Text Study for Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (Part Seven)

Part Seven

What is the “right” name for this parable? I want to name it “The Parable of the Generous Father.” The father gives everything to each and to both of the sons. That’s why part of the “punchline” for the parable comes in the father’s encouragement to the older son. “Child,” the father says with tenderness, “you always are with me, and all that is mine is yours” (Luke 15:31, my translation). The father holds nothing back from either son – neither stuff, nor forgiveness, nor love.

This the Parable of the Generous Father. This is a portrait of the Generous God embodied and proclaimed by Jesus.

Each of the sons, however, created and projected an image of their father that served their prejudices and pet projects. The younger son saw the father as his personal piggybank. The older son saw his father as his slaveholder. Just as the sons created and projected images of their father to suit themselves, so we create and project images of God to serve our interests.

Miroslav Volf talks about two of these images in his fine book, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. He describes “God the negotiator” and “God the Santa Claus.” I want to discuss these images in reverse order because I think that’s how they appear in the Parable of the Generous Father.

“A Santa Claus God demands nothing from us,” Volf writes, “A divine Santa is the indiscriminately giving and inexhaustible fertile source of everything that is, and everything that is to come our way” (page 27). Of course, God is indeed the source of all that we are, all that we have, and all that we need. But, Volf asks, is it indeed the case that God demands nothing? No, he argues. In fact, God “demands” that we would grow into the fully flourishing human beings that God has created us to be.

“Here is what we do as worshipers of a Santa Claus God,” Volf continues. “We embrace the conviction that God is an infinitely generous source of all good, but conveniently forget that we are created in God’s image to be in some sense like God…To live well as a human being,” Volf suggests, “is to live in sync with who God is and how God acts” (page 27).

For me, the connection between this image of God and the image the younger son had of the father is obvious. The younger son took his stuff and wasted it. He didn’t use it to make himself into the person that he could be. Instead, he used what he got to diminish himself – financially, physically, socially, and emotionally. The parable makes clear that the only one impoverished by the younger son’s behavior was – the younger son himself.

What is the difference between a Santa Claus God and a gift-giving God, Volf asks? “The bare-bones answer is this: a Santa Claus God gives simply to we can have an enjoy things; the true God gives,” Volf concludes, “so we can become joyful givers and not just self-absorbed receivers” (page 28). To become joyful givers is both to imitate the real nature of God and to grow more and more into what God has created us all to be.

The other image Volf describes is “God the Negotiator.” I think this is the image the older son brings to his relationship with the father. The older son’s image of that relationship seems purely transactional. He has worked like a slave for his father. He’s always been obedient but has never been rewarded for that obedience – not even with the gift of a young goat so he could party with his friends. The younger son has violated the terms of the agreement, as the older son sees it. Yet, the father has rewarded that behavior by throwing a gigantic party.

The older son wants to sue his father for breach of contract.

How many of us, Volf wonders, see our relationship with God in those purely transactional terms? Volf suggests that its not a very smart arrangement, if in fact this is how things work. We have nothing with which to bargain, since God needs nothing that we have to offer. Even if we could negotiate such a deal, Volf continues, we can’t make God fulfill any contract. And before we even get to the negotiating table, God already has expectations of us as God’s creatures.

But God is not a negotiator. God is the Giver. Volf writes that “the God hanging on the cross for the salvation of the world is not a negotiating God! On the cross, God is not setting up the terms of a contract that humans need to fulfill in order to get what they want” (page 26). Instead, God is most fully God (to play a little fast and loose with our language) when God is giving us what we could never get for ourselves – what Luther calls “forgiveness, life, and salvation.”

The father in the parable is neither a fool nor a fraud. The father is generous, no matter how the sons may regard him or treat one another. God is neither Santa Claus nor negotiator, neither fool nor fraud. God is the giver. When God is imagined as Santa Claus, God is described as loving in order to get approval. When God is imagined as the Negotiator, God is described as loving in order to get obedience. But God doesn’t love in order to “get” anything. God loves in order to give.

Volf takes us to Luther’s description of God’s love as we find that description in thesis 28 of his work for the Heidelberg Disputation.

The best discussion of God’s love in the thesis comes from Tuomo Mannermaa’s monograph, Two Kinds of Love: Martin Luther’s Religious World. In thesis 28, Luther argues that “God’s Love does not find in its object what makes it lovable but rather creates it. Human Love, by contrast, turns itself or is oriented toward that which already ‘is’ something in itself and as such is good and beautiful “Kindle Locations 134-136).

Human love seeks to get something from the object of that love. I don’t think Luther viewed all human beings as psychopaths. But human love is always focused on the object of that love – something or someone that already exists. Just think about how hard it is to love someone for them instead of for me. Human love tends to be possessive, obsessive, and acquisitive. “In other words,” Mannermaa writes, “human beings always seek their own, that is, their own good, in the objects of their love” (Kindle Locations 145-146).

That’s not Divine Love. God’s love creates, gives life to, that which God loves. God loves, by definition, in order to give. “Just as God has created everything out of nothingness and caused what is not or what does not exist to come into existence-to be,” Mannermaa suggests, “in the same fashion God’s Love calls its beloved out of nothingness and surrounds its object with its own goodness and good things” (Kindle Locations 152-153).

God, the Giver, loves Creation into life. That’s why the Parable of the Generous Father is a resurrection story. Twice, we are reminded that the younger son was lost and is found, was dead and now is alive. The father proclaims that resurrection first to the servants as they scurry to round up the ring, the robe, the shoes, and the fatted calf. The father proclaims that resurrection again to the older son to demonstrate that in the light of this miracle, some celebration was required.

God’s love makes us and all of Creation into what God longs for us all to be – ourselves as fully flourishing creatures. As fully flourishing creatures, we are then equipped to love like God loves: not for what we can get but rather for what we can give. “In other words,” Mannermaa writes, “God’s Love helps human beings, first of all, to love God as God and not only the goodness received from God, and, second, to love other human beings for themselves and as persons, instead of loving only their precious qualities and for what could be gained from them for the benefit of the one who loves” (Kindle Location 201).

Volf correctly notes that when we are fully flourishing creatures, we participate in God’s loving. That’s really the plea, I think, from the generous father to the older son. Come into the house and be a part of the loving! “Your brother,” the father pleads with the older son. “It is not just that Christ sends the goods to flow into us,” Volf writes, “Christ makes the goods flow from us as well, truly indwelling, motivating, and acting through us” (page 51). As Mannermaa would argue, Christ is present in us through faith.

“The flowing of God’s gifts from us to others is the overflowing of those very gifts that Christ brought into us with his presence,” Volf observes. “The flow of gifts both in and out of us happens when we receive the one Gift of God: the Christ who dwells in us and works through us” (page 51). In Luther’s words, the plain fact is that God never works in us without us.

Thus, we find ourselves as both sons of the Generous Father. We often squander what we’ve been given, only to find ourselves welcomed back to the family table to try again and to do better. And when we’re at that table, we are invited to be partners in the Giving, growing ever more fully into the image and likeness of God renewed in us through Christ by the power of the Spirit.

