The TWO Lost Sons!

LUKE 15:11-32 

Jesus disciples had recognized him as God’s Messiah and so Jesus set his face towards Jerusalem where he would fulfill God’s purpose through his death and resurrection. So Jesus determined to go to Jerusalem and on the way he is imparting his ‘kingdom vision’ to his disciples who would carry on his ‘mission’ after his departure (Luke 9:31, 51). Jesus had gathered a ‘new twelve’ around himself, but there was also a growing opposition among the ‘religious leaders’. Jesus’ claimed authority to forgive sins, he disregarded their 'Sabbath interpretations’ and he associated with ‘tax-collectors and sinners’. These became part of a growing division between Jesus and the ‘religious authorities of his day’.

Remember that in Luke 15 "tax collectors and sinners” are gathering to hear Jesus, while the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were muttering, “this man welcomes sinners and eats with them (15:1-2).” So Jesus tells a parable of a shepherd who searches for his one lost sheep and gathers his friends to celebrate when he finds it. This is followed by a parable of a woman who loses one of her ten coins. She searches her house and when she finds the lost coin she gathers her friends to celebrate. Both stories conclude with comments about heaven rejoicing over 'repentant sinner’ (15:3-10). Again, among his original audience we find these ‘scribes and Pharisees’ who are actually angry that ‘sinners’ were drawing near to hear Jesus.

So Jesus tells a story of a man with two sons (15:11-32). The younger son asks for his share of the estate. Evidently, he was more interested in his father’s wealth than being with his father and enjoying fellowship with his father. Surprisingly, the father divides the estate between his sons. The younger son gathers all his things and leaves for a distant country. There he wastes his wealth on wild living and a famine strikes that land. He takes the lowly and ‘unclean’ work of feeding pigs and even longs to eat the pods the pigs were eating. He decides to return to his father. His plan is to acknowledge his sin against heaven and against his father and he hopes to become like one of his father’s workers.

While he was still a long way off his father sees him with eyes of compassion and runs to his wayward son and embraces him. Having received his father’s kiss, the son confesses his sin and says how he is not worthy to be called the father’s son. The father has the best robe put on his son, a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. They kill the fatten calf and the Father throws a big party to celebrate the return of his lost son. The father had given his disrespectful son what he wanted and he had left his father and wasted his wealth. Yet, when that son returned his father had been waiting and watching for his lost son. The father runs and embraces his son and will hear nothing of being a ‘hired worker’ and reinstates his son and celebrates his return.

The older son returns from the field and hears singing and dancing. When he finds out that his father had killed the fattened calf to celebrate his brother’s return the older son becomes angry and refused to celebration. The father comes out and pleads with the older brother to come in and join the celebration. But the older brother claims to have slaved for his father for years and to have never disobeyed his father’s orders. He had ‘slaved for his father’ and ‘never disobeyed his father’s orders’, but hadn’t received even a young goat to celebrate with his friends. On the other hand, the ‘wayward and wasteful’ son was receiving a feast with a ‘fattened calf’ and the older son was anger and refused to come in (15:25-30).

The Father says that the older son was always with him and that everything he had belonged to the older son, but they had to celebrate because the brother was dead and was now alive, he was lost and was now found. The older brother sees himself as ‘faithful’ as if that put the father in debt to the older son. But, the older son lacks genuine loving devotion with his father. For him working with his father was 'slavery' and 'obeying orders’.

In reality, both sons were void of any real love and devotion to their father. They didn’t want relationship with the father. What they wanted was the father’s estate. They just had two different methods of getting what they wanted. The younger said, ‘give me my share and I’m out of here’. The older son said, ‘I’ve been your slave and have obeyed your orders so you owe me what I want’. The younger son came to his senses, returned to his father and saw himself as unworthy and undeserving. So the question is will the older son see the errors of his ways? Will the older son repent of his ‘works righteousness’ and his ‘demanding spirit’?

The bottom-line for Jesus’ original audience was will the ‘scribes and Pharisees’ repent and celebrate that the ‘sinners’ are coming to Jesus. For us today, we can easily seek to be, as Tim Keller says, seeking to be our own ‘Lord and Savior’. We can do this by running away from God and doing our own thing, or we can do it by being ‘very religious’ and doing good things for the wrong reasons. The later method leads to a ‘self-righteousness’ that can become very self-deceptive. We can be good in an attempt to put God in our debt. We can seek God’s favor without having to repent and without any real loving relationship with God Himself.