Preaching the Parables

From Responsible Interpretation to Powerful Proclamation

Blomberg, Craig L.

• Publisher: Baker Academic
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9781441205780
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Ministro del culto cristiano

A guide to preaching the parables that shows how to first interpret the parables, then proclaim their significance.

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The Parable of the Prodigal Sons and Their Father

Luke 15:11–32

For several years, Bob was quite active in the Mafia. He had been raised Roman Catholic but turned his back on his upbringing and became a wealthy leader in the world of organized crime in Chicago. He sold drugs, hired prostitutes, and enjoyed many “courtesans” himself, even though he had married Nancy, a woman who claimed to be a believer but who was not very committed. In fact, Nancy had married Bob more for her enjoyment of the jet set, the fast life, the circles in which Bob operated. Then Bob was dramatically converted through the witness of a fellow mobster. You couldn’t have imagined a more changed life. Bob did time in prison and even led several prisoners to the Lord. He continued to be a bold, outspoken evangelist after getting out of jail. Even to this day, he regularly shares his faith, on and off the job, at times with entire strangers. Despite an occasional lack of tact, he has been remarkably successful at bringing countless people to Christ.

Bob’s marriage, however, is now on the rocks. At first Nancy claimed to be glad of the wonderful change in her husband. But it soon became clear that he had something she didn’t. She got tired of hearing all the talk about spiritual things. Today he no longer tells her much of his evangelistic activity because inevitably she interrupts and starts an argument of some kind. She won’t go to church with him, and recently she’s been talking of divorce. What really gnaws at her is that God never gave her such gifts as he seems to have given Bob. Nancy has always struggled as an introvert in social situations. Some days she’s just not sure how much longer she can take all of this religious stuff.

Johnny is a young African-American man. He was raised in Los Angeles’s inner city. His father never married his mother and wasn’t around for most of Johnny’s childhood. When he was, he was often drunk and abusive. There were no Christians in Johnny’s family or among his close friends. He got involved in gangs in his early teen years. He committed some minor crimes but was never caught. Finally he heard about a Christian parachurch ministry to teens that integrated black and white kids together. It was run by an African-American man who modeled Christ’s love for him for several years as Johnny came and went from the club, straightening out for a while and then falling back into his old ways again. At last Johnny, too, trusted in Christ as his savior. He became part of the student leadership of the club during his high school years. After graduation he went off to become a successful student at a local Bible college. There he met and eventually married a white girl by the name of Debbie, who had a vision for inner-city ministry. Quickly they had one child; now another one is on the way.

Johnny was invited to become a full-time staff person for the organization that brought him to the Lord. But there was a catch—he would have to raise his own support. Several young, white colleagues, roughly his age, do that and get on just fine. All regularly attend primarily white churches in the suburbs where all the money is, but few people or churches have ever pledged to Johnny. In fact, after two years of trying to raise support he has only four hundred dollars a month coming in. His family is still on welfare. He’s thought of quitting, of getting a “real job,” but he sees his white peers succeeding at this process and feels equally called. It’s just that when he presents his ministry to people in their churches, it’s clear there’s a subtle racism at work. “We’re just not sure he’s trustworthy,” he’s overheard some say. “Blacks shouldn’t marry whites” has been the reply of others. “We’re sending money to Eastern Europe; that’s where the real opportunities and needs currently are.” Johnny doesn’t know how much longer he can tolerate this.

Marla was brought up in a nominally Lutheran home in New York State. Her parents were regular church attenders, and they faithfully took her with them. She believed she was a Christian as a child. She agreed with the concept of trusting in Jesus and being a moral and friendly person. She was married in her late teens to a man who turned out to be severely abusive, and she filed for divorce within months of the wedding. Her husband, too, had claimed to be a Christian, so she soured on church and on spiritual things, until she met some friends at work from a local charismatic congregation. They shared with her their understanding of baptism in the Spirit. She went along to one of their evening services and one night miraculously received the gift of tongues. She was even slain in the Spirit. Life turned around dramatically for Marla. She found a new love for Jesus and began to share her faith. She went overseas on a short-term missions trip and came back thinking about full-time Christian service, eager for more education and training.

