People: Audience, Parable and Present

God’s grace, peace and mercy be with you. … My sermon title is People: Audience, Parable and Present, and my focus is our Gospel (Luke 1511-32). Let us pray. Heavenly Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord.’”[1] Now that our feet are within your gates, we rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most Holy Trinity. Amen.

The last time I preached here, I opened with the first line from People from Funny Girl. As I was preparing for today’s sermon, I noticed that there are different groups of people present in Jesus’ original audience, in his parable and in His Church today. That prompted me to wonder how many times the word people appears in titles of songs or movies. The answer? Dozens.

Among songs, artists have recorded Everyday People, Short People, C’mon People, All God’s People, Lonely People, Shower the People, and even more I never heard of: Plastic People, Damaged People, Second Hand People and Broken People.

Directors and producers have given us Ruthless, Ordinary and Used People. There have been movies attributed to animals and people, such as Mole People, Cat People, Alligator and Bat People. Personality traits have been featured in such blockbusters as Secret People, Smart, Fierce, Crazy, Terrible, Superfluous, Civilized, Beautiful and Simple People.

We are extremely interested in people. 91 million Americans read People magazine. 123 million read ESPN the Magazine. That may explain why Luke recorded Jesus narrating a story about three people to men and women who were tax collectors and sinners while scribes and Pharisees grumbled. And so, I begin with my first point about people, the audience.

It is necessary to identify the people in the audience in order to understand properly the point Luke makes.[2] Luke recorded that tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to hear Jesus while Pharisees and scribes grumbled that He received sinners and ate with them. The mere fact that tax collectors and sinners approached Jesus provoked the scribes and Pharisees to complain.

This was not the first time these two audiences gathered around Jesus. We read in chapter five that Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?”[3]

Again, in chapter nineteen, when Jesus spotted Zacchaeus the tax collector, and informed him that he must stay at his house, he joyfully welcomed Jesus, which provoked them to grumble, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”[4]

Of course, Jesus was aware of what they were saying about him. In chapter seven, after the disciples of John the Baptist left, Jesus addressed the crowd on the response of scribes and Pharisees to both John and himself. He concluded by saying, “John the Baptist came eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”[5]

How were gluttons and drunkards punished in his day? The answer is found in Deuteronomy. “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or … mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear.

And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall not defile your land that the LORD your God is giving you for an inheritance.”[6]

With that in mind, Jesus sought table fellowship with sinners. Why? Because the end-time banquet in God’s Kingdom welcomed sinners who turned from their evil ways and towards God. So, while he is on his way to Jerusalem to be crucified on a tree, he is unconcerned about anything but people – tax collectors, prostitutes and sinners, that is, the poor, disabled, lame and blind.[7] They came to hear Jesus who said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”[8]

Now, both groups of people heard the three parables which illustrated that the nature of the kingdom is joyous feasting with God. The illustration culminates in the parable of the two sons where the kingdom is a feast for sinners prepared by the Father himself. The older son drew near and heard the music and dancing of the messianic feast prepared for the prodigal son who repented. The older brother is like the Pharisees, who did not recognize the kingdom when they saw it.

The tax collectors and sinners drew near to Jesus, who received them, ate with them and told them a parable about rejoicing at the end-time feast. The parable’s older brother also drew near to the feast only to be scandalized, and rejected the meal, and the joy and mercy of his father – a reaction similar to the Pharisees’ rejection of Jesus. Thus, Jesus addressed both the Pharisees and scribes and the tax collectors and sinners simultaneously. His comforting revelation of the way of the kingdom is also a loving admonition to the scandalized to join the celebration through repentance.

Now that we recognize who’s who and their reasons for being there, we move from my first point, people in the audience, to my second point, people in the parable.

We are all familiar with the three people in the parable. There is the callous younger brother who demanded his share of the inheritance, squandered it in reckless living, and found himself starving amidst the squalor of pigs. He calculated he would have a better life serving his father as a day laborer, and prepared a speech begging for forgiveness.

We do not know how he wasted his money. The older brother accused him of spending it on prostitutes, but we only know that he lived extravagantly. The real fault is the irremediable loss of inheritance.

Did you know that his planned confession is in harmony with the rabbinic doctrine of repentance? He was required to admit his sin and name the offended person. Even Pharaoh asked forgiveness from Moses and his God when plagued by locusts: “Forgive my sin, please, only this once, and plead with the LORD your God only to remove this death from me.”[9] Later, in Malachi we read, “From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the LORD of hosts.”[10]

In short, if the story ended here, it would be a good moralistic parable conforming to the Pharisees’ expectations about how outcasts should be restored to the community, but, and there is always a but, the Father is unpredictable.

His father saw him while he was still far away. His seeing is the real act that brought the son near. Now, some translations use the phrase but while he was a long way off. A better translation is yet, for this indicates that the son could not really do anything on his own to reach his father.

The father’s heart went out to his son because he was filled with love and compassion. The father saved him while he was hopelessly lost. In other words, salvation comes from the father. The son is accepted with no further conditions to fulfill. He found the freedom in his father which he thought he would find by leaving him in the first place.[11]

We know what the father does next, but we should note that his compassion is not based on the son’s appeal. He had compassion while his son was still at a distance and hastened to greet him affectionately before he said a word. Just as Jesus received sinners and ate with them without first demanding signs of repentance, so the father accepted his son without waiting for him to first prove himself truly repentant and worthy.

