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Noosa Anglican - March 20, 2022
Luke through Lent - Hard Lessons
Rev’d Chris Johnson
C S Lewis was once asked by a scep c, “Name me one thing Chris anity o ers me which I can't get
somewhere else?”
Lewis’s answer was, “Forgiveness.”
Today's Gospel reading is about forgiveness, but forgiveness with a surprise.
The message is that
everyone needs forgiveness.
It is not just the bad people who need to be forgiven for all the bad
things they’ve done.
It is also the respectable people who need forgiveness just as much.
Our story in Luke 15 has three characters- a Father and two sons.
This parable is o en called the
parable of the Prodigal Son or some mes the parable of the Loving Father.
But it equally could be
called the parable of the Older Brother.
The Father of course represents God our heavenly Father.
The two brothers represent two kinds of
people.
The younger brother was an extrovert who loved a good party and was out to enjoy
himself.
The older brother was an introvert who worked hard and was very responsible.
The message of the parable is that both brothers needed to repent.
The younger brother, it is
obvious where he needed to repent.
He needed to stop the wild living, stop spending all his
father’s money, stop thinking the meaning of life was totally wrapped up in pursuing pleasure.
The surprise in this parable is that the older brother also needed to repent.
You may well ask why?
Surely he was the responsible one, working hard on the farm always doing
what his father wanted.
He had no obvious sin like his younger brother, did he?
Did he really need to be forgiven as well?
But more on that later.
To understand the parable we really need to look at the context in which Jesus tells it,
and this is given to us in versus 1&2 of the Chapter.
READ Lk15:1-2.
Jesus is telling this parable against the Pharisees who were grumbling about Jesus spending me
with tax collectors and sinners.
It was the tax collectors and sinners who needed to repent then
they would have been worthy of Jesus company.
The Pharisees thought they didn't need to
repent; they kept the law, they were the responsible religious ones.
The tax collectors are like the younger brother - obvious sinners.
The Pharisees are like the older brother - respectable sinners.
They appear to occupy very di erent posi ons in life but in actual fact are in exactly the same
posi on before God - both groups are sinners.
The point at which they are di erent is that the tax
collectors are recognising they are sinners and coming to Jesus for forgiveness where as the
Pharisees are not recognising they are sinners and rejec ng Jesus.
The primary point of this parable is actually to help the Pharisees realise they are sinners too and
they need the Saviour.
But let's get into the parable and look at each of the characters in more detail.
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THE YOUNGER BROTHER
This boy was bad.
Imagine your son asking you for the family inheritance.
The least we can say is
that it was very rude.
In the Middle-east it was an absolute insult.
It was the same as saying, “Dad I
wish you were dead.”
Not only did the younger brother insult his father by asking for the inheritance; he then went and
wasted it on wild living and pros tutes.
This fellow was a real heel,
a narcissist; a self-indulgent, ungrateful, disobedient son.
As you would expect the day of reckoning comes.
The money runs out.
This younger brother nds
himself eking out an existence feeding pigs.
What an insult to any good Jewish boy.
The slops he is
feeding the pigs even start to look a rac ve for ea ng.
That's how low he sank.
But then he realises he has done wrong and decides to return to the father, beg forgiveness and
see if his father will at least give him a job as a hired servant.
THE FATHER
Well can you imagine the love of that father?
He doesn't just accept his son back,
he runs down the path to embrace him and celebrate his return.
Most fathers would be wai ng at
the top of the stairs, tapping their toe, with a scowl on their face and a big please explain!
“What have you done with the money?”
But this father takes a di erent course.
He rejoices over his son and throws him a big party.
He
treats him like a king.
He thought he had lost his son, that he was dead.
But the younger son has
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