Into the Far Country (March 30)

Reading, Luke 15:1-32
Image, Samuel Songo (Rhodesian, 1929–ca. 1977), The Prodigal Son, 1954. Soapstone, h. 26 cm.

It is a long-known truth of storytelling that there is something very satisfying to establishing a pattern and delivering on expectation. And it is equally well known that it is delightful to subvert the expectation in surprising ways, this perhaps, is the foundation of comedy (exhibit A).
 
This, most famous and favoured of parables is part of a set of three. The first two establish a pattern: a small part of a larger whole is lost (in the first instance one sheep out of 99, in the second one coin out of ten), then someone searches for the lost thing (in the first, the one who has lost the sheep leaves 99 in the wilderness to pursue and retrieve the lost one, in the second parable the woman upturns her house to find the missing coin), and finally, they invite their friends over to rejoice with them, for what was lost has been found.
 
With this pattern established, Jesus tells a third, longer parable, and it is interesting to observe where the story departs from our expectations established by the pattern.
 
The most commonly observed departure is the ending. The first two parables end with neighbours being invited to rejoice for what was lost has now being found, and it appears at first, this is how the third parable is going to end. The younger son has returned, has been embraced by his father, and they began to celebrate. If you’ve been listening to the first two tales you are primed for Jesus to offer the words already established: Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
 
Instead, Jesus introduces a new character and a problem. For thus far we have not had to concern ourselves with the feelings of the 99 sheep left in the wilderness, nor the nine coins which had the good sense not to get lost. But here, we find lurking in the background of the story since the beginning, a second brother. And he does not join the rejoicing, instead he became angry and refused to go in. The brother and father have a conversation, and the story builds back to the familiar refrain that what was lost has been found. And hearing that, the audience is primed again for the patterned ending… ah, we think, it took a detour, there were some hurdles, but now, of course, there shall be rejoicing in the story as there will be in heaven. And yet, the story does not resolve, it hangs there with no indication of how this older son will respond to his father’s reasoning.
 
Much has been made of the entitlement and ingratitude of the older son. He has served as an analogy for those relying on outward observance of the commandments without an inner awakening of grace, or for those who withhold forgiveness and restoration from who they deem sinners in the church, or for those who think their longevity in the church affords them greater privilege than those whose came later to the faith.
 
And yet, there are efforts to understand the older son, an understanding that is propelled when we consider a second departure from the pattern. For sheep, let alone coins, can hardly be blamed for getting lost. Indeed, a coin has no agency, and sheep are famous absconders, so if anyone is to blame for the situation in the first two parables it is the shepherd and the woman. And yet, the third parable makes clear that the younger son bears pretty well full responsibility for everything that happens to him. He’s the one who demands his share of the property (which is gauche to say the least), only to find himself alone and penniless in the far country. That’s a fairly important detail, not one to be overlooked when adjudicating the actions of the older brother.
 
The older brother might be further understood by virtue of perhaps the largest and most perplexing of the discrepancies and departures of this third parable: that the father did not go looking for the lost son. The father does not leave the sheep, nor turn over house and home, he stays put. We celebrate his grace-filled acceptance, his knee-jerk forgiveness, his compassion-fuelled running to the son while he was still far off… and yet, when the son was really far off, out in the far country, he did not go out to find him. The older son was perhaps justified in thinking that he and his father’s attitude was in concert: the son who betrayed them was not to be sought, nor welcomed home.
 
One of the most engaging and sometimes elusive questions to ask of a parable is who represents God/Jesus. We are often fairly quick and confident to assign their part, but there are many that defy easy assignation. Indeed, there are many parables where God or Jesus is in a rather surprising or unexpected place. And while God is often quickly identified with the father ready to offer grace, forgiveness, and acceptance to the younger son, ready to host a celebration with the angels for the one sinner who repents, the fact that the father does not pursue the son into the far country to find him and bring him back raises a question to this one-to-one identification of the father of the parable and the Father of Jesus Christ.
 
In Romans 5 Paul goes to extremes to emphasise that while we were still weak… Christ died for the ungodly… while we were still sinners Christ died for us… while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God. In Ephesians the language is even more apt for today’s parable: You who were once far off have been brought near. The gospel message is that in Christ, God goes into the far country. The Eternal Son emptied himself and taking the form of a slave went out to seek and save the lost. In this way Christ resembles the one who goes and finds the sheep and the woman who goes and finds the coin, and yet, does not resemble the father who stays and waits for the younger son to repent and return.
 
Which leads us to this, that perhaps the greatest discrepancy, the most poignant departure of this third parable is that it teaches us that the story of the gospel is even better, more wondrous, more out of the ordinary than this most favoured and famous of stories. That the love of God is even greater, than the father who went running when he saw his son, the grace of Christ abounds more still than the father who adorned his son with the robe and the ring, that the kindness of the Spirit surpasses the father who killed the fattened calf.
 
For as another passage in Ephesians goes, God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be whole and blameless before him in love. God destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will. In absolute freedom, in beginningless time, God elected not stay in the heavenly home, but to venture into the far country to adopt us. God did not wait until we turned and walked back, until we were close enough to be seen from the front gate. No, before we left the house, before we squandered the wealth, before we even looked longingly at the pods fed to pigs, God destined us for adoption, God elected us in Jesus Christ. God – according to the good pleasure of divine will (which is to say not because of any catastrophe but simply because of who God is) – chose to be our God, to be the One who sent the Son in love to shower us with new life. Before the foundation of the world God determined to be for us. While we were weak, while we were far off, God went out like the shepherd to seek and save, to adopt and rejoice, to be for us and for our freedom. This is the story that makes us who we are, and it really is good news. So much good news in fact, that even the story Jesus is telling us to explain it is not enough to capture it all. And that discrepancy, that departure, is no joke, but does prove rather satisfying.