Text: Luke 15:11-32
Unedited transcript
The first thing is Luke frames them very clearly. Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying: this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.
So that’s the background: Jesus is talking to a mixed group as so often of those who are normally regarded as bad, and maybe for good reasons, and those who think of themselves at least and maybe are officially appointed to be good and sometimes for good reasons.
But what he’s wanting to do in his answers is to completely alter the nature of their conversation about good and bad, and introduce something entirely different – the note of joy which is at the heart of the Gospel. Because each one of these three parables ends with the demand for a party and ends with the demand for joy because anything to do with God ultimately is to do with joy. So let’s have a look at the way Jesus does this with each of the three examples, and each one is a build-up.
He starts with the odds of a hundred or 99 to one. So you have the parable of the hundred sheep, the shepherd loses one of them, does leave the 99 in the wilderness and goes after the lost one until he finds it. Leaves them in the wilderness! Who’s crazy enough to leave 99 sheep in the wilderness who will behave themselves? When he’s found it he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices, and when he comes home he calls together his friend and neighbours saying to them: rejoice with me for I have found my sheep that was lost!
In other words, when you find the lost sheep you have a party – that’s the overwhelming message of this. But the notion that he leaves if you like the good ones in the wilderness which is already pretty frightening as the wolves might be there, but between the 99 of them they should be better able to look after themselves and goes after the one who will be completely defenceless against whatever wolves and other predators might be around. The result is a party: rejoice with me.
And then he says: just as I tell you – there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous people who need no repentance. Joy is the key thing. What happens: repentance leads to joy, repentance is not the act of jumping through hoops to persuade somebody that you’re sorry. It’s the discovery “oh my God, I’ve been wrong, I’ve been caught up in awful things, and I’m being set free from it; I’m being brought to a place where I can become who I am and take part in the great rejoicing with other people who are like me!”. It’s this huge rejoicing that our Lord is trying to bring out.
The parable of the lost coin – we have the same, but the numbers are getting ever narrower. A woman has ten silver coins… if she loses one of them, she lights the lamp sweeps the house and searches carefully until she finds it. When she found it she calls together her friends and says: rejoice with me for I found the coin that I had lost. Just so I tell you there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
Okay well, those two small parables act as a very well-coded introduction to the longer one, and by well-coded I mean they’re saying something about God as well because each one of the images is quite familiar to Jesus’s audience. First of all the shepherd of Israel to whom many of the psalms are addressed, or “shepherd of Israel, hear us”. Here is the shepherd of Israel saying what the activity of the shepherd of Israel looks like. The activity of the shepherd of Israel looks like going and finding a reason for rejoicing.
And in the second story, we have the business of the ten silver coins. The most common reason why a woman might have ten silver coins is the dowry, it would be the sign of her ability to get married or indeed to have been married; a very important would be either as a bracelet or as a necklace, it would be a very important part of her life. It wasn’t simply that she was a numismatist and collected coins – no, these were a significant part of her bridal meaning. So what’s happening? She’s lost part of her bridal meaning and she goes and looks and finds it and rejoices. But what sort of rejoicing is this? – Israel the bride is rejoicing because the possibility of marriage comes alive again – the promise of marriage comes to fruition with Israel as the bride of God.
And that’s when we turn to the third of the parables – the one with only two people who might be lost or found: from 99 to 1, to 9 to 1, to one to one – two. And this is the key thing. And who is the representative figure for God here? Well, it’s the one who I refer to as the self-effacing father because now that Jesus is coming down from mighty images to images of one to one, he brings out something astounding that rather than God being the judge between people who are good and bad, that God is a self-effacing father who never puts himself at a level above the two brothers. in fact, it effaces himself in the presence of the brothers so as to make it possible if at all possible for them to come together in common rejoicing. That’s why I call this the parable of the self-effacing father. Let’s just look at it quickly in that light.
There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father: father give me the share of the property that will belong to me. So he divided his property between them. In other words, from that moment he self-effaced: the property is now in the hands of the two sons. Functionally there are two of them. They may not realize it yet. One is going to use it in a … way, and the other is going to fail to use it because of certain feelings that you hold back and serve some other party who really doesn’t want to be treated in that particular way.
A few days later the son gathers all he has, and travels to a distant country. In order to gather what he has he’s going to have to sell realize the capital which means putting the father figure into a position of some shame. Father doesn’t know. He goes, he proves not to be very good with his money. That doesn’t say here that he had anything to do with the prostitutes, that’s the jealous brother’s point of view – maybe true, may not be true, but it’s what the jealous brother says, not what the text says. Then he falls on bad times, and goes and hires himself out, isn’t even able to eat what’s provided for the pigs. So ultimate humiliation. And then he comes to himself. Nothing moralistic about this, nothing if you like of repentance, and that’s one of the key misreadings of the parable of the self-effacing father is that it’s somehow to do with repentance to the father.
