The title of today’s sermon printed in your bulletin is “The Prodigal Father.” And no, that’s not a typo or a mistake. We all know today’s Gospel lesson as “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” That’s what we were taught years ago in Sunday School, and virtually every Bible ever printed has it in big bold letters just like this one – “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” But even though the younger son is the one who gets the most attention here, I think that the most prodigal person in our text is really the father.
But before I try to convince you of that, let’s start with the word “prodigal.” Have you ever used that word in a conversation? Unless you were talking about our Gospel lesson – probably not. Now let me complicate things for you a little bit. The Bible never uses the word “prodigal,” either. You can read the Bible from front to back and you’ll never ever find that word – not in the ESV, not in the NIV, not in the King James Version. In fact, these words “The Parable of the Prodigal Son” don’t appear anywhere in the original Greek text of Luke’s Gospel – they’re simply a heading added hundreds and hundreds of years later.
Not only don’t you normally use the word “prodigal,” but I’m willing to bet that you’ve never looked that word up in a dictionary. Because we’re so familiar with this parable, we naturally assume that “prodigal” means wasteful – recklessly wasteful. And yes, that is one of the meanings. But according to Webster’s Dictionary, the primary definition of “prodigal” is – and I quote – “very generous.” Another dictionary defines it as “lavishly abundant,” and a third defines the word as “giving or producing something in large amounts.”
Let’s try to keep all of these definitions in mind as we begin our study of Luke’s account. Jesus tells the parable of a man who has two sons, and one day the younger son comes to the father and asks him to give him his inheritance. Does his request strike you as being pretty doggone rude? After all, you don’t receive an inheritance from your parents until those parents are dead. But the younger son doesn’t want to wait. He wants his inheritance now. Without coming out and saying it, he tells his father that he wants to consider his father to be dead so he can collect his money and hightail it out of town.
What’s amazing here is that the prodigal father – the generous father – does it. He divides his property among the two sons. The younger son packs up everything and heads out for “a far country.” At this point the father may be thinking that he may never see his younger son again, and from what Luke tells us that seems to be a correct assumption.
Luke goes on to tell us that the younger son “squandered his property in reckless living.” It apparently didn’t take him long to burn through all the money he received from his father’s estate – and before he realizes what’s happened, he’s left with nothing. He’s dead broke. To make things worse, a severe famine hits the country – in 2010 we can relate it to our severe economic recession – and not only is he left with no means of carrying on his life of partying, he has no means of even putting food in his stomach. We remember that pigs were considered unclean to the Jewish people, and the only job he can find is feeding pigs. Not just feeding them – living with them and eating their same food. Not just feeding the pigs – but actually living like a pig. Luke writes that “no one gave him anything” – the friends who probably helped him waste his money were long gone. His prodigal life – his wasteful life of wallowing in his sin – has made him as good as dead.
Let’s stop now and take a look at the older son. He doesn’t seem to be anything like the younger son. Hard-working, serious, respectful of his father – that’s the portrait that Luke paints of him. But from Luke’s description we can also see that he’s just a little bit full of himself – perhaps more than a little too self-righteous. And more than a little unforgiving. When the younger son returns, he wants nothing to do with him. After all, he was the “good” son when the “bad” son went off and squandered his inheritance. He accuses his brother of wasting his father’s inheritance with prostitutes – even though he can’t really know at this point what really happened. The older brother throws a hissy fit and refuses to even see his brother. In fact, the very idea that his father is making such a big deal about his brother’s return is seen as an insult, a slap in the face for all of his respectful behavior and devoted service.
But let’s go back to verse 12 of our text, where Luke writes that the father “divided his property among them.” The older son conveniently forgets that he – just like his no-good brother – has also prematurely received his share of the father’s estate. In ancient times, the older son got two-third of the estate and the younger son got one-third, so he actually got twice as much as his brother. No, he hasn’t wasted it, but he doesn’t seem to remember his father’s generosity to him, either.
And then there’s the father. The loving father. The father who meets the dictionary definitions of the word “prodigal” as “very generous” and “lavishly abundant” and “giving or producing something in large amounts.” When his younger son makes an outrageous demand, he gives everything he has to both sons. Some might see that as being stupid or as being too indulgent to his sons, but that’s not how Jesus portrays the father here. The father simply loves his sons – both sons – more than life itself. And he is willing to give them everything.
Listen again to verse 20 of our text. “But while he” – the younger son, that is – “was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” The father saw him – because the father was waiting for him. Jesus speaks of a father who waited, day after day, month after month, perhaps year after year, for his son to return. For his son to repent. To repent and come back to the prodigal father who patiently and lovingly waits and watches for his son – and when he finally sees his son “still a long way off” he comes rushing and running to him, embracing him, showering him with kisses, loving him with a love that has no limits.
Before the younger son returned home, he carefully planned out what he would say and do. He would apologize – he would express his repentance – and then he would try to make things right with his father by offering to become his servant. His repentance may very well be genuine, but his plan is entirely based upon what he will do for his father. I will work for you, father. I will serve you. I’ll do anything you want me to do if you’ll only just let me come home where I can be safe and have a full stomach.
So many times, that’s how Christians – that’s how we – view our repentance before God. I’m sorry for what I did, God, but I’ll make it up to you. I’ll lead a better life. I’ll give more money to the church. I will repent more, I will pray more, I will rededicate myself to you, I will do this, I will do that. I’ll repent on my own terms – I’ll show my repentance by doing something, anything for God, if God will just give me what I want.
But that’s now how repentance works. That’s not how God works. That’s not how our generous, loving, prodigal Father – God Almighty Himself – works. When the prodigal son of our parable begins to repent, his father listens to his repentance and shuts him off before the son starts laying out his plan. He forgives his son – but forgives him on his terms. He hears his repentance and forgives his son with an outpouring of love that goes above and beyond anything that either the son or we might expect. His sins are forgiven and forgotten. He is returned to full sonship with the father.
When Luke writes that the father shows compassion for his son, the Greek word he uses is σπλαγχνίζομαι (splanchnizomai). What’s unusual about this word is that in Biblical usage, it is only used to describe either God Himself or, in a parable, a character who represents God. It represents a gracious and underserved love far beyond anything that we humble humans are able to feel or to express. It represents the truly immeasurable, the truly prodigal love of a Creator who would sacrifice His own Son so that our sins – our prodigally wasteful life on this earth – could be forgiven. It represents the truly immeasurable, the prodigal love of Jesus Christ who would willingly suffer and die for our sins.
Our prodigal Father lovingly waits and yearns for us – his prodigal sons and daughters – to repent so that He can forgive us on His own beloved terms. When we are extravagantly sinful in our daily lives like the younger brother by leading a life that is not pleasing to Him, he yearns for our repentance. When we are extravagantly sinful in our daily lives like the older brother by being pompous and self-righteous and holier-than-thou, he lomgs for our repentance.
And when we repent, He shows us nothing but Gospel forgiveness with no strings attached, a forgiveness more abundant – more prodigal – than anything we could ever imagine. Luke concludes our Gospel lesson with these words: “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.” All of us were dead in our sins. All of us were lost to an eternity of suffering and damnation. But our prodigal Father sent His prodigal Son to make us alive. To paraphrase Luke’s words, we were lost – and thanks be to God the true prodigal Father, we have been found.
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