I recently read an interesting story, with which I could identify, having been in similar circumstances. Bishop N.T. Wright and his family had just moved to a dream location: at the end of a road, near a lake; all quiet and secluded. The first Saturday night, chaos broke out. They were flooded with loud music, amplified voices making announcements, cheers of crowds, and fireworks. The noise continued well into the wee hours of the morning. It was a nightmare. It turned out, however, that it was caused by an annual event held by the local yacht club. Thankfully it was not to be every week!
The story was told because it illustrated how it is that one person’s celebration can be another person’s annoyance, especially if they do not understand the reason for the celebration. In Luke 15, we have one of the best known and loved chapters in the whole Bible. It contains the three parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son, otherwise known as the prodigal son. All three are given as arguments in favour of the dinner parties and celebrations in which Jesus participated and encouraged.
This may seem strange; Jesus a party-goer? Well, these were not, of course, parties of the barbaric and debauched variety. We are talking of dinner feasts, times of making merry around the table with food and wine and friends. As the yacht club held their party for a particular reason, so these dinners Jesus would occasionally attend were for a reason: they were celebrations of the blessings Jesus had brought into the countryside. They were celebrations of the healing of the sick and lame and the oppressed. More importantly, they were celebrations of the perceived love and saving grace of God.
It may also seem strange to make this the main point of the parables, since they are usually used in evangelistic sermons. They can easily be used so, of course, because of their secondary points, but the primary purpose was to wake up, not prodigals, but proud, religious people, who cannot believe that heaven is gained by humble faith in Jesus.
The religion of the Pharisees and scribes was one of religious performance and censoriousness. In order to have favour with God, and with the religious community, one must be dedicated to the keeping, not only of the law of Moses, but of all the extraneous ceremonies which the Jews had added to that law. If one failed to do these things, or got off to a bad start in their life, they were censored and derided as “sinners”, unworthy of acceptance with God or the religious community.
Into this situation came Jesus. He is announced by John as sent from God. Jesus’ words and deeds are such that people are further assured that He indeed comes from God and speaks for God. And what does Jesus do? He comforts them with miraculous healing and then He speaks words of forgiveness and grace. He assures the repentant of their forgiveness and acceptance with God in heaven because they believe He has indeed come from God. He tells them to call God their Father in heaven. Such assurances of love and grace in contrast with the conditionality and censoriousness of the religion of the scribes and Pharisees. They bring great joy to the hearts of these people and so they celebrate.
These parties, however, are contrary to the sympathies of what we could call the religious class. They are angered that Jesus participates in them. They would have loved for Jesus to come over to their side. They were jealous of his success with the people. But one of the biggest faults they had with Jesus was His willingness to associate with people they rejected. They had a rule which said that one must not associate with an ungodly person, and eating with the ungodly was worse, for it implied welcome and recognition. They thought company with people of ill-repute – regardless of whether they had repented and been baptised or not – was a defilement. Therefore they murmured against Jesus for eating and drinking with these people.
Jesus could have left them alone in their grumpiness, but He did not. He tries to argue with them to help them see their error, so that they too might join in the celebration of what He was doing for the nation. He thus gives them three parables, along with two explanations, to help them realize what was going on. These parables, then, are given primarily for people who miss the point of what Jesus was doing and have failed to believe in Him, and therefore are missing the celebration.
The first parable is in verses 3-6 of chapter 15. We will pick up the narrative that leads to the parable in verse 1: Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. 2: And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.
Here we have Jesus associating with sinners, and people who did not like Him feasting with them; they didn’t like the celebrating that was going on.
Next, we read: 3: And he spake this parable unto them, saying, 4: What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? 5: And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6: And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.
Jesus then gives this interpretation: 7: I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.
By the way, do you see how this helps us to understand how Jesus would have us to read the parables? He tells us the point of the parable, and when we go back and look at it, we find it is the main focus of the story’s plot. The meaning of the parable is not found in allegorical symbolism but the simple narrative of the story itself.
But let us proceed. According to Jesus, since heaven is rejoicing over the repentance of sinners, then there should be celebration on earth as well. That which is the will of God in heaven is also the will of God on His earth. Therefore, it is wrong to complain of the celebration.