“Faith receives the good deed of Christ, and the task of Christians is to love God and God’s will without self-interest and to be Christ to their neighbors,” Mannermaa writes, “This means, to do for their neighbors as Christ has done first for them: to give the good gifts they have received to their neighbors in need, and to relate to the neighbors’ sins, weaknesses, and needs as if these were their own. In this way,” he concludes, “Christ, Christians, and their neighbors form one body in God and God’s love” (Kindle Locations 401-402).

Resources and References

Abraham, Heather R. “Segregation Autopilot: How the Government Perpetuates Segregation and How to Stop It.” https://ssrn.comb/abstract=4006587.

Burke, Trevor J. “The parable of the prodigal father: an interpretative key to the third Gospel (Luke 15: 11-32).” Tyndale bulletin 64, no. 2 (2013): 216-238.

Capon, Robert Farrar. Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus. Kindle Edition.

Dinkler, Michal Beth. ““The Thoughts of Many Hearts Shall Be Revealed”: Listening in on Lukan Interior Monologues.” Journal of Biblical Literature 134, no. 2 (2015): 373-399.

Kilgallen, John. “Was Jesus Right to Eat with Sinners and Tax Collectors?” Biblica 93, no. 4 (2012): 590–600. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42617310.

Levine, Amy-Jill, and Witherington III, Ben. The Gospel of Luke (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Mannermaa, Tuomo. Two Kinds of Love: Martin Luther’s Religious World. Kindle Edition.

Swanson, Richard W. Provoking the Gospel of Luke: A Storyteller’s Commentary, Year C. Cleveland, OH.: Pilgrim Press, 2006.

Swanson, Richard W. https://provokingthegospel.wordpress.com/2022/03/20/a-provocation-4th-sunday-in-lent-march-27-2022-luke-151-3-11-32/.

Volf, Miroslav. Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace. Grand Rapids, MI.: Zondervan, 2005.

Wright, N. T. Luke for Everyone (The New Testament for Everyone). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

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Text Study for Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (Part Six)

Can a person change? The Lukan author certainly thinks so. Change happens in the Lukan account when Jesus seeks out people and spends “table time” with them. Repentance – personal change of mind and heart – is the result of encounters with Jesus. Such change is not the precondition for such life-altering interactions. Jesus goes looking for tax collectors and sinners in order to invite them into a new way of living.

John Kilgallen argues that the Pharisees – at least in the Lukan account – shared Jesus’ intention that sinners should repent and find new life. The disagreement was about the most effective and appropriate method. He suggests that the Pharisees, as portrayed in the Gospel accounts, went to great lengths to make sure that the Law was fulfilled – such as washing to the elbows in order to make sure one’s hands were clean. More to our point, they tended to avoid contact with “sinners” in order to impress upon the community the importance of repentance.

The assumption of the Pharisees, as described in the Gospel accounts, is that sin could infect the righteous. Thus, the company of sinners should be avoided when possible. “Not only should one not suggest an indifference to the lives of sinners,” Kilgallen writes of the Pharisees, “but one should avoid them lest one fall into their sinfulness. Finally,” he continues, “how best to influence a change in behavior of sinners, if not to avoid them and so make them ever conscious of their sinfulness?” (page 591).

Jesus adopts the opposite strategy. He welcomes tax collectors and sinners and eats with them. Kilgallen notes that this is a narrative concern and focus at least four times in the Lukan account. The concern begins in Luke 5:27-32 with the call of Levi, the tax-collector. Jesus takes the initiative with Levi and calls him to be a follower. Levi gets up, leaves everything, and follows Jesus. In Lukan terms, Levi becomes an ideal disciple.

In response to this gracious call, Levi hosts a large dinner party at his house, apparently with Jesus as the guest of honor. The table was occupied by a large crowd of tax-collectors as well as other people. The Pharisees and their scribes observed this party (from some distance, we can assume) and were complaining to Jesus’ disciples. They asked, “On what basis do you all eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” (Luke 5:30, my translation). The grammar of the question makes it clear that they want to hear some justification for the unusual strategy.

Jesus tells the Pharisees and their scribes that avoidance is the wrong treatment. A physician wouldn’t do much good for a patient by avoiding contact with that patient. Physicians stay away from those who have no need of treatment. But the tax collectors and sinners need this gracious, personal, direct, and sustained contact with Jesus. “I haven’t come to call the righteous ones,” Jesus concludes, “but rather sinners into repentance” (Luke 5:32, my translation).

In this account, Kilgallen argues, we now have the reason for Jesus’ unusual strategy. We don’t yet have a description of why this mode of “treatment” will work. The next reference in the Lukan account to tax collectors and sinners moves the conversation forward. We find that mention in Luke 7:31-35. On the one hand, Jesus’ opponents have criticized John the Baptist for being too austere. On the other hand, they criticize Jesus for having too much to eat and drink and for being “a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”

Jesus drops a cryptic quip in response. “Wisdom is justified on the basis of all her children” (Luke 7:35, my translation). In other words, the wise person looks at the results, not just at the theory. The quip serves as the lead-in to the forgiveness of the “sinful woman” at the home of Simon the Pharisee. Jesus’ strategy results in repentance and reconciliation on the part of the woman. Simon the Pharisee is left as he is, forgiven little and loving less.

“What Jesus offers now in chap. 7,” Kilgallen writes, “is a proof that his method is justified, for…he points to a number of people who have done what God and Wisdom have asked: they have repented” (page 595-596). So far then, we have the reason for Jesus’ strategy and some general demonstrations of its effectiveness. This takes us to the next mention of tax collectors and sinners – in Luke 15.

The same complaint appears. “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Jesus responds, in the Lukan account, with the three parables. Kilgallen notes two points in the first two parables. “They show that it is unremitting searching that finds what was lost,” he writes, “not disinterest in or distance from sheep or coin…Moreover,” Kilgallen continues, “finding what was lost leads surely to great joy and celebration. The latter aspect, that of rejoicing over finding what was lost, confirms the value of searching, achieving happiness for going after what was lost till it is found. Indeed,” Kilgallen observes, “one cannot imagine how else the sheep and the coin will be found except by continued searching” (page 596).

The third parable shows the life and death stakes of the seeking and finding. The parable of the Prodigal Son “means only to reinforce what the first two parables had made clear: whatever can produce joy in heaven is worth doing. One cannot prefer not searching after sinners, if one is convinced that such searching is the way,” he argues, “the best and necessary way to produce joy, and life.” Luke 15, then, gives the reason for Jesus’ strategy of welcoming sinners and eating with them. If God is rejoicing, it must be a good thing.

The final installment of the tax collectors and sinners throughline is, of course, the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19:1-10. This time it is an anonymous voice from the crowd that grumbles loudly. “He went along with a sinful man to be a guest!” It’s not just eating and drinking this time. Jesus is staying at the house, taking up lodging for a brief stretch. Jesus has raised the stakes of the interaction even higher.

“For our purposes,” Kilgallen suggests, “the most striking feature we find in this story is the fact that we have been given a clear example of the result that comes from Jesus’ fraternizing with sinners” (page 598). The results of Jesus’ strategy are individual repentance and promises of repair consistent with Old Testament regulations in Exodus 21, Leviticus 6, and Numbers 5. Welcoming (and being welcomed) by tax collectors and sinners and eating with them is what it takes to seek and to save the “lost.”

