“There was a man who had two sons”

a Sermon for Epiphany 4C
Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

God, Father, we know that we don’t always listen, we don’t always follow, and we don’t always come home when you call. But please help us come in from the cold and share our lives with you. Amen.

“There was a man who had two sons,” Jesus begins. Three figures: a father, an elder son, and a younger son. We know the story pretty well and we refer to it by a very recognizable name. And the way we deal with what it says is to focus most of our energy in the first part, about a younger son that is lost, who deeply offends his father, runs out into the world recklessly and comes home penniless. We focus also on the father who runs out to this lost son and we marvel at the amazing forgiveness offered by the father. This no doubt leads us to better understand God’s relationship with us and to see God as practicing radical forgiveness, which is comforting. We might even be encouraged to practice that radical forgiveness with our children, which is a bit challenging.

But, as we all noticed, there is a second son. A man that represents right living and hard work. Unlike his brother, he stayed home with his father and took responsibility for the land. He demonstrated that he is of good character and will be an honest and quality caretaker of his inheritance—which is two thirds of the family’s original land—now all of what’s left. We look at this character and we say “what a good man.” We probably even explain away his outrage at his father’s generosity—because it doesn’t seem fair.

The way Jesus tells the story is to treat both of these brothers as taking action—each is the primary figure in his part of the story. In the first half, the brother rejects his father, leaves, and comes home broken. In the second half, the brother rejects the father’s feast, doesn’t enter the home, and stands on the outside as his father comes to him. The most telling statement of the older son’s is this: “For all these years I have been working like a slave for you”. ‘Like a slave.’ We might hear that as a euphemism—because we actually use it that way—as we “slave all day in the kitchen”. But I think the brother actually means it. Even though they are working the same farm, the older son feels separated from his father. He doesn’t feel like family. He doesn’t feel like the heir of a fortune. He feels like a slave, as one with no self-identity and no hope, following someone else’s rules. The irony of this son’s life is that his proximity to the father and his own sense of responsibility leave him feeling isolated and alone. This sense of separation causes the older brother to reject his father’s dream on the happiest day of his life.

Earlier in the week, I was looking through a book I picked up a year or so ago called The Father & His Two Sons. It is a collection of artwork depicting this classic parable. Many of the works were stunning, giving me insight into the nature of the story, and some have forever changed the way I visualize it. But one struck me personally. The second-to-last one in the book is a painting by Jonathan Quist called Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son Revisited. In Rembrandt’s depiction of the story, the artist uses light sources to first draw your attention to the father’s reconciliation with the younger son and then your eyes are drawn to the face of the unhappy older son as he watches on. Quist puts himself in this recasting. In his own words, he describes his place in the painting:

“I have replaced the elder son with an image of myself as an artist, painting the staged embrace between the father and prodigal son. In this way, I have full control of the situation. I am not required to participate in the embrace because I am going about the prestigious task of painting. The large canvas, tools, and easel ensure this separation.”[1]

In the painting, you can really feel the separation—the easel divides the painting in half. What affects me is that Quist observes in himself something of which I am completely afraid: that I put up barriers that separate me from God. My barrier isn’t the canvas, but that I could make God theoretical. I build up this wall of theory and belief and emotional or rational certainty that sometimes prevents me from truly loving God. I’ve been staring at this picture all week, my eyes drawn to this artist in his green work clothes, so as not to get his “real” clothes dirty, his expressionless face and stiff posture showing how seriously he takes his work. His detachment, both physically and emotionally, from this moment that represents complete joy, satisfaction, and the very grace of God reminds me of the ways I detach myself and the ways I sometimes allow my familiarity with our practices get in the way of my ability to worship, to personally join in the embrace.

This is the problem of the older son: his separation from the father comes from his belief that he has been behaving properly. When given a choice in his life to do the right thing or stray from it, he chose to do the right thing. He did what he was supposed to. He followed the rules. But those rules became too important. They became the very thing that separated him from his father. His own selfish righteousness led him to become lost in his own home. Now we don’t know what happens next. The parable ends with the father reasoning with the older son. Since Jesus is telling this story to the Pharisees, it is clear from the beginning that he sees the younger brother as the tax collectors and the sinners with whom he was just eating and the Pharisees are the older brother.

Timothy Keller suggests that this parable teaches us three things about our relationship with God, whether we are a younger or older brother.

1. “The Initiating love of God”

For both of his sons, the father leaves the home to get them. The younger as he returns, and for the older as he disobeys. God makes the first move toward reconciliation.

2. “Repent for something other than sins”

Jesus is showing us that we can be in need of repentance without having sinned. In the younger son, you have the example of someone whose very life becomes representative of sinfulness, but in the older, you have one who has done nothing wrong, and yet needs to repent and share with God.

3. We must be “melted and moved by what it costs to bring us home”[2]

For the reconciliation that Jesus does to bring us back to God to work, we must let it affect us. For us, this means taking to heart the sacrifice that Jesus makes on our behalf. It means confronting that sacrifice as freely-given grace and allowing that grace in, letting it seep into our pores and letting it change us and make us new.

I think that’s the real reason we stick to the first part of the story. Like the pious young man, we can easily feel comfortable in our own righteousness and smug superiority. And kind of like Ruby Turpin, the character Matt+ mentioned last week who obviously knows the right thing to do and the right way to behave…except that she really doesn’t. We want doing the right thing or dare I say, merely believing the right things to stand in place of loving God and living with God. But Jesus wants us to see that living in God’s house is as simple as accepting the invitation—because He comes running to get us. It means getting over our own righteousness—even if it means cleaning out the pigsty. It means letting the grace touch us—worthy or unworthy—and permanently change us.

Who we are is defined in our relationship with God. The text doesn’t say what happens after the father comes to get the older son. Just as our future isn’t written. But what would it be do you think if we let the father open that door for us, holding it and bowing his head as we enter the house to see the whole town drinking wine and making music? What would it be to walk in through the kitchen, into the living room, someone shoving a glass in our hand as we pass the table and we see under the big bay window a couch—and sitting in the middle cushion is our little brother, back from the dead? And what would it be to sit down in the empty space next to him and say simply “welcome home”?

I think that’s a little bit like what Jesus does for us.




[1] The Father & His Two Sons: The Art of Forgiveness. (Eyekons Publishing: Grand Rapids, 2008) p. 56

[2] Keller, Timothy. The Prodigal God. DVD, Zondervan.