parables

Why did Jesus tell the three parables in Luke 15 that we looked at last week? He was responding to the grumbling of the Jewish religious leaders.

What was disturbing them?

“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. ²But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” – Luke 15:1-2

Okay, Jesus was interacting with sinners. And why was that a problem in their eyes?

It looked like approval. In the world of the Bible, to eat with people is to share life with them, relate to them, bond with them. Jesus eating with sinners implied that He agreed with how they were living. Or that He didn’t care. In the minds of the Pharisees, neither option was good!

“Then Jesus told them this parable” – Luke 15:3

So the Lord addressed their criticism.

Going through Luke 15, we find that one parable leads to another. First, Jesus tells them about a shepherd searching for a lost sheep. Then, He repeats the point by describing a woman looking for a misplaced coin.

In both parables, the finders call their friends to celebrate their retrievals.

Oh, and both parables mention the joy in heaven over a sinner who repents. So if these were the only two parables in the chapter, we’d conclude that God and His angels celebrate the salvation of sinners. The implication is the religious leaders should, too.

But Jesus doesn’t stop here. He continues with a third parable that’s longer and more detailed than the other two. The parables of the lost sheep and lost coin feature missing items, searchers, and celebrations.

The parable of the prodigal son adds another character, the older brother. He can’t stomach the idea of his father throwing a party to welcome back the errant younger brother. He doesn’t deserve it!

Jesus is casting His critics in the role of the older brother. Living at home, he should have the same mindset as his father. But he doesn’t. And neither do the Pharisees.

Yet Christ does! The Lord is suggesting that He’s doing what the older brother should have done. What the religious leaders should have done. He’s pursuing sinners.

In the parable, his sense of justice kept the older brother from going after his reckless sibling. Do the crime, do the time! Afterwards, if the sinner is truly repentant, we’ll see about restoration.

But Jesus was meeting sinners on their turf.

“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.” – Luke 15:13

The prodigal frequented places and hung out with people who gave God little thought. How many parties he’d attended, the parable doesn’t say, but it was enough to empty his bank account.

The Pharisees and teachers faulted Jesus for eating with miscreants in unblessed places. This isn’t something the righteous do!

Again, if the prodigal son had repented, accepted a servant role in the estate, and worked hard, he might one day earn a spot at the family table. But it would take a lot of time and effort! 

I can see the religious leaders reasoning like this. They weren’t opposed to the possibility of repentance. If they could turn sinners to God, they’d feel like they accomplished something significant.

But hold off on celebrating!

By contrast, Jesus is telling them to rejoice at the salvation of sinners, to celebrate the recovery of the lost. This took effort. The shepherd looked for the sheep and the woman swept through the house to find the coin.

No one looked for the prodigal son.

He changed his mind on his own. The older brother could have gone after him, but didn’t. He could have chased down the confused young man and talked some sense into him, but he stayed put.

Jesus didn’t remain in heaven. He came down to our world “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). 

If the religious leaders wouldn’t strive for the lost, they could at least approve of Christ’s efforts to do so.

But to them, Jesus had things backwards.

To eat with stubborn sinners is wrong. To eat with repentant sinners is okay, if certain conditions are met. Is their sorrow genuine? Have they made amends? Have they offered the right sacrifices? 

Jesus seemed to be ignoring all this and going straight to partying. To the Pharisees, that’s premature at best, and dishonoring to God at worst. Again, to them, Jesus either likes evil or doesn’t care about it.

The opening verses of Luke 15 don’t mention any sinners repenting. So was Jesus hasty? Was He jumping the gun?

This is our opportunity to reassess what repentance is all about. The fact that outcasts wanted to listen to Jesus means that God was doing something in their hearts. And they demonstrated it in the best way they knew: they invited Christ to lunch. Food and fellowship are among the greatest gifts one could give another. These people honored Jesus and He accepted their welcome as a sign of repentance. Their hearts were turning and by eating with them, and continuing their conversations, Jesus could finish the job. He could bring them back to the Father.

He was doing what the Pharisees should have been engaging in. But their beliefs wouldn’t let them. So Jesus told three parables to stress the importance of seeking and celebrating.

The joy of finding what’s been missing is a joy we can’t keep to ourselves. Through the gospel of Jesus Christ, we have the opportunity to see souls return to God. But we’ll never know that joy if we don’t look for them. And searching for the lost will take us to some unpleasant areas. But doing so gives them a chance to discover the reality of the kingdom of God. They learn that Jesus wants them back. And when they return, that’s worth celebrating!

If people are familiar with any parable of Jesus, it would most likely be the prodigal son. A great illustration of God’s loving heart for His wayward children, it’s actually the last parable in a series of three that Jesus told. Reviewing the whole collection will help us understand the point He was making with this well-known story.

