Preachers, Read the Text!

            The Revised Common Lectionary assigns the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15) to this coming Sunday. That story will be read and preached in thousands of Protestant churches that use that lectionary as well as in thousands of Roman Catholic parishes which use a similar lectionary. Unfortunately, many of those sermons will miss the point…

            They’ll miss the point, first of all, because many preachers don’t understand parables. A parable is not what you were taught in Sunday school: it is not ‘an earthly story with a heavenly meaning,’ nor is it intended as an illustration to help us understand some timeless truth. (Parables are parables, not Aesop’s fables.) The prototypical parable is in 2 Samuel 12, where the prophet Nathan tells the adulterous king David a parable about a man who, despite having many sheep of his own, slaughtered and ate his neighbor’s single sheep. David, in righteous anger, proclaims judgment on the rich man, and Nathan retorts, “You are the man!” (David, who had many wives, had just cheated with Uriah’s wife and had arranged for Uriah’s death to cover up the infidelity.) David recognizes his guilt: he has to—he just condemned injustice in a seemingly unrelated story. That’s the point of parable. You use a parable to communicate a dangerous truth and to force the hearer to recognize his own bad behavior through the story.

            Second, many of those preachers will miss the point because they won’t read the whole story. Look up the parable (Luke 15). The lectionary assigns verses 1-2 and the whole story of the prodigal (vv. 11-32). Many preachers, though, will focus their attention on verses 11-24 and they will treat that section in isolation from the rest. This is an enormous hermeneutical error. (Hermeneutics is the discipline that thinks about how best to interpret a passage.) One of the first principles of interpretation that we learn is to pay close attention to the context. If one excerpts verses 11-24 from their context, one is left with a really beautiful story of a wastrel son, who heaps terrible shame on his father, and a father who is gracious and compassionate and receives the boy back into his family with the declaration, “This son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is now found!” Sermons will abound on how this story is a picture of God’s great love for humanity, welcoming us lost children back from our rebellion into sin.

            Listen, that’s a good sermon. I’ve preached it myself. The problem is, that’s not the point Jesus was trying to make. How do we know that? Because the story is the conclusion of a chapter that starts with verses 1-2 and goes on for eight more verses. The set up for story is important, “Now the tax collectors and ‘sinners’ were all approaching to listen to Jesus, and the Pharisees and scribes grumbled, ‘This one welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Notice, then, that the initiating event is the Pharisees’ judgment that there are some who are unworthy of receiving a place in the reign of God. With that in mind, Jesus tells a story of a lost sheep and a lost coin with the attendant celebrating when they are found. Even the story of the lost son follows the pattern: a son is lost; he is found; there is a feast. But the story goes on and the character of the older brother is introduced. He also disparages the father in a number of ways, not least is forcing his father to come out to beg him to join the party. The father’s plea is poignant, “This brother of yours was dead and is alive.” The question that hangs there—never spoken, never answered—“Will you please join the party?”

            What are the Pharisees to think? They’re expected to nod their heads at the first two parables. Of course, you rejoice over a found sheep and a found coin. They may even find themselves agreeing that the father is right to welcome his lost son. The character of the older brother is Jesus’ “Thou are the man!” The Pharisees are meant to wonder if they are the younger brother, the father, or the older brother. And the context favors them thinking that Jesus has likened them to the angry, uncompassionate older brother. So, the thrust of the parable seems to be something like this: “Surely you are a recipient of God’s grace; you’re a faithful Israelite, after all. Can you find space in your heart to see that God has grace on all sorts of people?”

            That’s the challenge of Luke 15: can you recognize God’s grace over those who are most unlike you—those of different social classes, different races, different religious backgrounds, different political views? It seems to me that a sermon that doesn’t carry through to this challenge hasn’t fully preached the text. So, preachers, if it’s not too late for this weekend’s sermon, read the text—all of the text—and preach it in all its depth.