Losing Power

Indulgence & Extravagance

4.30.25 [Luke 15:1-3, 11-32] River of Life (4th Sunday in Lent)

Grace & peace to you from God your Father who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ his Son. Amen. 

Cain and Abel. Isaac and Ishmael. Jacob and Esau. Joseph and his brothers. David and Absalom. The Bible is full of fighting families. But it’s not for the reason that we see it on TV. Daytime talk shows and reality TV love to capture moments of siblings squabbling and families fighting because it fascinates audiences and makes us all feel better about the squabbles we have behind closed doors. But the Bible doesn’t record these struggles because it’s concerned about ratings. 

The Bible records these familial falling outs because this is how life works in a fallen world. Brothers brawls. Sisters skirmish. Parents live at odds with their own children and vice versa. This may not be the way anyone wants life to work, but, nevertheless, this is the way things are in this life.

Today, Jesus gives us a powerful parable about a fraying family that we must grapple with if we are ever going to begin to get God’s love for sinners. It’s a striking story of indulgence and extravagance. It’s a powerful parable of what it means to be loved and lost, found and finally celebrated. But it does not stand alone. 

Did you notice we skipped eight verses? In the interim, Jesus tells two additional parables about lost things. A lost sheep and a lost coin. In each parable, the lost thing must be searched for and found. The sheep doesn’t find its way back into the fold. The coin doesn’t roll back into its purse. The shepherd and the coin holder must go out and find them. And when they do, they are happy. So happy that they call their friend and neighbors together to Lk. 15:6 rejoice with them. The point of those parables was expressed in our verse of the day. Lk. 15:10 The angels of God rejoice over one sinner who repents. These two parables give us a heaven’s eye view of lost sinners. They are lost, so they must be found. And when they are found this is a tremendous triumph that warrants a company-wide celebration. This parable of the prodigal son gives us an earthly perspective on the same situation while dismantling two different, but equally wrong approaches toward lostness. 

Jesus tells us the story of a man with two sons. The younger one comes to his father with the urge to leave the nest and live as he pleases. His request is bald-faced. Lk. 15:12 Give me my share of your life’s earnings and savings. Shockingly, dad agrees and divides up his property between his two sons. With a third of the estate at his disposal, the youngest son has a fire sale. Once his assets were liquid enough to leave, he set Lk. 15:13 off for a distant country. He enjoyed every pleasure he could imagine and a few he‘d never heard of back home. He left home to live it up and, for a little while, life went according to plan. But he couldn’t maintain that standard of living. It didn’t take long before he spent everything he was given. 

He was in a bad spot. Whatever connections he had made were only in his corner as long as he had coins in his pocket. Now, the poor young man was a flat-broke foreigner. 

And then things went from bad to worse. Lk. 15:14 A severe famine struck the whole country. Suddenly no one had much to spare.  

Now, to our way of thinking, this is just bad luck. But that’s not how Jesus’ audience would have understood a famine. A famine was an act of divine judgment. It was a wake-up call from heaven. It should have knocked some sense into this young man. But it did not. Instead, he tried to dig himself out of the hole he’d made. He went and latched onto a citizen of that country for his livelihood. This new boss didn’t care about the young man at all. He sent him to do work that would have been the most shameful thing a Jewish person could do—feed pigs. And then, to add insult to injury, he didn’t even provide anything for the young man to eat. Things got so bad the younger son found himself hankering after pig slop. 

This rock-bottom experience opened his eyes. Things weren’t so bad back home. His dad had always given him what he needed. In fact, his father was such a good man that the seasonal help always had Lk. 15:17 food to spare. So he hatched a plan. I’ll go back home. I’ll be accountable. I’ll admit I sinned against heaven and you, Dad. I know I messed up big time and what I’ve done can’t be undone. All I’m asking is to be treated like any other hired hand. 

The younger brother’s solution to his problem, to everything he lost, is to renegotiate. Dad, I’m sorry. I’ve sinned. Let’s start over. Let me earn your trust again. Let me show you I’m different now. 