The Lord told these three because the Jewish leaders weren’t happy about the way He was interacting with the undesirable elements of society.

“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. ²The Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” – Luke 15:1-2

Those clamoring around the Lord were outcasts. No decent person would have anything to do with them. The fact that Jesus wasn’t running away from these people was a strike against Him.

But the Lord didn’t seem bothered, and the religious leaders noticed.

He heard their complaint, and he didn’t let it slide. Jesus responded with three parables to explain what He was doing and why He was doing it.

The first two parables are arranged in a similar, succinct format. Somebody loses something and looks for it. A shepherd scouts the fields searching for a missing sheep. A woman sweeps her house seeking a misplaced coin.

When they find what they were looking for, they have similar reactions.

“And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders ⁶and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’” – Luke 15:5-6

“And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’” – Luke 15:9

When what’s lost gets found, the festivities begin! And the party’s public, not private! Neither the shepherd nor the woman kept their joy to themselves. They wanted to share it with others.

Celebration is social, but it’s more than that. It’s also spiritual. Twice Jesus informs the religious leaders that God and His angels care about the salvation of the lost.

“I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” – Luke 15:7

“In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” – Luke 15:10

Christ’s point is that these miffed religious leaders ought to join the party. Instead of criticizing Him, they should rejoice over what He’s doing. When Jesus saves a sinner, everyone should be happy.

• The lost – definitely!
• The rescuer – certainly!
• The neighbors – them, too!
• The Pharisees and teachers–whoops, we have a problem here!

But Jesus isn’t finished.

To reinforce His point, Christ tells a third parable, this one about a son who dishonors his father by demanding his inheritance, getting it, and then wasting it on non-stop parties and decadence.

He loses everything, so he has to find any kind of work to avoid starving. This foolish young man ends up feeding pigs–not a job any faithful Jew would consider, so this tells you where his heart was at!

The job is barely keeping the prodigal alive. After a while, it dawns on him that he’d be better off going home. He didn’t think his father would take him back, but “Dad might hire me as a servant. I have to try, because I’m dying out here!”

What this rebel couldn’t have expected was his father’s welcome. He didn’t put his son on the payroll; rather, he threw him a party.

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. ²³Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. ²⁴For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate. ²⁵Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ²⁷“Your brother has come,” he replied, “and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.” ²⁸The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. – Luke 15:22-28

The father, like the shepherd and the woman, is so happy he can’t keep it to himself. He wants everyone to join in!

Now this parable differs from the first two because it adds another character.

The older brother.

And this person was most displeased by the scene.

Why?

Because in the mind of the responsible son, his younger brother didn’t deserve a feast. He was disloyal, he disgraced his father, and he wasted a good chunk of the family estate.

Not like the older brother!

But the father won’t quit. He explains why celebrating is necessary. And for emphasis, he repeats himself in the final verse of the chapter:

“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 15:32

Who is the prodigal son? He represents the “tax collectors and sinners” who dropped what they were doing to listen to Jesus.

Who is the older brother? “The Pharisees and the teachers of the law!” And since they’re educated, they knew Jesus was talking about them. They made the connection.

But why wouldn’t they celebrate the salvation of sinners? What kept them from praising God for the hearts of sinful people turning to Him? 

These “older brothers” had the spiritual well-being of the nation in their hands. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law gave people the Word of God and told them how to please the Lord. We assume they would be joyful for those who repented of their sins and returned to God.

But they weren’t. Because in their minds, the unrighteous souls crowding around Jesus weren’t repenting. Rather than following the Law of Moses, they were following Jesus. Who does He think He is? 

He acts like the shepherd, aiming to recover a lost lamb. He behaves like the woman ransacking the house to find a hidden coin.

And He sees Himself as the older brother to the wayward. But unlike the character in the parable, this Older Brother retrieves the errant sibling. 

The parable reveals the heart of God toward the lost. And the One telling the parable reveals His heart as One who identifies with us and seeks us out, even when we don’t deserve it.

No one deserves Christ’s grace; that’s why we call it grace! But He offers it with His presence and His Word. And when we listen to Him, we find the gospel changes who we are. It delivers us from evil, it saves us from the problems we got ourselves into, and it brings us into the festive home of the Father.

In a sense, we’re all older brothers. We have a choice. We can play the part as the one in the parable did. Or we can walk in the love of Jesus and dare to go after those who’ve messed up their lives. Only God can save them; we know that. We have the message of hope. It’s ours to share with the hurting.

And to celebrate when they receive it!

The older brother isn’t in the image at the top of this blog post. He wasn’t there when the prodigal returned; he missed the tears of his brother and the relieved joy of his father.

It’s too bad he missed the reunion.

But we don’t have to.

May we imitate Jesus our Older Brother (see Romans 8:29) and please our Father by bringing the prodigals home!