The criticism from the crowd comes as a reminder that Jesus’ strategy is not the accepted way of dealing with tax collectors and sinners. The result meets this criticism head on. In addition, Zacchaeus didn’t come predisposed or prepared to repent, Kilgallen argues. Instead, he begins with “benevolent curiosity” rather than some expressed desire for repentance. “No,” Kilgallen concludes, “it is only the actual time spent with Jesus that accounts for repentance” (page 598).

Can a person change? The Lukan author certainly thinks so. Change happens in the Lukan account when Jesus seeks out people and spends “table time” with them. I am reminded of a congregational ministry to, with, and for incarcerated people who are preparing to return to life “in the world.” The ministry revolves around Sunday worship, a communal meal, fellowship, and Bible study. Interested participants are interviewed to orient them to the nature and operation of the ministry. But the one real qualification for attending is whether or not one likes to eat.

I was often struck, when I was involved in that ministry, by the suspicion that such a gracious invitation evoked. The suspicion was understandable. Our guests were coming from a world in which no one ever did anything “for free.” For the first six to eight weeks that the typical guest attended, that guest would ask at least three or four times, “What do you want?” Nothing of value in this world is free, the questioner reasoned. Therefore, we must want something. The trick, they thought, was to figure out what “the catch” was.

There was no “catch.” A few of our guests never caught on to that fact. They tended not to stick with the ministry. But most of the guests had a personal epiphany during that initial time period. These people really don’t want anything from me. “Free” really means free. Grace really is grace. While these people don’t want anything from me, they certainly something for me. What they want for me is a life of wholeness and joy. And that’s it.

Honestly, we didn’t go into this ministry thinking about any of this. We were just trying to help some folks who weren’t getting much help. But, over and over, we got to witness the transforming power of real Grace. Personal change happens when Jesus seeks out people and spends “table time” with them. In the life of the Church, Jesus uses disciples to seek out people and spend that table time with them.

This is why eucharistic hospitality is really the measure of health and faithfulness in a congregation. Who we welcome to the table and under what “conditions” says everything you need to know about the life of a congregation. That welcome includes our willingness to put that table on legs and wheels and to meet people where they are, at their tables and in their lives. Going out to eat, as Jesus did, removes the last “condition” that might impede our eucharistic welcome.

Grace changes people. That’ll preach.

Resources and References

Abraham, Heather R. “Segregation Autopilot: How the Government Perpetuates Segregation and How to Stop It.” https://ssrn.comb/abstract=4006587.

Burke, Trevor J. “The parable of the prodigal father: an interpretative key to the third Gospel (Luke 15: 11-32).” Tyndale bulletin 64, no. 2 (2013): 216-238.

Capon, Robert Farrar. Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus. Kindle Edition.

Dinkler, Michal Beth. ““The Thoughts of Many Hearts Shall Be Revealed”: Listening in on Lukan Interior Monologues.” Journal of Biblical Literature 134, no. 2 (2015): 373-399.

Kilgallen, John. “Was Jesus Right to Eat with Sinners and Tax Collectors?” Biblica 93, no. 4 (2012): 590–600. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42617310.

Levine, Amy-Jill, and Witherington III, Ben. The Gospel of Luke (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Swanson, Richard W. Provoking the Gospel of Luke: A Storyteller’s Commentary, Year C. Cleveland, OH.: Pilgrim Press, 2006.

Swanson, Richard W. https://provokingthegospel.wordpress.com/2022/03/20/a-provocation-4th-sunday-in-lent-march-27-2022-luke-151-3-11-32/.

Wright, N. T. Luke for Everyone (The New Testament for Everyone). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

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Text Study for Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (Part Five)

“But it was necessary to be glad and rejoice, because this one, your brother, was dead and lives, and was lost and is found” (Luke 15:32, my translation). Perhaps a good sermon title might be “Some Celebration Required.” N. T. Wright suggests, “The point of the parables is then clear. This is why there’s a party going on: all heaven is having a party, the angels are joining in, and if we don’t have one as well, we’ll be out of tune with God’s reality” (page 184).

I wonder, however, what is the point of the party? In the first two parables, the joy seems to be over the one sinner who repents. We take that, in our individualistic cultural mindset, to be the end of the story. “I once was lost but now and found,” we sing, often with a tear in our eye and a catch in our throat. Popular American Christianity is captivated by the Evangelical assumption that it’s all about the individual sinner who is saved. But I don’t think that’s faithful to the text or helpful to our theology.

Perhaps we can allow the end of this series of parables to inform the beginning. The lost son is found. He was dead and is now alive. There’s a wild party going on to celebrate the event. But there is still a son outside. There is still a son unreconciled. One son has perhaps returned, but the family is still not whole. The story cannot come to a happy ending as long as the community remains fractured.

Of course, there is rejoicing over the one found lamb, the one found coin, and the one found son. But what has really happened is that the coin collection is once again complete. The flock is full. Will the family be whole? Or will we on the inside settle for being found ourselves and giving little thought to those who still are lost? That’s a good reason for the third parable to be inconclusive and unsettled. The question is still in the air. The family is still on shaky ground.

I wish the NRSV had not over-determined the translation of Luke 15:32. The Greek text is much less specific than the translation. “But it was necessary to be glad and rejoice…” Necessary for whom? The text doesn’t say. It was necessary, perhaps, for the family to be whole again, but that can’t happen until the older brother is once again able to claim his connection to the younger brother. It was necessary because “this one – your brother – was dead and lives and was lost and is found.”

Celebration wasn’t required because the younger son had come to his senses and repented. Celebration was required because now the broken family could be made whole once again – if the older brother was willing to be part of the celebration. There was no question about the older son’s place in the household. “Son,” the father reminds him, “you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours” (Luke 15:31, my translation). Of course, now part of the father’s “all” is the younger son.

God will not settle for a partial victory. God is not content with finding most of the family, but not all. If we are thinking practically, we know that the sheep-owner should have settled for the ninety-nine lambs who stayed at home. If we are thinking practically, we know that the woman should not have turned her house upside down for a coin that either would turn up on its own or could be replaced. If we are thinking practically, we know that the younger son made his own bed and should be required to lie on it.

But we meet a God who will not stop looking until all have been found, reclaimed, returned, and restored. God wants all of us, and God wants us all.

If we reflect the image and likeness of God in our lives and conduct, then neither will we Jesus followers be satisfied while lost sheep, lost coins, and lost children are still “out there.” I’m not suggesting that we should retain a colonial mindset, where we Christians have something to offer that everyone else should want. No, I think our calling is to understand that we are incomplete, that we are lost as long as we blithely settle for flocks made up of people like us.

I was part of a congregation that wrestled long and hard with what it means to be a “welcoming” community. The congregation reflected honestly on this question. When we say, “all are welcome,” is it really a question: “Are all welcome?” Framing the issue in this way sparked some deep introspection and honest confession. We welcomed those who looked and sounded like us, who brought something that we wanted, who came and stayed on our terms and didn’t kick up a fuss.

We weren’t looking for people who might make our community more whole and our lives fuller through their unique gifts and perspectives. Instead, we were like the Borg in the Star Trek franchises. As a long-time Trekkie, I remember the moment when I made the connection. “We are the Borg,” the mechanical voice from the Borg cube threatens. “Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own. Resistance is futile.”