No, he comes to himself, he says: what on earth am I doing here? I’ll get up and go to my father. I will say to him: father, I’ve sinned before you. In other words, I’ll go through all the hoops of the kind of things one’s supposed to say. The textual reference to this is the reference where Pharaoh says the same thing to Moses in order to try and persuade Moses to call off the plagues. But it’s baloney, it’s not a real act of repentance; which is I’m prepared to jump through the hoops, I’ll say: treat me as one of your hard-hands, I’ll accept demotion as a sign that I’ve been a bad boy but okay, that’s it.
So he goes off and goes to his father but while he’s still far off his father saw him and was filled with compassion he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. In other words, the father runs which is an extremely improper thing for a patriarch to do. He rushes out and kisses him which is what the elder brother Esau did to Jacob in the Book of Genesis, it’s what the elder brother Joseph did to Benjamin in the Book of Genesis, it’s what the son Benjamin did to his father Jacob in the Book of Genesis.
On no occasion does a father do it to his son. In other words, what is the father behaving like not at all like a father he has a completely different value pattern he’s self-effacing. And then the son says to him… well he begins his spiel, you know, like the hoop I’ve got trouble, father, I’ve sinned against heaven before you, and no longer worthy to be called your son but that way. B
ut the father pays no attention to it, he says to the slaves: quickly bring out a robe, the best one, put it on him, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, and get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate, for the son of mine was dead and is alive again, he was lost in his found and there began to celebrate. In other words, the father’s first reaction is not to pay attention to what the boy is saying – party! This is what it’s all about, he wants a party. This is a joy. He doesn’t care under what pretends the boys come back, he’s just thrilled that he’s there, he actually loves him. They begin to have a party.
The elder son’s in the field, he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing in the field – a reference to where Cain was the elder brother who slew Abel. He heard music and dancing. He calls one of the servants and asked what was going on. The servant replies not ‘your brother has returned’, ‘your brother’s come back’ but ‘your brother has come’, which was the same as the servants of Joseph said to Pharaoh’s servants when Pharaoh’s servants asked him why there was such a row of rejoicing going on in judge’s house. The servant says: his brother has come. So it’s clearly a reference to again the Genesis story which underlies that the whole of this is foundation of what’s going on in Israel. Here is the creation of brotherhood, the creation of fraternity, it’s what all the sacrifices and holocausts are about. This may even have been a parable told about the foundation of the temple, the feast of how Joseph and Judah should learn to rejoice.
But the older brother, like Cain, becomes angry and refuses to go in. And his father comes out – again, entirely improper: the self-effacing father is prepared to put up with all his childish petulance. He’s prepared to humble himself completely, absolutely inappropriate behaviour for a good patriarch. Either the brothers who have done it or a servant should have done it. The father comes out himself – unheard of. But the elder son answers his father: listen. – The inversion of the Shema. Whereas the Shema is “listen, Israel”, here is the brother, the self-righteous brother, telling off the father.
Listen, Israel – reversed! For all these years I’ve been working like a slave and I’ve never disobeyed your command. So I’ve been like a servant to you and I’ve never let go of one of your commandments – referring to the holding to the Torah. Yet you’ve never given me a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends, in other words, you’re a withholding father; I obey, you withhold. He doesn’t acknowledge that the goat’s already his to do with as he likes. But when this son of yours -doesn’t refer to him as my brother – this son of yours comes back who has divided your property with prostitutes… may have, may not have. The brother certainly thinks so. Maybe he’s jealous. You killed the fattened calf for him! So rather than punishing him and treating him as unworthy, you’re gonna throw a party. It’s ridiculous! You withhold for me and for him you’re generous.
Then the father says to him: child – teknon – you are always with me. He uses the word teknon, not son, as in our translation; it’s a tender word but it’s not the same as son. I think probably because it refers to the whole of Israel: and all that is mine is yours. In other words, when we divided the property at the beginning I gave one-third to your brother and two-thirds to you, it’s been yours all along. We’ve had it together, it’s been yours to give and use your brother used it dispensedly, you have used it in a withholding way. And you’ve used that to project yourselves as better than your brother. But all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of yours – doesn’t refer to him as my son – this brother of yours was dead and has come to life. He was lost and has been found.
The great rejoicing, the self-effacing father doesn’t want to get in the picture at all. His rejoicing consists of brothers separated by views of superiority, jealousy, different moral differences, getting over all that, and coming to meet each other and rejoice. And what are we asked to do but to understand from Jesus that God is a great rejoicing. If only we can imagine that we can let go of our self-importance, our fear, our need to jump through hoops, and all that other stuff, and start to enter into the great rejoicing.
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