Luke 15: 11-32
Offered to the United Presbyterian Church of Alpha, NJ on November 1, 2026
Mel Prestamo, Ruling Elder, PCUSA
OK. So last week, we talked about the wandering lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. And then very briefly, I introduced the third parable in Luke 15 – that of the Prodigal or as William Barclay called it, the Parable of the Loving Father. And I left you at that cliff hanger. So today, let’s look at this Prodigal story.
In the third parable, we will see how we can choose to turn and walk away from the Father – when we knowingly make the choice to replace our right relationship with the Father with the material things of this world. In the third parable we become lost by choice. We decide to turn our backs on God and walk away. With our free will, we choose to reject God’s love.
And we will see in this parable how both sons make that same decision.
Here’s a personal story. Years ago, when my wife and I moved out to Jersey, we took a deep breath and said to ourselves, “OK, we are out from under the watchful eyes of parents and family and now we are free to live as we liked.” We decide to give up our relationship with the Father for the comfort of sleeping in on Sunday mornings.
And while we putted around tending to our new house, the children and our jobs, we lost sight of our relationship to God. We forgot whose we were. Then one Sunday afternoon our daughter Robyn came running into the house. She had been playing with her friend Adrienne next door who had just returned from Sunday School. Adrienne had learned that Jesus was her friend, and she told my daughter about her new friend. Distraught, my daughter came running back into our house yelling out, “Mommy, who is Jesus and why is He Adie’s friend and not mine?” I looked at my wife and muttered, “Damn, he’s found us.”
While we had chosen to hide ourselves away, denying whose we were, he used two children at play to make his voice heard. The Shepherd spoke and his sheep recognized his voice and turned to follow.
Have you found yourself lost in similar denial of whose you are? What you need to know is that the Father is patiently waiting for you to look up and hear God’s voice. And when you finally do find your way home, the Father will celebrate your return.
Jesus begins his third story, “There was a man had two sons…” It is only partly a story about the younger son. So, we will examine and both his sons but more importantly we will examine this man [the Father].
The younger son chooses to reject the way of living that has been handed down as a sacred legacy.
This son’s actions are a betrayal of family and community. It is a disrespecting of all that the Pharisees and scribes would have viewed as important within a Jewish family and the Law.
Within the context of the story, this son’s actions are a denial of the basic tenets of the Jewish faith and law. He has violated the law by demanding an inheritance that he is not entitled to and a commandment by disrespecting his father. His request was tantamount to wishing his father dead.
The father in this story would have been justified in having the son beaten, disowned, kicking him out of the family and denying him any inheritance at all. The Pharisees would have approved of that. It would have been the actions they would have expected of their own judgmental god especially toward these sinners surrounding Jesus. They would say that these sinners had also disrespected the Law. And therefore, they were not entitled to share in Israel’s inheritance. By their sin, they had been rightly disowned.
We can also see that this son is also denying the spiritual reality that we belong to God. We belong to the Father. And when we choose to walk away from this Truth, then we are denying whose we are. We know the disastrous end that this decision leads the younger son to.
The younger son takes all he has been given – all the talents and gifts bestowed upon him by the Father and wastefully squanders them. Then when disaster strikes and the time of reckoning comes, he finds that he is not only financially broke and spiritually broken as well. And that he has been abandoned by his good-time friends and the material comforts that he sought from this world could offer him nothing to fulfill his needs materially or spiritually.
The younger son is lost. In order to survive, he finds work slopping pigs. From the depths of a pig stye, this lost son looks up to hear the voice of God once again and realizes how much he has squandered. He then resolves to go back to his Father’s house.
He gets up and begins his walk back to his Father’s house. Recall that in the story that on the road, he is rehearsing a confession.
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and you. I am no longer worthy of being your son. Treat me as one of your workers.” That last phrase is vital because it reveals something that is lacking in the son’s heart.
And it is this. While it may sound like a confession, it is not true repentance.
Rev. Kenneth Bailey notes the son is not returning with remorse in his heart seeking forgiveness and restoration. Not yet. While he recognizes his failures – that he has squandered his inheritance, his plan is to be received back as a worker. The lost son is not yet returning in repentance. He is going back with his own plan that would provide himself with a means of rebuilding his position on his own in training as a worker.
When the watchful Father sees his wandering son walking on the road returning to the Father’s house, the Father runs out to greet him. Kenneth Bailey suggests this running out is parallel to the Shepherd going out in search of the lost sheep and the Woman scouring the floor to find the lost coin. Bailey calls this going out a “costly demonstration of unexpected love.”
Costly because everyone in the community is observing this demonstration. Like the Pharisees observing Jesus, they would be disapproving of his actions.
The Father’s actions are unexpected because the son is not yet returning to the Father’s house in repentance. His expectation is to be put into training as a worker so that he can earn his own way back into the respect of the community.
However, after the Father (with tears flowing from his eyes) has hugged and kissed him, welcoming him back. Now, (belatedly) but finally Now, the lost son begins to see the anguish, the pain and the cost of what he has done. The tenor of his well-rehearsed apology changes.
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” Finally realizing the pain and the hurt he has caused to the Father’s heart, now his well-rehearsed confession becomes repentance.