We were happy to welcome people who were willing to be assimilated to our congregational culture, habits, assumptions, preferences, practices, and traditions. Until we could engage in a welcome that moved beyond assimilation, we would continue to be content with incompleteness. I’m happy to report that the congregation made some real progress in moving from assimilation to open engagement. But it was not an easy process.

Would the older brother be open to new possibilities, to a change in the family system? Or was his condition for reconciliation really assimilation – the application of punitive power to the younger son to make sure the system was not threatened like this again? We don’t know how it went for the older son. Do we know how that goes for us?

The parable makes me wonder to what degree we are happy with a limited, familiar, comfortable community that leaves us as the powerful, the privileged, the positioned, and the propertied. Jesus’ critics advocated that the tax collectors and sinners should be segregated away from decent people. Those who crossed these boundaries were in danger of being contaminated by the outsiders and thus becoming one of them.

American cities remain just as segregated, if not more so, as before the days of Brown v. Board of Education, the Civil Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act. “Segregation is a costly self-imposed error,” writes Heather Abraham. “It is not a natural phenomenon. It is government-subsidized and government-reinforced,” she continues. “Some of the documented ways segregation infiltrates our society include how it drives the racial wealth gap, undermines metropolitan GDP, drastically diminishes life opportunities like quality education and healthcare, and ultimately results in highly unequal health outcomes like shorter life expectancy and higher homicide rates for communities of color” (page 2).

We who live well because of White Supremacy and systemic racism can easily document those costs to communities of color and the individuals in those communities. But how often do we think about the cost to those of us who not only benefit from but continue to impose such segregating systems on other human beings? As part of the perpetrating system, we make ourselves less than fully human.

More than that, we have persuaded ourselves that we are complete by ourselves. We who live completely White lives state by our way of living that people of color and their communities have nothing we want or need. We have made Whiteness the be all and end all of existence and notice no deficit created by limiting ourselves to one skin tone and one cultural reality. If there are things from other communities and cultures that we desire, we do a Borg assimilation and simply appropriate them and make them ours.

If I apply a Christian biblical lens to this reality, I see that our White life does not reflect the character of God. God, as Jesus portrays God in these parables, is not content with a part of the flock or the piggy bank or the family. A part won’t do. God wants us all and wants all of us – and wants us all together.

I think this takes us once again to both the first and second lessons for this Sunday. It’s not often that all of the texts work together in such an effective way, so let’s be sure to take advantage of the intersection. We think about community as insiders vs. outsiders. That’s not how God thinks about or sees things. We are the ones who need to change our vision (that’s repentance, by the way).

Reconciliation doesn’t come immediately after repentance. It takes repair of the relationships and the community impacted by the brokenness. White Christians have always wanted to go straight to reconciliation and to skip the repentance and repair stages. Even if we make some efforts at confession and repentance, we’re still not willing to do the hard work of making reparations. Until we do that work, reconciliation is really just a word to make White people feel better about themselves.

We don’t get beyond some initial repenting in the third parable. Perhaps the Lukan author is challenging us to imagine what repairs had to be made in that family system before real reconciliation could happen. And perhaps the Lukan author is challenging us to imagine what repairs we need to make in order for all of us to act like God’s family.

In the meantime, whenever sinners are welcomed, some celebration is required. I look forward to celebrating a bit once again this week, even as I wrestle with who does not yet have a seat at the table.

Resources and References

Abraham, Heather R. “Segregation Autopilot: How the Government Perpetuates Segregation and How to Stop It.” https://ssrn.comb/abstract=4006587.

Burke, Trevor J. “The parable of the prodigal father: an interpretative key to the third Gospel (Luke 15: 11-32).” Tyndale bulletin 64, no. 2 (2013): 216-238.

Capon, Robert Farrar. Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus. Kindle Edition.

Dinkler, Michal Beth. ““The Thoughts of Many Hearts Shall Be Revealed”: Listening in on Lukan Interior Monologues.” Journal of Biblical Literature 134, no. 2 (2015): 373-399.

Levine, Amy-Jill, and Witherington III, Ben. The Gospel of Luke (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Swanson, Richard W. Provoking the Gospel of Luke: A Storyteller’s Commentary, Year C. Cleveland, OH.: Pilgrim Press, 2006.

Swanson, Richard W. https://provokingthegospel.wordpress.com/2022/03/20/a-provocation-4th-sunday-in-lent-march-27-2022-luke-151-3-11-32/.

Wright, N. T. Luke for Everyone (The New Testament for Everyone). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

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Text Study for Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (Part Four)

In each of the three parables in Luke 15, the “finder” takes the initiative. That seems quite straightforward in the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin. The owner of the sheep leaves the ninety-nine in the wilderness and goes after the lost one. The woman is the only one in the second parable who can take any initiative. After all, coins do not call out to be located.

This perspective may be harder to support in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It is the younger son, after all, who has some sort of personal epiphany and heads for home. That being said, it is the father who sees him coming at a distance, who runs to greet him, who embraces him, restores his stuff, and throws a party. In addition, it is the father who comes out of the house during the party to encourage the older son to come in and join the festivities.

The protagonist in the Parable of the Lost Sheep is the sheep owner. The protagonist in the Parable of the Lost Coin is the woman householder. The pattern remains consistent, I think, and the protagonist in the Parable of the Prodigal Son is the father. Whether that was the case in Jesus’ original telling may be difficult to discern. But the structure and sequence of the Lukan narrative makes it clear, I believe, that the primary actor in the third parable is the father.

Trevor Burke also sees the father as the main actor in the parable. In addition, Burke argues “that this story is as much about a ‘prodigal father’ for his behavior is highly unusual and appears to be every bit as rash and unconventional as the younger and older sons” (page 219). But is the father’s “prodigality” a positive trait, or is it a negative and foolish trait like the wastefulness (see Luke 15:14) of the younger son?

Burke examines three “prodigal actions” of the father. The first is the distribution of his property to the sons. Remember, in response to the demand from the younger son, the father divides his property between them (see Luke 15:12). This was weird behavior on the part of the father. “Such an action would have been surprising to those listening,” Burke writes, “especially [since]…fathers were specifically cautioned against giving their inheritance to their offspring or to anyone else during their lifetime” (page 222). That wasn’t an ironclad rule at the time, but this premature distribution would have been regarded as strange, and perhaps foolish.

The father does not exercise authority or discipline over either son in the parable. The younger son blows off the old man and then comes running back when things get tough. The older son won’t do as he’s told and tells the old man off in front of God and everybody. The father is “prodigal” with his patience and property in both cases, in spite of and in disregard to the responses he gets from each of the sons.

The second scene of the father’s prodigality, according to Burke, is when the younger son returns. The father runs to the son, hugs him, and kisses him. Burke subscribes to the “old Middle-eastern men don’t run” line of thought, although not all commentators agree on that fact. But, in any event, “Once again the impulsive and reckless father in the heat of the moment acts out of character and breaks with the social norms,” Burke writes, “he does not do what the first hearers would expect him to do” (page 225).

