Why Jesus Came: To Teach Us Love

THE PRODIGAL SON

Perhaps the greatest picture of love in the Bible is the picture of a man running.  Men in the middle east did not run.  In our culture lots of men run. Both for exercise and for their lives, but in the middle east, robed men did  not hike up their robes and run.  It was undignified.  Yet today we see an adult man running out of no other motivation than Love.

We have asked why Jesus came: To teach us about thanksgiving; To teach us about Forgiveness; this week To teach us about Love. 

To whom was the parable delivered?

1.        To those who are called the Pharisees and Scribes.   Vv. 1-2 diagoguzw occurs 2 both in Luke, both of opponents of Jesus. (here and 19:7 where Jesus is with Zacheus)

2.        To those who were offended by Jesus table fellowship. To those who were offended by Jesus’ table fellowship.  Table fellowship was very important the article on Table fellowship in the DJG says that it would be difficult to overestimate the significance of table fellowship in the Mediterranean world.  Being welcomed at a table was symbolic of friendship, intimacy and unity.  The Pharisees regarded their tables as a surrogate for the Lord’s altar in the temple.  Therefore they wanted to keep all areas of their house clean. 

Who are the main characters in the parable?  Bailey in his work asks middle-easterners “What is unusual about this story?”

1.        The Son who runs away. When asking for his inheritance he essentially says, “I wish you were dead.”  He sells off the inheritance, which he had no right to.  He wastes his money living well.  He ends up in the worst job ever.  He finally comes back

2.        The Father-he is the central figure of the story.

2.A middle-eastern man never runs.  It is undignified.   He runs to protect his son.

3.        The Son who stays away.  He is looking for a catch in the extravagant grace.

3.Everything did indeed belong to him.  The prodigal had spent all of his and thus the robe, ring and shoes all belonged to the older brother.

What is shocking about the story?  GRACE  read Philip Yancey’s book

The lack of closure at the end is shocking.  Does the older son ever come back in?  Only if he is willing to admit that the grace of God extends to the worst of sinners.  Jeffery Dahmer after he had been arrested became a Christian.  I was picking up children on the bus and I asked a girl what she thought and she said “Jeffery Dahmer in heaven that’s not fair.”  Its not fair, but learning to accept grace not just for ourselves but for others is one of the most important lessons that we can learn.

The extravagant grace is shocking-A first century Jew might have expected the story to end with the son in a far country paying for his sins.  The father’s grace is a wonderful reminder to us all that what we really need is forgiveness and the most significant picture of  forgiveness in the New Testament is the picture of a man running.  That is extravagant.

A story by Ernest Hemingway reveals this need. Hemingway knew the power of a lack of  forgiveness.  His parents did not approve of his sinful lifestyle and after a time his mother refused to allow him in her presence.  One year for his birthday she mailed him a cake, along with the gun that his father had used to kill himself.  Against this backdrop he wrote a story about a Spanish father who decides to reconcile with his son who had run away to Madrid.  Now remorseful, he takes an add out in the newspaper which says “PACO, MEET ME AT THE HOTEL MONTANA NOON TUESDAY, ALL IS FORGIVEN, PAPA.  Paco is a common name in Spanish, and when the man goes to the square he finds eight hundred young men named Paco, all waiting for forgiveness from their father.

OUR FATHER STANDS READY TO FORGIVE THEM ALL, AND YOU.

But we also need an older brother who is willing to be stripped for us and give us his cloak, who is willing to give us what we could never deserve.

Fred Craddock once reversed the roles in the parable.  He had the father slip the ring on the older brother’s hand, and give a party for him in honor of his years of faithful service.  A woman in the back of the church yelled out, “That’s the way it should have been.”  That is the way that it should have been, if not for grace.