Sermon Tone Analysis

The parable we had read to us today is very familiar and because of this we think we know the story.

This story has been called the Prodigal Son, or the Lost Son.

In fact I like what the New Revised Standard Version entitles this: The Prodigal and his brother.

We shouldn’t get so hung up on the labels that have added to it for these are not part of the original bible but added so we can see each section clearly.

What is this story about?

Well, we think we know but why was it told in the first place?

To whom was it addressed?

It is important to remember this throughout.

We can see that Jesus did not tell this parable to His disciples but to the Pharisees and Scribes.

In fact this whole chapter was addressed to them after they complained He was eating and associating with tax collectors and sinners.

Then followed parables about the lost sheep, the lost coin and now the lost son.

But what is more interesting is not so much this son as much as the other as we shall see in due course.

So, now we have one of the sons being cheeky enough to ask his dad for his share of the inheritance.

Now I know that many arguments happen about inheritance when someone has died and whether they left a will and to whom did they leave what they had and so on.

But I don’t know of anything that has been said before someone had died unless they have been told they are disinherited!

I’m sure that there are arguments in families before the death of someone but you usually cannot get anything before they have died.

Well, this son was awfully persuasive!

He wanted it now and his father did not refuse him.

Probably wanted him to get it out of his system.

And his father must have thought they could survive without the money that his son would take out of the family business.

And not long after that this son decided: “I’m off!”

I have enough money for the rest of my life and now I am going to enjoy it, see the world, the sights, and indulge in all kinds of pleasure, I’m going to be my own boss.

He plainly did not have his father’s business acumen and sensibilities.

Indeed a warning is given in Scripture about these kinds of people:

And indeed this is what happened to this man.

He was in a far off land, with no accountability for this actions but at the same time no family back up if something went wrong.

The theme tune at many a funeral is ‘I did it my way’ as if that was laudable.

He was lavish with what he had, and that is the meaning of the word ‘prodigal’.

In fact he was prodigal to the point of wasteful.

And something went terribly wrong.

Whilst spending all his money there was a financial crisis that hit that nation.

In fact it was so bad that there was a famine.

Just a little later in Paul’s letter to Timothy he says:

At one moment he was enjoying the high life and suddenly he was experiencing something else he had never experienced before and this time it was not pleasure but pain of loss, and perhaps for the first time in his life he had to find proper work for he had nothing left.

He found a man willing to give this migrant a job.

Thank you, Lord! Ah, but the job is to feed pigs.

Er, great!

A Jew feeding pigs.

For the hearers of this story it would have filled them with horror for this Jew had glued himself to a Gentile and became a swineherder!

This truly was the lowest of the low.

Indeed whilst feeding the pigs he wanted to eat the swill they were being given.

Of course, being a Jew, he certainly did not want to eat a pig with all that lovely ham, gammon and bacon, pork chops the things that make our mouths water.

No, he wanted to eat their food!

How did he come to this?

He had gone to heights and now he was seriously depressed and felt like he was losing his mind.

Not only could he not eat the pigs’ food there was nothing for him to eat.

He had sought freedom and thought he had found it, but now he was in virtual slavery.

How curious that this man had so totally forgotten his past.

His family was a distant memory.

Until, that is, he suddenly remembered.

I suppose you do have a long time to think about things in such a situation.

In fact, he thought that by now his family had disowned him for reports of his living must have got back home.

This world is smaller than you think!

Bad news always travels fast.

But then he got to thinking a bit more.

Why should I be employed here when I can get a job back home?

I’m a foreigner in a foreign land, who’s going to give me a decent job here?

And not only that my Dad hires people, maybe he’ll hire me, especially as I am genuinely sorry.

There’s no way he’ll accept me as his son after all that I have done so I’ll just have to swallow my pride, what’s left of it, and go back and ask for a job.

He might, at least, let me be a servant of the servants or something.

Then he got up to go back…this surely is the definition of repentance.

A well-used outline of this parable goes like this: I. Sick of home, II.

Sick, III.

Homesick, IV.

Home.

At this point he was homesick.

He reasoned that it was better to be a lowly servant in his father’s house than to remain where he was.

But he was not prepared for what awaited him!

Indeed he was a long way away and the father recognised the gait of his son whom he had been waiting for and looked longingly towards the horizon day after day.

How his heart yearned to see him again and did not know whether he would or wouldn’t.

And now a head appeared, then the shoulders both of which seems bowed down under an invisible weight.

Then he came into view, yes, I believe it is, yes, it definitely is, yes, that’s my son!

And off he went.

Running.

This was the sheer definition of being undignified in those days but he did not care!

My son, my son!

And the son’s rehearsed speech that he had spent so much time on making sure he got it right on that very long journey home barely got the words out of his mouth.

My son, you’re home.

Thank God!

The joy of the moment was interspersed with tears and kisses and more kisses and hugs and more kisses.

Welcome home, son! Father forgive me! his son kept saying.

I am so unworthy, I’ve let you down, I’ve let others down, I’ve let myself down.

This son was like the tax collector before God who beat his chest and said: Have mercy on me, a sinner!

This is where it all starts.

Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.

The words the son had repeated were ignored.

Once was enough.

Forgiveness is extended and all is forgotten.

He barely had managed to get the words out of his mouth and they were barely heard.

Come on, son.

You’ve got to dress right, put a robe on him, a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet.

You’re not a servant but a son.

The son must have been bewildered.

This was totally unexpected.

And more was to come…there was to be a party.

Food! Oh, how he had longed just for some lentils but no, he was going to get the choicest meat, Sirloin Steak and Rump Steak and T-bone, roast beef! “Why hadn’t I come home sooner?”, he must have thought.

Indeed this is how God receives back any of his sons that went away and comes back.

We take hope from this story and rightly so.

What joy God has when we have had enough of our own ways and let God have His.

And His ways are the paths of joy.