The story of “the prodigal son” is the classic story of love and redemption. As such it has entered into the secular realm of speech. Even people who do not read the Bible have heard the phrase “the prodigal son has returned.”

The story in summary is simple:

As Jesus tells the story, a father has two sons. The younger son told his father to give him his inheritance even though dad is still alive. The father gives it to him. The younger son then gathered all his belongings, traveled to a distant country, and spent all his money partying.

After he had spent everything, a severe famine hit that country, and he was out of resources. The younger son hired himself out, working in a pig-farmer’s field. He is so desperatehe wanted to eat the pig food himself.

Eventually the younger son figures out that it would be better to be a servant in his father’s house than living like this. So he packs up the nothing he has and heads home, rehearsing everything he will say to his dad.

But while he was still a distance from his house, his father saw himcoming, ran out to meet him, gathered him in a huge hug, told his boy to shut up with his apologies, and threw a party for his lost son. Saying “this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!”

In the midst of this partying, the older son comes home from working in the field and finds out from a servant what is going on. The older son is pissed and won’t join the party. When his dad goes outside to get him, he yells at his dad for welcoming his younger brother back, and never appreciating all the work that the son who stayed has done over the years. The dfather tries to comfort him by reminding him that 1) everything that the father has left belongs to the older son, and 2) “we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”

The Ground Rules

It's a familiar story of love, forgiveness, and redemption. But before we go any further, here are the ground rules for this Card Talk:

Remember that there are three (3) stories in the chapter.
Stop seeing God all over these stories.
Accept that the focus of these stories is searching for the lost and the joy of finding, not repentance.

Let's start with the first ground rule.

As we said in Ground Rule #1, Luke chapter 15 contains three (3) stories. The third is summarized above. The other two are pretty simple:

1. A shepherd loses one out of one hundred sheep, leaves the rest, tracks it down, brings it back, calls his friends, throws a party.

2. A woman loses one out of ten coins, cleans the whole house, tracks it down, returns it to the others, calls her friends, throws a party.

Here's the question: Did you ever think to ask who is at fault for these losses? Or did you always jump to story three, blame the prodigal son, and not apply this logic to the other two stories?

What do we mean?

If We Are The Sheep, Who is the Shepherd?

Do you really blame the sheep? Sheep wander off because they are freaking sheep. That’s what sheep do. Sheep don’t lose themselves. They also don’t "repent" for wandering off after they have been brought back.

The shepherd on the other hand had one job: keep track of the sheep. So how did the sheep get lost under the shepherd watchful gaze? Was he was lazy, forgetful, stupid, or inattentive? Sure he had 100 sheep, but he had one job. Now you might be saying, "calm down, he's only human. People make mistakes!" Yes, people do make mistakes. That's our point.

Remember Ground Rule #2. That argument only works if the shepherd is not seen as representing God (unless your version of God is a lazy, forgetful, stupid, or inattentive divine being, who can lose you).

If We are the Coin, Who is the Woman?

Apply the same logic as above: the woman had to clean the whole house to find the coin because she lost it. Coins don’t lose themselves. They also don’t repent for not losing themselves and being found. They don’t pray because they are coins. The woman was clumsy, untrustworthy, forgetful, or simply misplaced the coin for a time. Again, is your God like this?

If We are the Son, Who is the Father?

The third story complicates things even more. If the shepherd and the woman are to blame in the previous story, what does that say for the father in the third? This leads to a deeper question: when you read the story, why do you only blame the prodigal son for the situation?

Coptic Christians call this story “The Lost Son,” but begin with the apt question, “which son is lost?” We believe the answer is "both." The father did lose one of his sons, he lost them both.

One was mis-raised through indulgence and a lack of discipline. When his younger son asked for his portion of the inheritance, the answer should have been “no.” Period. His duty as a father would have required him to put the parental smackdown in regards to his son's request, not to go along with it (c.f. Leviticus 19:17, Deuteronomy 8:5, Deuteronomy 21:18-21, Proverbs 3:11-12, Proverbs 13:24, Proverbs 19:18). And let us not forget that the son remained in the house for a few days before he left. Just like Jephthah, this father had time to change his mind and make a better choice.

And despite some really bad bible-times history, proclaimed by Christian preachers, there was nothing in Jewish culture at the time period that prevented the father from searching for his son. There was certainly nothing in the culture preventing him from sending someone else to bring his son back, like his other son, the older brother.

His other son, the older one, was mis-raised as well. Sure, we can say he was tired of taking care of his younger brother, spent a lifetime cleaning up someone else's mess. But let's be honest: abandoning familial duties out of frustration is not a biblical virtue. The elder son does nothing to stop his younger sibling from leaving, does nothing to bring him back, and then complains when he does return home.

Returning to the father, he didn't even think to invite his eldest son to the feast being thrown for the youngest. We can paint this a the hysteria of joy, forgetfulness, or playing favorites (which might be why the prodigal is so spoiled in the first place), but who forgets to invite their own child, the one who is running the household wealth, to a party when his other son has returned home? Shouldn't family be the first on the invite list when calling friends to throw a party, especially when the party is about family returning home (not sheep or coins)?

And what is there to say about the younger son, the prodigal? He sucks. We get that. He lost himself, he chose to leave, unlike the sheep or the coin. However, how well was he raised by his father? It's a legitimate question once we begin to pull away from seeing the father as God. This father is not as noble as the shepherd or the woman: they at least went searching for that which was lost. Sure he rejoiced at finding, but still missed his other son’s absence.

So yes, both sons suck in their own ways-- one has no sense of discipline, the other no sense of compassion-- but this stems from a less than perfect father. This father raised two shitty sons. Is this how you imagine God?

Ground Rule #4: Go Back to the Beginning

A crucial element in interpreting these stories is remembering how they began, as well as the original audience.

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So He told them this parable . . . (Luke 15:1-3)

There are two classes of people Jesus is addressing: The tax collectors and sinners & the Pharisees and the scribes. The low and the high. The socially rejected and accepted. Those seen as immoral and those making the judgments.

The lost and those who were supposed to go looking.

The lost things in these stories are the tax collectors and sinners.

The Pharisees and scribes are the shepherd, the woman, the father.

The shepherd, the woman, the father are the ones who lost something. They are the ones who dropped the ball and were not doing what they were supposed to be doing. But they are also the ones with the reason to rejoice. It was right in front of us the whole time, and we missed it. But that's exactly the point: we often miss what is right in front of us.

Perhaps we need to see that we are the shepherd, the woman, the father.

Perhaps we should ask what are the things right in front of us, the things we've been given to do, that we might have lost track of.

Perhaps some things come back without our effort and we still rejoice, but if we don’t address the underlying problems we can lose again or continue to miss the pieces which are not whole.

Perhaps we need to search for the things right in front of us, the work we've been given to do, so we can live in Ground Rule #3, rejoicing.

And again I say rejoice. In heaven and on earth, for the finding of lost things. For not losing them in the first place.

But what do we know: we made this game and you probably think we're going to Hell.