That was several years ago. Marla still remains active in the local church, but her zeal today isn’t quite what it once was. As she inquired about signing on with different missions organizations in various denominations or parachurch groups, she found most weren’t interested in her. For some, she was disqualified because she spoke in tongues. Others did not want to touch her because she was a divorcée, and a divorcée who admitted she was divorced as a Christian who had married a Christian, not because of adultery or abandonment. Marla worked for a while on the staff of a local church as a part-time youth worker. Some thought that a woman shouldn’t hold that office; others said nothing but discriminated against her by treating her with less respect than they showed male pastoral leadership. Today she has a well-paying secular job and is not entirely sure what, if anything, she wants to do with the church in the future.

All of these stories are true. Only the names and a few details have been changed to protect the innocent (and the guilty!). The following story, as far as we know, is fictitious, but you should see some striking parallels to the stories already narrated.

Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his field to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

“Meanwhile the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. When this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

“ ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you were always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ” (Luke 15:11–32)

This parable teaches us three lessons, as we read it with the eyes of each of its three main characters.

The first lesson is that repentance is always possible for those who want to return to God. The traditional title that this parable has come to have is “The Prodigal Son.” The prodigal is the character we naturally tend to focus on the most. In the context of Luke 15, he corresponds to the tax collectors and “sinners,” who Luke tells us in verse 1 “were all gathering around to hear” Jesus. The plot of the story forms about as dramatic a picture as could have been drawn in Jesus’ world of the abandonment of godly living. Family formed one’s ultimate human commitment. For the son to request inheritance from his father while his dad was still alive was tantamount to a death wish. The petition of verse 12, recorded so matter-of-factly, amounted in essence to the boy’s saying, “Dad, I wish you were dead.” We’re not told all the details of what happened when he received his portion of the inheritance and went away, but what we are told makes it clear that Jesus is painting a worst-case scenario. The younger son leaves everyone behind, takes all his money with him, and sets off for a distant country. Jews would immediately recognize that this would be unclean Gentile territory made up of unclean Gentile people. There the young man squanders his wealth in wild or riotous living and loses it all. Exacerbating the situation is a severe famine, and so the prodigal needs some kind of job in order to feed himself, but apparently all he can find is a man of that country who sends him to his field to feed pigs, the most unclean of all animals from an orthodox Jewish perspective. These are the depths of degradation. He is so desperate that he wishes he could eat even some of the pig food, the unclean food of unclean animals of an unclean farmer in an unclean land, but even that is forbidden. Of course, his fate is largely his own fault, but circumstances outside his control have overwhelmed him further. In his desperate plight, his only hope is to return home, even though he recognizes that his father may well have performed the standard Jewish ceremony of “cutting off” his wayward son and disowning him, a disowning that might not be revoked. But maybe he could beg to work as a slave; at least he wouldn’t be starving to death.

Throughout human history, there have been prodigals like the young man in Jesus’ story, including Bob, Johnny, and Marla. You may have been one or had one in your family, and we’ve probably all known one or more. I’ve shared three stories of people whom I have known personally and whom I have no reason to suspect that you know. But it wouldn’t at all surprise me if several of you said, “I think I know who you’re talking about. I know somebody pretty much just like that.” The plot recurs again and again. These are people whom God is wooing, calling home, assuring them, “The door is always open.” Forgiveness is always possible. The only unforgivable sin in Scripture is the sin of unbelief, committed by those who don’t want to repent and be saved and who never change their minds. For those who change, God stands ready to run and hug and welcome. The classic line from the film The Hiding Place, placed on the lips of the character playing Corrie ten Boom, the Dutch Christian woman who harbored and protected many Jews during World War II, sums it up well: “No pit is so deep that God is not deeper still.”

In another setting we might dwell at more length on the prodigal son. But for a Christian congregation there is a second son and a second lesson to which we must turn. The second lesson is that God’s people ought not to begrudge his generosity for even the most wayward of sinners.

If all Jesus wanted to teach was the possibility of repentance as long as any human being lived, he could have ended the story with verse 24 and never introduced the second son into the parable at all. The story would have been complete. But there is a second son and a second point with which the parable climaxes, providing a second surprise. Instead of rejoicing at the return of the prodigal, as the father did, the older son complains, gets angry, refuses to go in, and whines about how he was the one who had “slaved” all his life, about how his faithfulness had never been rewarded with such a lavish party as the father was throwing for his younger brother. The older son distances himself from his brother, speaking of him merely as “this son of yours” (v. 30). And it seems that he exaggerates or makes up information that he could not have known about the sins of his brother when he accuses him of squandering his father’s property “with prostitutes.” In short, the brother wants nothing to do with the prodigal.

