The Fourth Sunday in Lent (Laetare) (Year C)
March 30, 2025
Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down from heaven to be the true bread which giveth life to the world: Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Joshua (4:19-24,) 5:9-12
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Luke 15:11-32
Today we heard the story of the Prodigal Son. In our lectionary, we hear it as a stand-alone tale, fully formed and realised, a sort-of novella. Here, in twenty one lines of Greek, we find a lively and engaging narrative, psychological depth, and a lesson about the Christian life. It is easy, then, to think of this, perhaps the best known and best loved of all the Gospel parables, in isolation from the larger story of Jesus’ ministry that Luke is telling. Today, we will take a step back and see how this perfect little episode fits in the bigger picture.
Jesus has been preaching, teaching, and healing. He has attracted a curious and devoted following beyond the disciples. He has also caught the attention of the religious leaders, including the scribes (the lawyers) and the Pharisees, adherents to a serious religious movement that would become the foundation for Rabbinic Judaism after the Roman wars and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. For a while, Jesus has been talking about the coming Kingdom of God and the cultural shift that must take place for people to participate fully in its fruits. One of the principal images he has been using to help people understand what he is talking about has been that of banquets of varying sorts. He has discussed seating arrangements as a way of understanding the attitude of humility that this new age demands, and says “every one who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (14:11). He told the story of the man who gave a banquet and invited his guests, but all of them made excuses and did not come, so the host told his servants to “go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled” (14:23). Jesus then talks about how this new age will demand we make choices, hard choices, and be willing to give up material possessions, wealth, and all the trappings of success that powerful men interested only in themselves crave. .
Jesus has told those who have been drawn to him – who comprise people on the margins of society, whom we are told include “tax collectors and sinners” (15:1) – that this new age is expansive in who is included in its reach, that they have a place in it, that they have a place at this great banquet. These outsiders have every right to follow the prophetic words of Jesus and become part of the community of the Kingdom of God. At the same time, these teachings have made the Pharisees and scribes uncomfortable, largely because Jesus does include those outsiders. “This man receives sinners and eats with them,” they murmur. Luke makes it clear that it is as a consequence of this dichotomy – the attraction of his teaching to the so-called “tax collectors and sinners,” and the disquiet it causes among the scribes and Pharisees – that he then tells three parables about finding that which has been lost. Jesus, then, is directly, and not subtlety, addressing the place of those outsiders, the tax collectors and sinners, those who have been lost to society, and challenging the views of the scribes and Pharisees, who, themselves have also been issued the same invitation. .
The first of these parables, just five lines of text, is that of the lost sheep, how the shepherd “leaves the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and [goes] after the one which is lost until he finds it” (15:3). Jesus makes it clear that finding the lost sheep is a cause for great rejoicing. The second parable Jesus tells his listeners, in just three lines, is about a woman who lost ten silver coins (10 drachma, which is about ten days worth of a labourer’s wages), and makes a great effort to find them again, and how upon finding them she has great cause for rejoicing. The stated lesson of both is that “there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (15:10). Not only are the lost included in the Kingdom, they are sought out and beloved. .
It is at this point that Jesus tells them the about the lost son and the forgiving father. Unlike the first two parables, this is an expansive narrative, it is the culmination of Jesus’ message about the place the lost have in the Kingdom of God. “There was a man who had two sons.” At first it seems like this could be a story about any family, rich or poor, but we quickly learn that this family is one of great privilege, as the younger son asks for his share of his father’s estate. Without asking any questions, the father gives the boy what he wants. After just a couple of days, the boy gathers his possessions and takes a “journey into a far country,” where “he squandered his property in loose living.” By all measures, the son has been completely irresponsible, and very quickly he realises it for himself, as he is reduced to feeding swine, humiliating work that would render him ritually impure and separate him from his fellow Jews. In a short space of time, this privileged young man has become one of the lost, a sinner who has disreputably squandered his inheritance and cut himself off from respectable people. He knows that he has broken his relationship with both God and his father, and decides that he would rather work as one of his father’s servants and risk rejection at the hands of his family than remain in this state. .
On his way back home – well before he ever had the chance to tell his father, “I have sinned against heaven and before you” – his father acts first, and seeing his son coming, “ran and embraced him and kissed him.” And while the son does get to make his confession, his father responds to it not with words, but with action, real love-in- action. He sends his servants to bring the boy new clothes – in fact, the “best robe” – and orders that the fatted calf – the USDA prime, grain-fed calf – be slaughtered and a banquet prepared. And here, the story is clearly meant to be seen not only as a model for how we are to treat someone who has become lost to us, even through their own misbehaviour, but as an allegory of how God treats the outcast, the lost, the sinner, and invites them to that banquet of the Kingdom of God Jesus had described in other parables. .
If the story stopped here, I think that the parable of the lost son and his forgiving father would still be as beloved today as it is. But it does not stop here. To what we have already learnt about God’s attitude to the lost sheep and sinners, we gain an added layer of nuance, for our perspective shifts to that of the father’s other son. Clearly, dad hasn’t sent someone to tell his older boy that his brother is back and that he has decided to throw a party. “The elder son was in the field,” we learn, “and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing” and asks a servant what is happening. He is told that his “father has killed the fatted calf because he has received him safe and sound.” Rather than be glad to hear of his brother’s return, we get one of those true-to-life moments that scripture is so good at giving us. Like Jonah when he gets mad at God because the people of Nineveh repented, the older brother became “angry and refused to go in.” This isn’t a tale with an unrealistically happy ending. It describes exactly the sort of thing people do, how we sometimes feel when we think that we have done everything right, without reward, and someone waltzes in and gets all the attention. But Jesus has been telling us that this is just what can happen in the Kingdom of God. The one who came to work at the eleventh hour receives the same wages as the one who came at the first. .
The Father tells his elder son, “you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.” This is exactly what Jesus was telling the crowds – both the lost souls who have followed him and the Pharisees and scribes who keep trying to trip him up. “There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (15:7). “There is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (15:10). Jesus is quite clear, there is room in the Kingdom of Heaven for everyone. There is room for those who have no need for repentance – like the older son, like the scribes and Pharisees. There is also room in the Kingdom for the least and the lost, for the tax collectors and sinners. In fact, God especially rejoices when those who have come in humility, with repentance in their hearts, with a past about which they may not be proud, when these people come and find their place at the banquet of the Kingdom of God. .
The parable of the Prodigal Son, which is also the story of the forgiving father and the stroppy brother, certainly shows us in the most vivid and relatable of terms how we are to treat each other, how we are called both to seek forgiveness and, when the shoe is on the other foot, to be lavish in forgiving. The story also lives in the larger context of Jesus message about the expansive reach of the Kingdom of God. No one is out of that grasp, no one is too far removed, so very lost, or too sinful not to be welcome at the banquet table in the Kingdom.
Andrew Charles Blume ✠
New York City
John Keble, Priest and Poet, 29 March 2025
© 2025 Andrew Charles Blume