Over the last three weeks I’ve been working on Luke 15 from the Greek Text. I started down this path because we talked about the first seven verses, the first short story about the lost sheep, in our worship service Sunday. The more I studied, though, the more convinced I am that perhaps next year I will spend a month on this one chapter. There is more here than can be covered in either one blog post or a single homily.

Below is my rendering of the text. First, though,I will give you some textual notes. Second, some exegetical notes. Third, a thought or two about the big picture.

I ramble quite a bit in this post, so you may want to skip to the end and read the transition then come back to my thoughts on it. Or not.

Textual Notes

1. Verse three indicates Jesus told ‘this parable’ as if it were one yet what follows are three parables. Where our minds see three different things, I think Jesus was teaching one thing, and Luke understood it to be one parable with three different parts. The one teaching is the relationship between recovery of what is lost and the celebration that restoration demands.

2. The verb for ‘lost’ throughout these parables also carries with the it the connotation of destruction or wasted. Lost things are ruined things. Lost lives are wasted, squandered lives. A lost sheep will get killed. A lost coin will stolen or forever buried.

3. In verse 9 the forms are feminine — the woman calls her female friends and her female neighbors. She celebrates with people who will understand the importance of this recovery and the danger she had placed herself by being careless with the coin in the first place. In other words, the women intuitively understand the reason for the celebrating.

4. There are three variations on ‘slave’ or ‘servant’ in the parable of the lost child. First, the younger son refers (v. 17, 19) to his father’s hired servants, ‘misthioi’ who have so much bread to eat. Later, the father calls for his ‘doulous’, a word familiar to New Testament students as slave or servant. It is what Paul calls himself in relation to Jesus — a slave or a servant of Jesus. Either word works for a rendering because slavery didn’t mean in the ancient world exactly what it meant in the evil practice of Antebellum America. But then, the elder brother uses the term ‘paidon’ or slaveboy when he calls over the help to ask questions. Again, I am not certain what to make of it but the variation is, interesting. At least to me.

5. There is an echo of ‘rising up’ in vv. 18 and 20. It begins each sentence with ‘anastas’ which will sound familiar to you because it is also a word for resurrection, Anastasia. Not to load words with too much meaning, but there is something in here of resurrection that Jesus (and Luke) are pounding away at. Jesus is not a prodigal by any means nor a sinner, but he is a son in a far country from his home surrounded by pigs yet he will rise up and go home to his father.

6. It is more natural for us to say, ‘I have sinned against heaven and against you’ (v. 18. 21) but that is not the phraseology here. I think my wording is clunky, but it is faithful. He has sinned ‘to’ heaven and ‘before’ his father. I may be making more here than is there, but neither heaven nor the father paid the price of the son’s sin, as would say, a murder or slander. Therefore, his sin was ‘to’ heaven in the sense of location and it was ‘before’ his father in the sense of witness. It is this distinction that leads me to keep the clunky verbiage.

7. The flow of the words from the elder son in vv. 29 and 30 is choppy in the Greek New Testament. I feel this is a device used by Jesus/Luke to convey the emotion and hot heat of the elder son in his perceived neglect.

8. The elder son will not go in to the celebration feast. The father goes out to him and the text says he comforted him. The verb there is the root parakaleo, the verbal form linked to the noun Paraclete — the encourager, the comforter, the guide. If you will allow me to squint my eyes a bit, I can see the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit somewhere in this story. It is tangentially Trinitarian, and I’ll take it!

9. Throughout the last section, ‘son’ or ‘sons’ has been used exclusively, but at the (v. 31) end, the father says child, ‘teknon’ to the oldest. He is warming up to him with this statement, and I feel it is more endearing to the ears of the boy to be ‘my child’ than ‘son.’ It is at this moment, and with this word, you begin to wonder which boy was the more prodigal?

Exegetical Notes

1. The sheep lost itself, the woman lost the coin, and the child likewise took the initiative to leave. The difference between the sheep and the boy? The sheep didn’t want to be lost, it is just dumb. It is not hard to see the sheep afraid when it realizes its peril and the sheep joy (that should be a thing, I think, sheep joy) at being found. The boy was willful, and even manipulative to arrange the situation so as to get lost.

2. I believe we need to ask ourselves why, precisely, are the angels happy (v. 10) about the repentance of a sinner? What is in it for them? The only answer that I can come up with is that our wellbeing — redemption — is integral to their very existence. In other words, they must love us individually but also in general. Remember, this aside is not parable, it is actual, literal.