The father’s extravagance takes on material form in the ring, the best robe, shoes, and the well-fed calf. No one would have seen this coming, in the context of the parable. The younger son may have wasted his inheritance on loose living. But the father outdoes the younger son’s extravagance by an order of magnitude and without a second thought.

The third scene of paternal prodigality, according to Burke, is the conversation with the older son. The father leaves the house, the party, and the guests, and thus risks embarrassing himself in the eyes of his invitees. He goes outside the house and absorbs the older son’s tirade where everyone in the village could see and hear them. In the face of all this dishonor, the father dialogues with the older son rather than disciplining him. “Evidently the maintaining of the relationship by his patience and compassion,” Burke writes, “is more important to the father than his own social standing, position or winning the argument” (page 227).

Burke wonders if the Lukan author is just oblivious to the social and cultural conventions of the period or if there is a point being made. Given a variety of evidence in the text, Burke concludes that the Lukan author “is fully cognizant of the expectations vis-à-vis parents and their offspring and draws on widely held cultural assumptions in order to affirm them” (page 228). The parable of the Prodigal is, therefore, not a product of cultural ignorance or misunderstanding.

But the Lukan author also has no problem with overturning social conventions and structures under the impact of the Good News of Jesus. The Lukan account, after all, is at its heart the story of the Great Reversal. Burke quotes Brendan Byrne’s assertion that the Gospel’s essential purpose is to bring home to people a sense of the extravagance of God’s love. And the Gospel account is filled with characters who perform extravagant gestures in response to God’s salvation (pages 228-229).

Who are these other “prodigals” in the Lukan account? Burke points to the massive and unconditional generosity of the “Good Samaritan” as one example. In addition, there is the extravagant love of the women who comes to Jesus in the house of Simon the Pharisee in Luke 7. She does not stop expressing her devotion even when she is rebuked. Instead, she is the one who has offered prodigal hospitality to Jesus – precisely what Simon should have done as the host. Her actions demonstrate extravagant gratitude.

Those who accompany Jesus to Jerusalem put their most expensive and valued articles of clothing on the road as he passes. “Such a generous and unexpected action appears rash, hasty and spontaneous in the circumstances,” Burke observes, “but it is a no less appropriate response and expression of devotion to Jesus the Messiah who had come to deliver his people” (page 233).

The clincher in this argument, of course, is Zacchaeus in Luke 19. His promises of reparation are the definition of extravagant and prodigal. Most important, in my estimation, is the conclusion that Jesus brings to this interaction. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” The connection to the parables in Luke 15 is obvious.

Burke offers this summary. “When the father’s behavior in Luke 15 is viewed against this portrayal of the magnanimous actions of others (cf. Luke 9:17) in Luke, his actions are essentially a hermeneutical key for the rest of the Gospel since he is not the only ‘prodigal’ in Luke; rather, the author has a proclivity for portraying the conduct of a number of different people as also being ‘prodigal’ in order to get his point across” (page 234).

But, Burke then wonders, what exactly is the evangelist’s point being made by all this extravagance?

The father is an image of God in the third parable, just as the sheep owner and the woman are images of God in the first two parables. Burke suggests that “in the kingdom of God grace is always bestowed upon those who least warrant or presume upon it.” In addition, “in the divine scheme of things, no one gets what they deserve for God’s mercy is not contingent upon the actions of others.” In sum, the parable portrays “a God whose love surpasses all typical expressions known to humanity” (page 237).

Yes, here’s an obvious connection to the first reading. God’s ways are not our ways, thankfully…

Richard Swanson notes that this extravagance does not “count the costs” of loving. This parable, he argues, “is not a bland endorsement of hospitality and welcome, but an acknowledgment of the real risks that go with actual grace.” After all, we don’t know how anyone responds to the father’s extravagant love in the long run. We don’t even know how things might have gone at the breakfast table the morning after the party (although we might have some educated guesses).

On the one hand, it is grace that produces repentance, not the other way around. We see that in our parable. We see it as well in the story of Zacchaeus. Both the younger son and Zacchaeus may have come with mixed motives at best. The younger son may just have been hungry. Zacchaeus may just have been curious. Maybe he just loved a parade. It was the invitation of grace that made any change of heart and mind conceivable…and worth the risk.

“Perhaps the point is that the risks are as real as the love,” Swanson writes, “And then the point is that the love is indomitable. Perhaps. And indomitable love,” he hopes, “might indeed re-create the world.” As we hear this parable again, the question is there for us. Will God’s indomitable love in Christ re-create us? (Yes, that’s an obvious opening to the second reading –Yay!).

Resources and References

Burke, Trevor J. “The parable of the prodigal father: an interpretative key to the third Gospel (Luke 15: 11-32).” Tyndale bulletin 64, no. 2 (2013): 216-238.

Capon, Robert Farrar. Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus. Kindle Edition.

Dinkler, Michal Beth. ““The Thoughts of Many Hearts Shall Be Revealed”: Listening in on Lukan Interior Monologues.” Journal of Biblical Literature 134, no. 2 (2015): 373-399.

Levine, Amy-Jill, and Witherington III, Ben. The Gospel of Luke (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Swanson, Richard W. Provoking the Gospel of Luke: A Storyteller’s Commentary, Year C. Cleveland, OH.: Pilgrim Press, 2006.

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Text Study for Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (Part Three)

Did the younger son “repent”? The answer to that question requires a more complex response than might first be imagined. Translation matters a great deal in the interpretation of this parable. Verse 17 is deliciously ambiguous in the Greek. “But as he was coming (in)to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s paid laborers have more than enough bread, but here I am, being destroyed by hunger!” (my translation). The verse offers divergent possibilities for interpretation.

I subscribe to Richard Swanson’s weekly e-comments/blog at “provokingthegospel.” In this week’s post, Swanson makes some helpful and interesting points. First, we hear that the younger son was “coming (in)to himself.” Swanson suggests that this “could imply that he experienced a deep, life-changing realization that remade him completely. Maybe. But,” Swanson continues, “it could also merely imply that he did the math and realized that, on his current trajectory, he would crash and burn in a short time.”

One response is at least the beginnings of repentance. The other is the self-serving counsel of prudence. The one thing that I wish translators wouldn’t do is make the decision for the non-Greek reading student. The Today’s English Version translation, for example, has something like “when he came to his senses.” That’s not “wrong” as a translation. But I think it over-reads the text and over-determines the outcome.

Sometimes overdoing the translation is a no-harm/no-foul action by translators. But here, I would argue that’s not the case. If one of the intentions of the Lukan author is to challenge us to wrestle with the ambiguity before coming to our own conclusions, then overdoing the translation actually violates the intention of the text. So, let’s wrestle with the text rather than resolve it prematurely. What does it mean for the younger son (and/or for us) that he “came (in)to himself”?

Swanson argues that “the translators of this scene have papered over a clue to the son’s moral state.” He is talking about the translation we get in the NRSV that describes the paid laborers as having “bread enough and to spare…” He suggests that this is a fair enough translation, but it doesn’t convey the real tone of the younger son’s complaint. It’s not that the hired help has “enough” bread, according to Swanson. The younger son is irritated as he remembers (accurately or not) that the hired hands have “more than enough” (that is, too much) bread.