Initially his intent is not perfect. Bailey’s criticism of the young son’s motives is valid in pointing out that he is selfishly seeking to return as a worker. His intent is flawed, yes. But Saint Augustine would assert that it is still the Spirit of God that has urged him in the direction of the Father’s house. The Spirit brings him to the road leading to the Father’s house so that he can make his repentance and seek restoration of a relationship with the Father. In the Father’s arms, he acknowledges the wrong he has done and the hurt he has caused.
What happens? The Father hears the confession and accepts that the son finally understands his sin and truly has repentance in his heart. But rather than assess any judgment or punishment he turns to his workers and immediately starts giving instructions.
“Give him a Robe” – this would display to all that his honor in the household had been restored.
“Give him a ring” – this would display to all that his authority in the household had been restored.
“Give him sandals” – this would show all that he had been received back into the household as a son and not as a worker for those did not wear sandals.
These three gracious gifts of restoration were outward signs of the father’s forgiveness, and the restoration of the Shalom the Father has created for his lost son and his family. This is an important caveat that Bailey points out. The son is not restoring himself through repentance. It is the Father who is restoring Shalom.
All this was to ensure that everyone would know that this son’s position and his inheritance in the Father’s house had been restored. The Father is being lavish in his grace and forgiveness. The Father risks his own stature and position with this costly demonstration of unexpected love
This is important to see because it defines the celebration of the Father joy.
In his instructions to his servants, the Father defines the cause for celebration. “…This son of mine was dead but now has come back to life.” What the Father has done is to re-create new life (the Shalom of Eden’s first creation) from out of the empty void of sin.
The Father’s celebration is not that the son has returned but that Shalom has been restored not only to the son’s life but to his family’s life and for the community that has joined him in his celebration.
Here Bailey points us to a deeper understanding of what Jesus is saying here. It is not through some accident or happenstance that the lost son is found or resuscitated to life. No. It is through the graciousness of the Father that this lost son has become alive. It is the Father who is bringing him the final steps to the Father’s house. It is the Father that is the source of the son’s salvation.
All of this is to restore this wanderer, this lost sinning son, to his prior status. There is no demand for groveling or servitude, no ultimatum, or suggestion of probation. There is only forgiveness.
The Father chooses to pour out mercy, love and forgiveness lavishly to an extravagant extent without demanding retribution, without limit or concern for appearances. The Father’s celebration goes over the top with fatted calf, music and dancing. It is the Father who is prodigal.
In order to learn more about our God, we have to examine and understand the actions of this prodigal Father. The actions which Jesus ascribes to the Father in this parable are extraordinary and beyond the religious leader’s understanding of how family inheritance and the laws concerning the division of property worked. Nothing this Father does from the initial acquiescence to the younger son’s demands, to his reception and restoration of the son’s position in the family and community, even to his going out later and pleading with the older son to join in the celebration of the Shalom is according to prescribed custom.
In this third parable, Jesus sets the Father’s lavish and prodigal forgiveness in opposition to that of the religious leaders through the actions of the Elder son. The Elder son refuses to understand the Father’s lavish behavior. He displays an unwillingness to go beyond the Law in finding forgiveness for his Younger brother. He and the religious leaders who are disapproving of Jesus’ actions are lost in the Law. The irony is that these religious leaders cannot hear the voice of the God that gave them the Law. Jesus exposes their unwillingness to be sympathetic and forgiving to the sinners surrounding Jesus. They refuse to see the God that Jesus knows and is trying to reveal to them.
When we become lost, it is one thing to be found, picked up and carried home like the Coin or the Sheep. It is another to be drawn back to God by the Spirit and realize how much our decisions to turn away from the Father have hurt the Father and how much it has cost God and us. When we decide for ourselves that our hope lies in the righteousness of the Father, then our decision to repent and return to the Father’s house can become the rock upon which true faith can be built. This is a vital lesson in the Bible’s salvation story. We have to decide where the hope of our redemption lies so that our salvation has real value. Then God can create true Shalom in our lives. How does God do this? By giving up the Son for us.
Jesus’ characterization of the Father is that the Father is recklessly lavish in his desire to create Shalom. God remains steadfast in God’s commitment to God’s covenant promise of salvation. And it is Jesus’ desire that we see and know God in that way.
Jesus wants us to know his Father as our loving and forgiving Creator – the Mother/Father/Parent who has made us in their image and since we are created in their image our purpose is to reflect God’s lavish loving mercy and forgiveness in extravagant ways. We are to reflect that image of God by being prodigal ourselves.
Jesus is teaching us that we are called to be patient, to be caring, to be loving, to be welcoming, to be merciful and to be forgiving even when mercy and forgiveness may not seem justified. God has treated us this way. Now Jesus calls us to treat others in the same way.
We are called by Jesus to share that story. “To go out to the world and make disciples of all nations baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey all that He has commanded us.” And those commandments are to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength AND to love your neighbor as yourself with an extravagantly lavish and prodigal love even when sharing that love may not seem justified.
This is the God Jesus wants us to know and reflect out to the world and this is the story we are called to tell.
My friends, may it be so.