It probably comes as no surprise that the older brother had a different take on the whole matter. Older brothers tend to not have much patience for screw-up younger siblings. Especially when they leave you with all the work while running around bringing shame to the family name. When he comes home and hears all the singing and dancing, he’s confused. Lk. 15:26 What’s going on? When he finds out why and how everyone is celebrating, he’s incensed. His good-for-nothing little brother waltzes back into his life and dad drops everything and throws him a party? 

The older brother will not be a party to such shameful shenanigans. So he pouts outside until dad comes to him and pleads with him to join the celebration. But he won’t. And it’s crystal clear why. In his view, his father is punishing obedience and rewarding selfishness and disobedience. Lk. 15:29 Look! He starts (as if his father was the one who needed the wake-up call). All these years, I’ve been slaving for you. I’ve never disobeyed any of your orders. Where’s my party?  

You see his solution to the problem. Don’t reward wrongdoers with total reconciliation. Maybe he thinks of his younger brother as a total loss. Let’s write him off. Maybe he’d be okay with bringing him back on a probationary status. Let’s see if he’s changed. But don’t celebrate his return. It’s endorsing evil—approving of reprobate behavior. It’s doubly shameful. Let’s not make fools of ourselves.

But the father in this parable is not interested in either course of action. He does not take a let’s start over approach. He will not write off his boy, nor will he put him on probation. He has to celebrate. Why? Because his son was dead and now is alive. He was lost and now is found. He had to celebrate and be glad because his boys are the most important thing in the world to him. 

This is how God our Father works in our fallen world. He gives and he gives and he gives, because he loves us. But many miss that motive. We take all those gifts and can only think about our pleasures and dreams. We live self-indulgently. And look what happens. For a while, everything is great! But it never lasts. All those who live for themselves are in for a rude awakening. 

When it happens on this side of the grave, there’s still time. But even when that happens, the self-centeredness of our sinful nature won’t cry out for help. We only look for a way out. We latch on to whomever or whatever we think will help us get out of our current jam. Doesn’t matter if they’re a scoundrel. Doesn’t matter if they’re only looking to take advantage of us. We’ll fix the mess we’ve made. 

Then there are those  of us who think they’ve earned all God’s gifts and love. We've denied themselves all kinds of carnal pleasures. We've toed the company line. We've worked hard. We've slaved away for all these years. Surely we deserve better because we’ve been better. 

But this isn’t how God thinks or works. God’s love is not tied to our good performance and it’s not shattered by our sin. God longs for all of us to be with him. Some have wandered away and squandered so much. Others have remained near physically but their hearts have grown distant and cold. He’s not happy with either approach. But he still loves us. He wants us to join him. To be with him. To be glad with him. To celebrate what we have together. 

That’s what God your heavenly Father wants from you. He has given you everything. Maybe you look back at your past and see too much squandering. Maybe you see years of slaving. But neither squandering nor slaving changes your status. You are his own. He has always loved you. Unconditionally. Undeservedly. Unabashedly. 

Just as the father in this parable said to the older brother, everything God has is yours. He gave you his very best. His Son. Just as the father said to the younger brother, Quick bring everything a son of mine should have. Adorn him with what he abandoned. Dress her with all she disavowed. Your God has clothed you with his very best. His righteousness. He has washed you in Baptism and given you the very best robe a person can wear. 

Not only that, but he has slaughtered the fattened calf so we can all celebrate together. This is not leftovers in the back of the fridge. This is not a frozen TV dinner. This is the best of the best. The creme de la creme. The fattened calf was special from day one. He was hand picked, hand-fed, and penned in so that he would stay healthy & fat. This is A5 Japanese Wagyu Ribeye. He was waiting for the right moment, the perfect time for a celebration. 

That’s what God did in sending his Son. Jesus was the best of the best. The Christ de la creme. The perfect lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world. Spotless. Righteous. Innocent. Slaughtered on the cross for our squanderous ways. Suffered for all our shameful claims of self-righteous slaving. Jesus died for all these sins and rose to life so that we might be welcomed home at heaven’s feast. The Bible is full of fighting families, but it is really about a God who loves the unloveable and sacrifices everything so we can be glad. 

That’s what we have in Christ Jesus. In Christ, there is no let me show you I’m different. In Christ, there is no let’s see if she’s really changed. In Christ, there is no probationary period. In Christ, there is no condemnation. Only celebration. Amen.