This week I listened to a sermon preached on Luke 15: “The Parable of the Lost Sheep,” “The Parable of the Lost Coin,” and “The Parable of the Lost Son” (which I have renamed, “The Parables of the Lost Things” because this is the way my mind works). While the message focused mainly on the last parable (the Lost Son) and the importance of reconciliation in broken relationships, I had a number of additional thoughts that passed through my head as I sat there listening and after reflecting more on the passages after the fact. Here they are:
Parable Order
Early on in the message, the speaker observed that the owners in the first two parables actively went to search for their lost items (sheep and coin) whereas the father in the third parable stayed where he was when his son left home with his inheritance. I hadn’t made this connection before, but it really stuck out to me because you would think a son would be more important than a sheep or a coin, so why did Jesus make the father stay home instead of calling an amber alert and searching high and low for his son?
I think Jesus purposely ordered these parables the way He did in order to contrast the difference in cognitive capacity of each of the lost things. Sheep, while cute and fluffy, are pretty dumb and likely unable to find their way back home if they are lost; they just don’t have the capacity to. Likewise a coin…well it’s inanimate so that’s pretty self-explanatory. However, a human being does have the cognitive capacity to find their way back if they become lost…if they want to.
Interesting.
Humans not only have the cognitive capacity to find their way when they are lost, but they also have the ability to choose whether they want to go back where they started or not, which leads me to my second thought:
Was “The Son” actually what was lost?
This thought took me by surprise, but the more I reflected on it, the more unsure I became that the son was actually what was lost. I mean, both sons knew exactly they were, what they were doing, and what they wanted which doesn’t sound people who are ‘lost’ to me (just maybe people who made very poor life choices). But if the son wasn’t lost, then what was?
I think what was lost was the sons’ love for their father.
Here is how it applies to the younger son (Mr. “I-gotta-get-outta-here-and-live-it-up”):
- If he loved his father he wouldn’t have wanted to leave under those circumstances.
- If he loved his father he wouldn’t have asked for his inheritance upfront (read: Hi dad, I wish you were dead…but you’re not…but can I have my money now anyway?)
- If he loved his father he wouldn’t have proverbially broken his father’s heart (see above).
Likewise, here is how it applies to the older son (Mr. “I-always-do-what-I’m-told-dad-look-at-me-work-so-hard-for-you-why-aren’t-you-looking-at-me”):
- If he loved his father, he would have noticed his dad’s behaviour while his brother was gone*
- If he loved his father, he would have responded to above by possibly staying closer to home rather than out in the fields to comfort and support his dad emotionally because of above
- If he loved his father, he would have been so happy to see his father happy again now that his brother was back.
With this in mind it now made sense to me why the father didn’t actively go out to find his younger son. The father’s love for this son was never in question; He willingly gave his son his inheritance even when this son was nothing but an ungrateful asshole, but despite his heartache he still hoped for his son’s return (as demonstrated by him being by the window when his son eventually showed up again). Unfortunately for the father, though his love for his younger son ran so deep, it didn’t change the fact that this son simply didn’t love him anymore. He had made his choice and the father, out of love for his son, let him go.
As for the older son, the father’s love for him was also never in question; When the son confronted his dad, his father responded he had always been with him and that everything he had was the son’s as well. I might be inferring too much here, but It almost reads as if the dad is surprised that he even had to say this at all because, to the father, it was so painfully obvious. Needless to say the older son didn’t recognize any of this and the parable ends with him being incredibly angry and resentful at his father’s reaction to his brother’s return. Ironically, I have no doubt that if he older son had come to his father with the same demands as he younger son, the father would have given him what he wanted and let him go too because he loved him the same way he loved his other son, and should the older son have returned the same way the younger one did, the father would have reacted in exactly the same way too.
It’s clear that the father loved both sons deeply and equally, and that his sons didn’t reciprocate his love, but this wasn’t because his sons couldn’t love him back but because his sons ultimately chose not to.
Cognition, Love, and Choice
In order to make any choice you need to have the cognitive capacity to do so. There are a lot of components involved in decision making - there are pros and cons to be weighed, emotions to be taken into account, and consequences from said choice being made that need to be considered. Out of the three missing items in each of the parables (sheep, coin, human), it is obvious that the prodigal son was the only one capable of making meaningful choices.
Love is a strong emotion, but it is also a choice that needs to be made by the one doing the loving. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for the father to love people who either wished he was dead or who stuck around but really didn’t want to have anything to do with him, but he loved both of his sons anyway because he chose to. In the same way, the sons had a deeply loving father who would literally give them anything and everything, but they chose not to love him back; Their love for their father was lost. In the end, the younger son finds his way back home and somewhere between him leaving and returning home, he begins loving his father again.
We, the readers, know that the father literally welcomes this son back with open arms, but the son in the story didn’t know this would happen. There is humility and repentance present in the younger son as he walks back to his father’s home, and awareness that his return home could be catastrophic in that he might be reprimanded and possibly rejected by his own father. These real fears don’t keep him from returning home though, because ultimately the son his father back. To be near him. To be with him. His love for his father had been found.
This is why the father is described as having “compassion” for his son as he sees him coming down the road. The father understands that it was difficult for the son to return home, and recognizes the humility and repentance present in his son as he approaches him. And guess what? There was no reprimand, no rejection, just love that oozed out of the father and manifested in compassion, tears, joyful celebration, and ultimate acceptance.
Unfortunately for the older brother, at the end of the parable his love for his father still seems to be lost; there is still anger, resentment, and entitlement present in this son. Luckily for him, if and when he chooses to love his father again (once his love for his father is ‘found’), he will be met with same compassionate open arms, tears, joyful celebration, and ultimate acceptance too.
So much packed into these parables; Jesus was one badass story-teller. …..
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*The parable doesn’t really touch on this, but if the father was watching the road attentively for the possible return of his son and dropped everything, cried as he ran to him, and embraced him without a second thought when he finally saw him, one could infer that he wasn’t sitting around at home eating chips, laughing his head off, or singing happy songs all day.