The contrast is with those who have too much and don’t “deserve” it, and he who has too little even though he “deserves” to have it all. “The fact that he contrasts his situation with that of servants (who should be glad just to have a job),” Swanson writes, “suggests that he believes his status entitles him to more food. Does this sound like life-changing repentance?” No, Dr. Swanson, it doesn’t.

We should stick with this interior monologue for a bit in order to hear the real tone of the son’s conversation with himself. The use of interior monologues with the self is a consistent feature in the Lukan account and especially in several of the parables. Interior monologues are quoted seven times in the Lukan account, and six of those times are in the parables. Dinkler suggests that these monologues are consistent with the foreshadowing found in the Song of Simeon, where the elderly prophet declares that the judgments of the hearts of many will be revealed (see Luke 2:35).

Dinkler notes that in ancient Jewish literature, such as in Psalm 14:1, “what one says in/to one’s soul conditions and reflects one’s relationship with God, especially indicating wisdom or foolishness” (page 382). Most often, this self-talk emphasizes “the folly of wicked self-address” (page 383). A survey of Jewish literature within and beyond the biblical canons demonstrates “how, for many ancient Jews, an individual’s thoughts were a reliable indicator of her or his posture toward God. Usually,” Dinkler notes, “in the contexts of these writings, the thinker is not wise but foolish” (page 384).

Dinkler describes the various parabolic inner monologues in some detail. They include the foolish farmer and the unfaithful servant in Luke 12, the prodigal son in Luke 15, the crafty steward in Luke 16, the unjust judge in Luke 18, and the owner of the vineyard in Luke 20. Leaving the parable of the prodigal aside for the moment, four out of the five monologues offer negative portrayals of the characters.

The owner of the vineyard asks a question of himself, which might be neutral (but also might not). In the overall narrative of that parable however, the landowner acts recklessly and foolishly. The landowner’s folly leads to the quite predictable death of the son. Many commentators read the parable and see the landowner as yet another foolish character who talks to himself.

What about the inner monologue of the younger son? Dinkler argues that this is not such a clearcut case of a negative rhetorical evaluation of the character. He notes that the son begins as a negative figure, based on the description of his lifestyle. Traditionally, interpreters have seen a change in that description precisely at the moment when the younger son “comes in(to) himself” and begins to talk with himself. But that interpretation may miss a great deal.

“Despite the son’s apparently humble interior monologue, however,” Dinkler offers, “several clues suggest that he may not be truly repentant” (page 387). There is no mention of repentance here, as there is in the previous two parables. In addition, the son’s plans and preparations are not what produce the gracious reception on the part of the father. “Although the son’s self-talk is not overtly negative, as in the prior interior monologues,” Dinkler concludes, “narrative details converge to indicate that he misreads the situation and misunderstands his father; his thinking is incongruent with his father’s will” (pages 387-388).

In all six parables, therefore, the characters who conduct inner monologues demonstrate foolish and even arrogant thinking. They are self-serving and destructive in their relationships with others. None, Dinkler notes, would quality as a Hellenistic hero. None is wise or honorable in Jewish terms. Dinkler goes on to wonder, then, how these characters’ interior lives might impact rhetorically the Lukan readers/listeners and makes several suggestions.

Interior monologue brings us into direct and intimate contact with the characters. This contact can lead us to empathize and identify with the character. “The soliloquies invite readerly identifcation, and this invitation has an evaluative dimension to it,” Dinkler writes. “The narrator constructs the story so as to elicit particular readerly judgments with respect to the characters; these judgments, in turn, prompt readers to consider whether their own views align with the narrator’s perspective,” he continues, “thereby encouraging the μετάνοια— “change in thinking”—that is so prominent in Luke’s Gospel” (page 394).

In other words, Dinkler says, these interior monologues can lead us to consider what we would say to ourselves in similar situations. He suggests that the farmer’s “What should I do?” in Luke 12:17 turns into “What should I do?” for the reader. It’s no surprise that the same question appears in Luke 20:13 in the Parable of the Vineyard. “In a case of ironic reversal,” Dinkler suggests, “a reader who sympathizes with a thinking character’s incorrect perspective will also experience the narratorial judgment that follows” (page 394). We may find ourselves drawn into the reckless foolishness of the characters and be jolted awake by the experience.

“Luke’s moments of interiority are a kind of fusion between Hellenistic literature’s structural uses of inner speech,” Dinkler notes, “and Hebrew tropes about the danger of foolish self-talk” (page 398). We find that Luke’s characters who talk to themselves are not wise or heroic. They’re quite human, and we can easily identify with their moments of self-centered folly. In contrast to contemporary urgings to follow one’s “gut,” for example, the biblical perspective reflected in Luke suggests that our inner monologues are as likely to lead us astray as they are to give us helpful guidance.

All this being said, did the younger son “repent”? “Notice that it is only when the son plans what he will say to his father that he evinces a willingness to surrender his status,” Richard Swanson writes in his blog post. “When he speaks to himself, he notes that the servants have more food than they should rightly have, given their status. Internal monologue reveals the heart,” Swanson concludes, “and this revelation is disturbing. If the young son is finally a selfish manipulator, what will he do in the future?” Swanson asks. The storyteller,” he reminds us, “leaves this crucial question without an answer.”

Or perhaps the narrative gives us a sort of an answer. The younger son crafts and practices his speech all the way home. He is surprised by his father’s rush to embrace him, but he launches bravely into his script. The father interrupts the speech halfway through. This is so surprising that some manuscript copyists filled in the missing last part of the speech on their own! But that obscures the point. The son’s speech cannot and does not manipulate the father into forgiving. That has already happened before the son even opened his mouth.

We don’t know how the younger son responds to this gift of grace. The interrupted speech is the last word we get from the younger son. The speaking and acting from that point on belong largely to the forgiving father. While we can wonder how it turned out for each of the sons in the parable, we can have no doubt how things turned out for the father.

That seems significant, eh?

Resources and References

Capon, Robert Farrar. Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus. Kindle Edition.

Dinkler, Michal Beth. ““The Thoughts of Many Hearts Shall Be Revealed”: Listening in on Lukan Interior Monologues.” Journal of Biblical Literature 134, no. 2 (2015): 373-399.

Levine, Amy-Jill, and Witherington III, Ben. The Gospel of Luke (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Swanson, Richard W. Provoking the Gospel of Luke: A Storyteller’s Commentary, Year C. Cleveland, OH.: Pilgrim Press, 2006.

Swanson, Richard W. https://provokingthegospel.wordpress.com/2022/03/20/a-provocation-4th-sunday-in-lent-march-27-2022-luke-151-3-11-32/.

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Text Study for Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (Part Two)

Robert Farrar Capon argues that the Parable of the Prodigal Son was “for Luke, the organizing principle of the entire tire sequence of passages in chapters 14 and 15” (Kindle Location 3652). The first twenty-four verses of Luke 14 happen at a Sabbath dinner party at the house of a leader of the Pharisees (see Luke 14:1). The dinner party presents Jesus with opportunities for both parabolic teaching and political challenge to the elites around the table.