With the second parable, we find the same thing. It’s in verses 8 & 9: Either what woman having ten pieces of silver, if she lose one piece, doth not light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till she find it? 9: And when she hath found it, she calleth her friends and her neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me; for I have found the piece which I had lost.
Jesus then follows the parable with its interpretation, which is pretty much the same as the last one: 10: Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.
So then, we have two parables here with three things helping us to understand what they are about: 1) the situation in which they were given: people were murmuring about the dinner party Jesus was at and so He responds to those murmuring; 2) the focus of the main plot of the stories themselves, with their repetitive themes and language, and 3) Jesus’ own comments.
The third parable, the parable of the lost son, obviously goes along with these former two, but it enlarges on the lessons Jesus is trying to get across to the grumblers. That it is one with the other two parables is apparent for how it is connected with them in the repetition of the theme of the lost and found and of the making merry over the finding of that which was lost. Since, in this parable, we have a person who is lost instead of an object, the psychology and repentant decision of the son who was lost is described. Otherwise, it’s like the others. However, the third parable has a new element: it includes an incident of murmuring against the celebrating. This obviously mirrors the murmuring of the scribes and Pharisees. It is a tool Jesus is using to be sure that they get the point He is trying to make for their sake.
I will not read the whole third parable; you all should be pretty familiar with it. You will recall the complaint of the second son to his father: 29: And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: 30: But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.
You will notice the language here. It is much of the same kind of thing the Pharisees would have said about themselves to God: “Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment.” Jesus is trying to make the connection between the second son’s complaint and the scribes and Pharisees.
The, father, you will remember, responded: 31: And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. 32: It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.
Now what is the father getting at? He is saying, in effect, Son, can’t you have any compassion? Can’t you be glad for the restoration of your brother? Indeed, the father is telling his second son that he’s not thinking straight. He tells him that it was meet, that is, reasonable considering the moral circumstance, that they be happy for the prodigal’s return. The Pharisees had no compassion for sinners, because they had no appreciation for the moral circumstance of repentance toward God. Such a thing is something that God is pleased with. He is a merciful and compassionate God. The third parable explains why the celebrating of sinners on earth was going on in the presence of the scribes and Pharisees. It was because God is like the father in the parable. He is compassionate and therefore He makes merry when sinful people wake up out of their death of sin, repent, and come back to Him.
Since God is such a God, it is only fitting and reasonable that there be celebration. Murmuring against that celebration is unreasonable. If the unhappy son could have any love in his heart for his brother, he too would see the party makes sense.
The scribes and Pharisees could not rejoice in Jesus’ associating and celebrating with sinners, not only because their theology was bad, but because they did not have the love of God in their hearts toward the fallen as Jesus did. They could not join in the party because they themselves had not repented of their own sins, and tasted for themselves the love and grace of God. That is why they did not understand the noise.
The fact that Jesus does not tell what happened to the brother leaves the conclusion up to the hearer. Remember, Jesus wants the scribes and Pharisees to repent and enter His joy. He is trying to get them to see their error and turn from it. They will have to decide what the unhappy brother will do and how the story ends.
So it is with us. We all can be more concerned about our customs and standards and sympathies, and how people are measuring up to them, than about God’s love and compassion toward people. We too can fail to be glad about what God is doing in someone’s life to restore them and save them because of some issue of pride in ourselves. We can murmur, or join in eating sour-grapes, about good things that are happening in our community or in the country in other circles that are not our own, or among people who have ideas on secondary issues that we disagree with. Lord help us. It was not easy for those scribes and Pharisees to hear these three stories, change their minds, and leave behind their former religious sympathies and habits and begin to believe in Jesus. Thankfully, some did; a few at first; many more later. So it may be hard for us, yet we must. If anyone will be Christ’s disciple, he must lose his life – even the religious life that he would prefer – that he may gain it. God give us grace to humble ourselves, and quit being like Grumpy in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Let us repent and allow ourselves to join the celebration that we know, in our hearts, we really want: the joy of the LORD in the face of Jesus Christ. Amen.
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