Confronted by his father’s tenderness, which had already forgiven him before any confession of his fault, the son finally reached the point where he could forgo pride and accept the gracious love of his father. Nothing should be added after the words, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” He did not speak the last words of his speech because he accepted his father’s unconditional love.[12]

Before I comment on the older son’s role, let me say a word about a similar Buddhist story which begins like Luke’s parable. The boy in that story returns home and works off his guilt over a period of years. How the father in Jesus’ parable treats his son vis-à-vis the Buddhist father illustrates the difference between the principle of Karma and that of grace, free forgiveness and full restoration of one who is undoubtedly guilty. The reason for distinguishing the differences is that the Pharisees would have expected the son to work off his guilt as a common day laborer for the rest of his life. On the other hand, Jesus and his Father would not demand such servitude. Rather, our God offers grace, free forgiveness and the restoration of the guilty.

Now, let’s fast forward to the party. The older son’s journey from the fields parallels the younger son’s home-coming journey. The live music he heard signified meal preparations and the arrival of guests. As the oldest he would have been familiar with festive music, and had he been expecting a feast, he would not have gone to work in the fields because his role would be servant-host so that his father could mingle with guests. So, imagine his surprise!

Note that he did not run to the feast, but, oddly, questioned of one of the servants and remained at a distance. In other words, he declined his role as older son.

When his father approached and begged him to join the festivities, he humiliated him by quarrelling and insulting him in front of the village guests. The older son misunderstood his relationship with his father for he believed it to be based on merit and reward.

Like the younger son, whose sin was his prideful will to independence and denial of his own sonship, the older son’s sin was also rooted in pride. His prideful presumption was that sonship was earned, and so he refused to accept his brother because the younger did not “earn” sonship as he had.

Having heard the father’s plea to understand his offer of grace to both himself and his younger brother, Luke leaves us wondering if the older son would share his father’s joy that one who was dead has been raised to life.

As I segue into my third point, let me summarize. The people in the parable symbolize the people in the audience. The younger son represents the tax collectors and the sinners; the older son, scribes and Pharisees; and the father, God. Now, Luke always wrote within a context, not a vacuum. He was always addressing an issue pressing upon his community. So, just as the three people in the parable represent the people in the audience, they also represent the people in the Church – then and today. Hence, my third point, people in His Church today.

A fundamental understanding of any New Testament letter or gospel is that the piece was written for the Church. As Church, the New Testament gave people the story of Jesus, but also instruction on how live as His disciples. Whether we turn to the first piece of New Testament literature, Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians, where he wrote, “you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers…”[13], or to our Gospel today, we are given instruction on how to live as the people of Christ’s Church.

That said, how do we apply today’s parable to our lives as Church? Specifically, how have we responded to reconciled sinners? How have we responded when flagrant sinners have turned to God seeking forgiveness and mercy through His Church? Have we responded like the older brother who distanced himself from the joyous celebration of the younger brother’s return? Have we joined the celebration and joyfully embraced the repentant family member, in-law, neighbor or church member who has sinned against us and our families? How deeply have I expressed my joy at their return? In other words, the parable for people in the Church today is to celebrate joyfully the return of someone who wished us dead, separated himself from us, squandered our family’s fortune, and returned sinful, sorrowful, repentant and reconciled with the family, its matriarch or patriarch. Now, you and I are invited to join the celebration. And you already know that I have a question for you. But before I ask my question, I want to tell you something that happens to me almost every day.

When my wife or I return home from meetings or appointments, the member of our household who greets us with joyful abandon is Travis. Travis is our five-year-old Golden Retriever, and when we walk in the door, he runs to us, and with two tennis balls in his mouth and his bushy tail waving wildly, weaves his way between our legs repeatedly until he collapses in exhaustion onto the kitchen floor. No matter our mood, Travis’ joyful demeanor transforms crankiness to happiness, and weariness to wonder. He shows us how to respond to a prodigal person now returned and reconciled with the Church, with you and with me.

How do we respond? How have we responded? How should we respond? My friends, I will not leave you with a proper closed ending. Instead, I leave it to you to write your own ending. Will you join the celebration or distance yourself from God’s joyful banquet where He embraces and kisses those who offended Him but returned? Do you prefer Karma or Grace? Lifelong punishment or free forgiveness and reconciliation? Do you prefer to embrace and kiss the sinner that God does, that is, you and me? Perhaps today or tomorrow you can question not only yourself, but one another. And when you choose to enter the banquet and embrace a fellow sinner, may the peace of God that surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.[14] Amen.

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[1] Psalm 122.

[2] Arthur A. Just, Jr., Luke 9:51-24:53 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1997), 586ff.

[3] Luke 5:29-30.

[4] Luke 19:1-10.

[5] Luke 7:18-35.

[6] Deuteronomy 21:22ff.

[7] Luke 14:13,21.

[8] Luke 14:35.

[9] Exodus 10:16.

[10] Malachi 3:7ff.

[11] Herman Hendrickx, The Parables of Jesus: Studies in the Synoptic Gospels (London: Geoffrey Chapman/Harper and Row, 1986), 155.

[12] Ibid., 156.

[13] 1 Thessalonians 1:6-7.

[14] Philippians 4:7.