One of the reasons I chose the three stories of Bob, Johnny, and Marla, which I told at the beginning of this message, out of many more that I could have narrated involving prodigals was because those stories also contained “older brothers”—Nancy, jealous of the gifts and zeal of her converted husband Bob; the white evangelical community, suspicious of the genuineness of Johnny’s conversion and his walk with the Lord; and the leadership of churches and parachurch organizations, eager to ban Marla from missionary service because of her past divorce and/or her present spiritual gifts. Bob, Johnny, and Marla all have felt distinctively unloved by a significant sector of the Christian community, precisely where they expected a welcome. In the setting of Jesus’ story, the older brother corresponds to the “Pharisees and the teachers of the law,” who in verse 2 are muttering and grumbling about Jesus welcoming notorious sinners and sharing the intimacy of table fellowship with them. We need to ask how much of that hard-hearted attitude remains in us. The scribes and Pharisees all had their interpretations of Scripture to justify their attitudes, and so do we. A heart check is in order here. Are we grieving with this mistreatment, or are we, too, mentally trying to justify it? For many, the story should perhaps be titled “The Parable of the Prodigal’s Older Brother.”

The most important character in the parable, however, is neither son. Although most of us at one time or another can probably identify with one of the two sons, we in fact ought to be focusing more of our attention on identifying with and modeling the love of the father for both sons.

Thus the third lesson that this parable teaches is that God in his lavish love forgives the sins of both sons and wants us to do likewise. It’s not hard to think of close parallels to the behavior of the two sons in Jesus’ story. For all we know, Jesus may have known real-life equivalents in his day who could have provided the impetus for his parable. In my three twenty-first-century stories, however, there is no one corresponding to the father, no one demonstrating his extravagant love. There probably wasn’t in Jesus’ day either. We often hear of how lifelike parables are, if we just understand the first-century Jewish culture, and in a large measure that’s true. But usually each of Jesus’ parables contains certain details that turn out to be quite unrealistic, precisely to show how God’s ways are radically different, and how his disciples’ ways should be radically different, from typical human behavior.

This parable provides several such unrealistic details, all involving the father. The very fact that he simply agreed with his younger son’s initially audacious request and divided his property sets this man off from most other fathers in his world. So too does the fact that he apparently never stopped watching for the boy, so that one day as he is looking down the village road that headed into the countryside in the direction the boy had gone—months, perhaps years earlier—he sees him from a distance. Particularly striking is his defiance of the cultural norms that dictated that a well-to-do, male head-of-household, particularly an older man, was not to be seen running in public, for that was most undignified. This man is so overjoyed to see his son return home that he flouts convention, runs down the road, and hugs him tightly. The father continues his unusual behavior in that he interrupts his son’s prepared repentance speech and doesn’t even allow him to get to the part about coming back simply as a slave or hired hand. It is obvious the father has never performed the common Jewish ceremony of forever disowning the boy; quite the opposite, he throws a party that has been called a “re-investiture,” treating him as one would treat an honored guest, killing the fattened calf, celebrating in grand style. Nor is the father any less solicitous with the whining older brother. The older son deserved to be rebuked for his ungrateful attitude. He could enjoy his father’s wealth on a daily basis. What if a special party had never been celebrated in his honor? His standard of living day after day was better than the vast majority in his world, and yet the father pleads tenderly with him, going out of the house to the fields to beg him to come in. And Jesus says that the father repeated the same refrain to his older boy that he had applied to his younger one, “This brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

I believe I was privileged to have one of the world’s great fathers, who is now with the Lord. I remember one night my sophomore year in high school when I came home more than an hour after I said I would without having called to explain where I was, even though I had been doing nothing bad. My father, too, was watching...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• Introduction
• 1. The Parable of the Prodigal Sons and Their Father
• 2. Can I Be Saved without Stewardship?
• 3. Who Is My Most Important Neighbor?
• 4. Can I Be Saved If I Refuse to Forgive Others?
• 5. Shrewd Stewards
• 6. Let’s Play Wedding, Let’s Play Funeral
• 7. How Do You Hear?
• 8. Seeds, Weeds, and Explosive Growth
• 9. The Kingdom of Heaven: Priceless
• 10. The Basement of the Hard Rock Café
• 11. The Parable of the Recovering Homosexual
• 12. Pray and Persevere
• 13. The Cost of Discipleship
• 14. How to Prepare for Christ’s Return
• 15. Who Really Are the Sheep and the Goats?
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Subject Index
• Scripture Index