More important, it sets up the homecoming party in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. “As far as I am concerned therefore,” Capon writes, “the parable of the Prodigal is the sun around which Luke has made the rest of these materials orbit” (Kindle Locations 3659-3660). If that’s the case, and I think there’s good reason for the assertion, then we should look at the lead-in to chapter fifteen for interpretive clues to our text.

Luke 13 ends with Jesus’ lament over unwilling Jerusalem and the veiled reference to the Passion Sunday parade. The Pharisees who have come to warn Jesus about Herod’s threat are cast as opponents and adversaries. “And it so happened,” the Lukan author slyly continues, “that when he was going into the house of a certain ruler of the Pharisees on a Sabbath to eat bread, they also were watching him closely” (Luke 14:1, my translation).

Quite without preparation or explanation, a man with dropsy appears in his presence. Take a look at the description of “dropsy” in the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible for a brief description of the condition. The term describes symptoms more than causes. It could be, for example, cardiopulmonary disease with edema gathering in the chest and making breathing difficult. It’s not likely that this man was one of the invited guests.

That being said, the man presents Jesus with yet another opportunity to challenge the teachings of his opponents. Now, we should be clear that healing on the Sabbath was not regarded as a sin in later Jewish generations. So, let’s be careful not to generalize in such a way that we may Jews look bad in order to make Jesus look good (see Amy-Jill Levine’s repeated cautions and exhortations in this regard).

We need only think about how we might respond if an uninvited guest were to crash a dinner party we had thrown for a select crowd of people. It’s pretty easy to put our priorities ahead of the needs of others, especially when our reputation is at stake, or our plans are in danger of being disrupted. Especially in the honor and shame culture of the first-century Mediterranean world, the rule of “kiss up and piss down” would certainly have been in effect at the table.

That rule is patently obvious in Luke 14:7-11. The language of verse seven is interesting. “But he spoke a parable toward the ones having been invited…” (Luke 14:1a, my translation). The NRSV translation is just fine, of course, but it does not convey some of the verbal nuances. Jesus speaks “toward” (pros) some of the guests. This could be quite innocent, but I think the Lukan author means that the parable is about them as much as it is to them.

The “guests” are actually those “having been called.” The verb is the perfect middle of kaleo. This can mean to be called, to be summoned, or to be invited. It can refer to those who have been called to follow Jesus as disciples and apostles. I think the Lukan author wants to make sure that we who have been called will hear this parable as directed to us as well as to those who were gathered around the table with Jesus. I think that double meaning carries throughout the parable and should be remembered every time the verb “invite” shows up.

The Lukan author wants us to wrestle with who has a place at the table and where that place should be. The default understanding of room at the table is that the number of seats is a fixed quantity. Therefore, the seating chart is a zero-sum game. If I get a seat at the table, that may mean that you do not. Therefore, table seating becomes a competitive sport, where you earn your spot by some measure of “worth” or entitlement.

The throughline that connects the narrative in Luke 14 with the parables in Luke 15 is really quite clear. It’s not really about forgiveness or acceptance. It’s about who gets a place at the table. Now, this isn’t just any old table. This is the table God sets for people in the Kin(g)dom – the Wedding Banquet at which Jesus is the host and all of Creation are the invited guests. If that’s the Table that matters in this conversation, and if we are responding to Jesus’ call to follow him, then our table manners need to match those appropriate to the etiquette of the Kin(g)dom.

First, Jesus talks to those who have been invited. Don’t assume that you are the big fish in the little pond. Who knows, a bigger fish might show up. By the time you figure out the pecking order, everyone else will be in their places, and you’ll be stuck at the far end of the table – away from all the action and lucky to get a few crumbs by the time the platter arrives at your place. The host decides who gets honored, not the guests.

Second, Jesus talks to those who do the inviting. He once again attacks the principle of mutual reciprocity that provides the social grease for Greco-Roman political and business wheels. Luke 14:12-14 takes us back to the “woes” for the rich in the Sermon on the Plain. If you want to live by that system of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” that’s fine. But that’s not how the Real Table works in the Kin(g)dom of God. You have nothing to offer in exchange for a place at that table. So, manage your table in the here and now the way God does.

The truth is that many people aren’t interested in a table where merit doesn’t matter, and money can’t buy happiness. It seems that one of the guests didn’t quite get the points of the parables (well, one spoke up and was outed, at least). We come to the Parable of the Great Banquet in Luke 14:15-24. The parable portrays a contradiction in values. The invited quests want it to be a big enough deal to be worth their time. The host wants the tables filled, no matter what it takes.

Capon gives a humorous description the man who didn’t quite get Jesus’ parables. His response, Capon writes, “is pure gush. The gentleman in question has been just as mystified as everyone else by the idea of giving dinner parties for the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind.” Instead of asking for some clarification and/or reexamining his own thinking, the man “does what so many of us do when confronted with paradox: he takes the first spiritual bus that comes along and gets out of town” (Kindle Locations 3670-3671).

I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about when you mention inviting all those misfits. But resurrection! I can hook on to that idea and give you a compliment to move the conversation on to other ground. “Earlier in the evening, when Jesus saw the guests vying for the best seats, he gave them a little lecture (appealing to enlightened self-interest) interest) about how their efforts at being winners could very well spoil their enjoyment of the party,” Capon writes, “But now, in the parable, he portrays the pursuit of a sensible, successful life as something that will keep them – and us – out of the parry altogether” (Kindle Locations 3678-3681).

Capon reminds us to resist making this about Jew/Gentile distinctions in the ministry of Jesus, the thinking of the Lukan author, or the life of the Church. Instead, “The point is that none of the people who had a right to be at a proper party came,” Capon concludes, “and that all the people who came had no right whatsoever to be there. Which means, therefore, that the one thing that has nothing to do with anything is rights” (Kindle Location 3709-3710).

Therefore, Capon labels the Lukan version of the Parable of the Great Banquet as a parable of grace. It is about what we are given and not about what we think we can earn. “Grace as portrayed here,” he argues, “works only on the untouchable, the unpardonable, and the unacceptable. It works, in short, by raising the dead, not by rewarding the living” (Kindle Locations 3711-3712).

This, then, is the narrative and rhetorical context that sets up Luke 15. The Lukan author makes the connection explicit in the beginning of the chapter. The Pharisees and the scribes are grumbling. They are murmuring, as did the ancient Israelites when they didn’t like what God was up to. They said, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Luke 15:1).

The lost are now found at the Great Banquet, welcomed by the host and brought in from the four corners of the earth. The sheep did nothing to deserve being sought or saved. Neither did the coin. Most of all, the son did everything possible NOT to be sought or saved. Yet, he receives a place at the Table of the Father, and the Party begins.

So, the Father says, let’s get this party started! But will those who have played by the rules join in the celebration? That’s the unanswered question in the Lukan account.
Resources and References

Capon, Robert Farrar. Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus. Kindle Edition.

Levine, Amy-Jill, and Witherington III, Ben. The Gospel of Luke (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Swanson, Richard W. Provoking the Gospel of Luke: A Storyteller’s Commentary, Year C. Cleveland, OH.: Pilgrim Press, 2006.

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Text Study for Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (Part One)

4 Lent C 2022

Once we get beyond the broad outlines of the Christmas story, what Gospel stories do most people (churched or not) know? The Parable of the Prodigal Son must be near the top of the list, although the Parable of the Good Samaritan probably edges it out. The familiarity of the story may be an asset in conversations with people who don’t regularly participate in Christian life. But it’s a liability for preaching to church people who’ve heard the story more times than they can count.

