As Jesus travels on, a variety of people are drawn to Him. This distresses the Pharisees, Sadducees and scribes, all of whom object to His readiness to consort with “sinners.” Jesus already told them that it is not the healthy that need a doctor but the sick (Luke 5). They should be used to this by now.
But, hiss the Pharisees, He’s now attracting people even lepers wouldn’t associate with: tax collectors! Not only does He “receive” them, He eats with them!
This is one of many last straws for the Pharisees and scribes.
Unfazed by their complaint, Jesus unpacks three powerful parables about loss and recovery.
As he searches the hills for the lost sheep, Jesus shows us a shepherd who considers 99 out of 100 to be personally unacceptable. He leaves the 99 behind and searches until he finds the one – giving everyone a cause for celebration.
Likewise, the woman refuses to settle for 9 out of 10. She searches until she finds the one coin and calls her friends and neighbors to rejoice.
Meh, say the Pharisees. What do we care about a sacrificial sheep and a handful of silver?
There was a man who had two sons…
It is a prosperous family. The land is fertile and fruitful. There are sons to till the fields and servants to help bring in the harvest. The firstborn is highly disciplined. He spends all day in the field, working until sundown without complaining – well, not to his father anyway. His free time – and his feelings – are for his friends.
The younger son is a bit of a worry. As second son, his is a life of hand-me-downs given at the discretion (and whim) of his older brother. If his brother were to die (God forbid) and leave him the estate, he’s faced with a hand-me-down (Levirate) marriage. He’ll be required to raise children in his brother’s name. Being second sucks. Perhaps that’s why the father has set aside a portion for the younger son now – a little bit of sunshine for a future rainy day.
The younger son, however, deliberately misunderstands the gesture. Instead of respecting it as a future lifeline, he takes it as his ticket out of town. No more taking orders from everyone around him, he can be his own man!
“Put your money where your mouth is old man,” says the boy, “and change these cows into cash.” Days later, he is off to a far country – a fabled place of “reckless living” (most likely the Gentile cities of the Decapolis).
Not for the first time, he listens to the wind and swears he hears the words: “come home.”
The boy is caught up in his fast new life, riding the rapids, going with the flow. Unfortunately for him, that flow is headed right down the drain (along with his money). He spends blindly even as his savings bleed away. The water has been shut off, the electricity is next. The donkey in the driveway? Repossessed. Famine stalks the land, and he finds himself in need. Always a planner and a doer, he manages to hire himself out to a citizen of the country (a Gentile) who, in turn, puts him to work – slopping pigs.
“Is this a joke?” the boy wonders. Surely the man knows he is a Jew! Slowly, painfully, the boy begins to realize just how far from home and lost he really is. Having refused to work in his father’s fields, he has thrust aside all familial ties and squandered his meager inheritance. Waking up from a whirlwind party he can’t remember, he finds himself right back in the fields he so greatly despised. Except this time, they are foreign fields with strange skies and dead crops; he’s working for next to nothing and fighting with pigs over garbage.
“How did I get here? How could making just a few compromises bring me to a point where I’ve now done everything I swore I’d never do? This is just as bad as home,” he sulks as he kicks at the hard, dry ground.
“No, it’s much worse,” says his better self, taking a seat beside him. “If you were at home, you’d have bread enough to spare and you certainly wouldn’t be tending pigs!”
Not for the last time, he listens to the wind and swears he hears the words: “come home.”
The day is crisp and clear. It’s a good day for watching. It’s so clear, in fact, you can see for miles, he thinks.
And in a moment that stops his heart, his son appears -- there, just at the top of the hill. He’s no taller, but he’s darker, burned and baked by the sun. No, he’s filthy, covered in ... no. It doesn’t matter. He’s home. Nothing compares to this moment.
And so the old man runs.
