or the provision of needed resources in a situation of dire need, all necessitate a response of joy in praise to God who has made it possible through his Almighty power. It is also important to note that our expression of joy to God is to be shared. When God has intervened in a mighty way to transform, heal or restore something or someone in your life, you should share your joy or better yet, invite others to rejoice with you. I cannot tell you how to do this in a culturally sensitive or appropriate way, but God can guide you in this. It may simply be by sharing a testimony in public or inviting friends and family over for a celebratory tea and coffee or asking the church to sing a special song for you that Sunday or pray a special prayer of thanks. Only you with God’s guidance can really know what would be the most appropriate way to share your joy with others. Whatever you do, share your joy with others by giving praise together.
- God is always available and ready to rescue those who are lost if they seek him.
There is a noticeable difference among the three accounts of lost things and a lost son. In the parables of the lost coin and the lost sheep it is the owner who does the searching for what he and she have lost respectively. In the parable of the lost son, the father is not actively searching all over the place for his son but he is waiting and looking out. In the human context, we cannot tell people that they are lost if they do not think that they are. We also cannot decide for them or force them into any decisions to save themselves. These are things they have to do for themselves. In the parable the father waited and kept looking, no doubt with deepening concern as each day passed without a sign of his son returning. Oftentimes he probably felt like giving up, convinced that his son might well be dead, but he kept looking and waiting. This is the father that God is. God will never force us to change our life’s direction but when we recognise that we need him, God is always here for us, ready and waiting to restore and heal us in love and mercy. For many people their children have gone off and caused them great distress but they kept looking and they kept waiting and they kept praying that their son or daughter would come back to them. Some have and some have not but we are being reminded that the love of God is so deep that he will always wait on us to return. He will always be ready to wrap us in his arms and have the biggest welcome party for us because in God’s eyes a life that was lost has now been saved. We as Christians must remember that we are God’s reminder to the world that He is always available and ready to restore all who are willing to change course and return to him.
At the end of the day the parable of the Lost Son was told by Jesus to remind us that there are people who make grave mistakes in their lives and sometimes we do not see beforehand or perceive the issues that people may be going through that causes them to take decisions or make the choices about their lives that can be unrewarding and quite often self-destructive. But this parable is also fundamentally about mercy, the mercy expressed by a loving father which reminds us of God’s mercy and willingness to forgive irrespective of how disobedient and wayward we have become. Finally the parable reminds us to express real joy and thankfulness to God when we have seen the love of God at work in our lives to transform, to heal and to save those who are being lost. May we go from here today reflecting on the power of God to restore that person who we are about to give up on, the power of God to heal that which seems incurable and the love of God which allows us to welcome the redeemed with joy and happiness and to celebrate every life that has been restored to a new and right relationship with God and humanity. Amen.
