Luke 15 covers the story widely known as, “The Prodigal Son”. I started preaching about this passage a couple weeks ago and I stated that the father is the prodigal not the younger son or the elder son. That goes against conventional thinking, here’s the reason why I stated that.
The definition of Prodigal is:
Prodigal – adjective
1. Recklessly extravagant
2. Having spent everything
The word prodigal is a term that is associated with wastefulness and foolish spending, thus the younger son. We certainly know the father was neither wasteful nor foolish however, in the eyes of the Pharisees he was all that and more.
• It was foolish to them for the father to give the money to the younger son let alone take him back
• It was wasteful to give his money to such a disrespectful and arrogant brat
• It was reckless to trust such a fool of a son
• It was extravagant and way over the top to show so much grace to such and ungrateful son who deserved to be disowned
• The father spent all the respect and honor he once had with the community by giving so much mercy to both his sons
It’s a matter of perspective I suppose. We might be disgusted with the younger son but we can identify with him on some level. We have all taken advantage of God and by our actions shown we thought we were smarter than Him when we disregarded His advice and went our own way. The elder son might seem justified in his response but when we actually give it thought, we know he was out of line and a real disappointment to his father due to his self-righteous attitude of which we unfortunately identify as well.
What we can’t identify with is the father who spent everything he had; his money, his reputation, his pride, his name, his position, his family and his future on his wayward boys. The law, the social norms and his aching heart all told him enough is enough be done with them and yet he defied everything nd everyone with reckless extravagance and covered his younger son and pleaded with his elder to do what was right.
One could argue that the boys didn’t really know what they were doing; they lacked the wisdom years give to someone. That agreement could not be made for the father. He knew very well the risk he was taking and he took it anyway, he knew that it would cost him dearly and he did it anyway and he knew that it was probable that it wouldn’t end well and he did it anyway.
That is why, I call the father the prodigal.