“This is a story that is so well known that it is impossible to read, impossible to hear, impossible to interpret,” Richard Swanson writes. “It is a good principle of interpretation: if everybody knows what a text means, begin with the guess that nobody knows what the text means. At the least,” Swanson observes, “any story that everybody knows will be a story that nobody has listened to closely for a long time. Stories,” he concludes, “need more attention than that” (page 129).

Witherington and Levine concur with Swanson’s caution and amplify it. “If it is true that familiarity breeds contempt, or at least tone-deafness to the meaning of the original passage,” they write, “then the Parable of the Prodigal Son, like the Parable of the Good Samaritan, has too often been a victim of overreading and misunderstanding…” (page 431). The third parable in Luke 15 has too often been used, in particular, to make Christians look good by making Jews look bad.

“One of the main keys to giving this story a fair hearing in its original settings (in the ministry of Jesus and in the Gospel of Luke),” Levine and Witherington write, “is ongoing contextual study of the parable. What did it mean,” they ask, “in its original Jewish setting, and what has it come to mean for Luke and his audience?” (page 431). Can we, as preaches and teachers, allow the text to speak on its own rather than simply to ratify what we think we already know about the story? That’s one of the ways in which we allow the text authority over us rather than the other way around.

Amy-Jill Levine offers some insights into the text in less than twelve minutes on youtube.com. This brief version is expanded in other online talks and in her excellent book, Short Stories with Jesus. Levine and Witherington walk through some of those details as well in their commentary, and I’d like to review some of those details here. I’m not suggesting that their conclusions are the be-all and end-all of the interpretive conversation. But they do encourage us to give the text a “fair hearing in its original setting.”

Regardless of the choice the lectionary committee made, Luke 15 offers three parables that interact with and depend on one another. The first two will make their lectionary appearance on Pentecost 15 and will require the same contextualization as the third parable requires this week. Whether the preacher notes the connections among the three in a sermon or not, the faithful interpreter is required to take those connections into account when offering an interpretation of the text.

It is clear that the Lukan author provides an editorial framework for the three parables. That framework begins in Luke 15:1-3. The editorial work is not as ham-fisted as the lectionary selection makes it out to be. A helpful reading would probably omit the “Then Jesus said” of verse eleven, since verse three makes that phrase redundant.

In addition, if I kept that phrase I would translate it as, “But he [Jesus] said…” The first two parables do not begin with any sort of conjunction. Instead, there was a certain man who owned a hundred sheep. There was a certain woman who possessed ten drachmas. “But,” the Lukan author continues, “there was a certain man who had two sons.” From the first phrase, the author tells us that this parable is going to be somewhat different from the first two.

That may be of some importance to our interpretation. I think it would have been an obvious change for those who listened to the three parables told in sequence.

Levine and Witherington observe that the first parable “has set up an outline to be repeated in the next two stories: something lost, a search, something found, a celebration. Because the story began with a full complement of one hundred sheep from which one was lost,” they continue, “readers should also expect one out of a full complement to be lost in the second and third stories” (page 414).

If the stories simply behave as expected, however, then the stories are really not very interesting. “Based on the folkloric ‘rule of three,’” Levine and Witherington argue, the first parable “should prime listeners to expect a similar pattern in the second story, and a reversal of the pattern in the third. The parables,” they conclude,” do not disappoint” (ibid). The twist that leaves us hanging on the edges of our seats at the end of the three stories is the (unknown) final response of the older son. That’s what breaks the pattern, challenges us to think, and provides the “punchline” for the series.

If that’s the way to read these parables together (and it certainly is one interesting way), the question then remains. What do we learn from this cliffhanger?

The standard Christian answer for centuries has been something like, “Younger son good, older son bad.” That is especially the case when the younger son has been identified with Gentile (or Protestant) Christians who have come to rely on God’s grace and mercy in Christ and the older son has been identified with Jews (or Roman Catholics) who have continued relying on works righteousness rather than trusting in God’s grace and mercy in Christ.

We must always be suspicious when first-century stories are used to answer sixteenth (or twenty-first or fifth) century questions. While allegorical readings of the parables are not necessarily “wrong” on their face, those that make Jews bad in order to make Christians good are likely wrong. The Lukan author begins the allegorical interpretation of the first two parables, after all, with the editorial additions in Luke 15:7 and Luke 15:10.

“The first part of the parable ends with the prodigal, newly dressed and accessorized, and likely filling his belly with fatted calf,” Levine and Witherington write. “He was dead, and is now alive, lost and now found, as far as his father is concerned. The outline established in the first two parables finds its match in the third,” they argue, “the son was lost, the father ran out to greet him and so fulfilled the convention of the search, and the celebration had begun” (page 425).

But – the man had two sons. “The parable has trapped us,” Levine and Witherington continue, “The lost one is not only the prodigal who returned home; the lost one is also the older brother in the field, as we shall see. The father,” they argue, “had failed to count” (ibid).

As Amy-Jill Levine notes in her talk, the father had time to arrange for the band, call the caterer, and invite the guests. But no one had thought about clueing in the older son. “With only two sons,” they write, “the father failed to count” (page 426). The family table had an empty spot, but no one seemed to notice. Is it any wonder that the older son is outraged and refuses to join the party? Given this reading of the text, the older son’s response makes perfect sense to me.

When the father finally realizes that the older son is missing in action, the father goes out to “comfort” or “encourage” the older son. The NRSV translates the verb in Luke 15:28 as “to plead.” But it is the Greek verb, parakaleo, which more often means something like to comfort or encourage. It could even mean to exhort the older son to action. What does the father want?

The father doesn’t exhort the older son to “forgive” the younger son. The father encourages him to come in and join the party. “All that I have is yours,” the father tells the older son in Luke 15:31. That is, the older son is a full partner with the father. He is not a slave or a hired hand. The older son is involved in welcoming the younger son home, whether the older son likes it or not. That’s part of the family business at this point.

The Lukan editorial framework begins with the complaint that Jesus welcomes (receives to himself) sinners and eats together with them. The question may be whether the “insiders” in the Lukan community will accept their role as full partners in the “family business” of following Jesus to do the same. Those insiders have encountered newcomers (latecomers) to the movement. Perhaps some of these newbies brought with them questionable histories and pedigrees. Would they be given a seat at the table or expected to sleep in the bunkhouse?

This is, of course, the perennial question for congregations. But let’s attend to the details for a moment here. The “insider” has become the “outsider” who refuses to come in to the party. We who are church “insiders” – are we in that position now? “Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God,” Jesus said in Luke 13:29-30, “Indeed,” he continued, “some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”

To what degree are those verses an interpretive key to Luke’s presentation of the parables of counting?

Resources and References

Levine, Amy-Jill, and Witherington III, Ben. The Gospel of Luke (New Cambridge Bible Commentary). Cambridge University Press, 2018.

Swanson, Richard W. Provoking the Gospel of Luke: A Storyteller’s Commentary, Year C. Cleveland, OH.: Pilgrim Press, 2006.

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