3. The woman’s coin is probably connected to her dowry. Most interpreters I have read come to this conclusion. There are complicated ways of illustrating how this worked, and some even suggest the coins were a headdress of some sorts. It could also be her inheritance of sort as she is portrayed as a single woman living alone with no servants to sweep for her. As interesting as these things are, I think those details are irrelevant. What is relevant is the coin is tied to her future. If it is her dowry, then the more it is the better her future standing is. If we see it this way, what has been lost here is her future, like a retirement portfolio that evaporates in one bad Wall Street day, or a burned home. Tied to all of this is fascinating aspect that all three of these stories are connected to wealth: the number of sheep in the flock, the dowry, and inheritance from a rich father.

4. We usually understand the shepherd with the lost sheep to be God, or more particular, the second person of the Godhead, Jesus. The father in the story is usually understood as God the Father, the first person of the Godhead. Notice that Jesus unabashedly chooses a female image in the role of God in the story? And would you, maybe, then, parallel that usage with the Holy Spirit — sweeping, illuminating the room, seeking, drawing?

5. The younger son rehearses his speech before his father, but never completes it. The father cuts him off. As soon as the boy admits his sin, there is no more talk of the past. It is only future actions and the preparations for celebration. I am telling you, that right there will preach long and hard.

6. The obedient ‘other’ seems to suffer from emotional neglect in these stories. The ninety-nine sheep are left alone, abandoned for the one. The nine secure coins are not celebrated. The older son may have a legitimate complaint about his father’s attitude toward him. Does this mean God doesn’t care about the obedient, but is only an adrenaline junky for the drama of discovery? That’ can’t right. The answer must be something else, and the answer is connected to verse 2. (see below)

7. The elder son misses the point. He thinks the fatted calf is for his younger brother. The calf is not for him. It is for the father. This is the father’s party, just as it was the shepherd’s party with the other shepherds and the woman’s party with the other women. The party is not for the sheep or the coin or the lost boy. The father is celebrating, the shepherd celebrates, the woman invites her besties to her impromptu backyard barbecue. It is vital that we celebrate, but it is also important to know who we are celebrating.

Big Picture Thoughts

1. Famously, in the last story, the elder son is left with a decision. We do not know if he goes in to his brother or not. It is assumed Jesus means this to be the scribes and Pharisees. The ball is in their court: will they celebrate the work of God in finding and rescuing all these lost sinners like the noble angels do. For the modern church, the challenge comes as we who have grown up in congregations and know the songs and the vernacular – will we celebrate the newness, the newcomer, the dirty, broken, and the bleating sheep?

2. We load into these stories our own family dramas but these stories are not about your painful childhood or a wayward son who sleeps around and has four children by three women, or your daughter who can’t seem to get her life straight. These stories are about the celebration. The neighbors are called. The shepherds gather. The fatted calf is butchered. Pies are made and dancing commences forthwith. I wonder what it would be like if those who opposed Christianity accused us of being too celebratory and of rejoicing too much –eating too much, drinking too much, dancing too much, laughing too much, and doing it all with the unacceptable kinds of people. That is the point of all these stories.

3. I have said it before, but I believe with everything in me Jesus told these parables sitting in Zacchaeus’ house. Four chapters down the page in Luke 19:10 Jesus utters the missio christi, ‘the Son of Man came to seek and to save those who are lost.’

4. An old teacher of mine liked to emphasize the Father sitting on the porch waiting, every day, for a sliver on the horizon of the visage of his son coming home. That, he said, is why he was able to see him from a long way off because he was on the lookout. Of course, that is one popular way to see it. Remember, the shepherd actively sought the lost sheep and the woman swept the house in what was probably a frantic search. But my old teacher honed in on the father as anxiously, patiently, knowing someday his child would come home. That was why he saw him so far away. I have another thought. You’ve read enough here, so please indulge me this. If I crawl into this as a storyteller, and Jesus is the best storyteller, I can put together another scrap of narrative juice. The elder brother, in verse 30, seems to have a working knowledge of where the younger brother has been. He describes him as spending their father’s livelihood on prostitutes. How does he know? Is it possible the father has kept tabs on the boy? He, being a wealthy man, hired someone to watch him from a distance and send reports to the family? So, the father knew when the boy was on his way home and things were not as spontaneous as it seemed. The elder brother was briefed on the unseemly behavior of his sibling. This fight they have was not a new one, but one that had been rehearsed over and over. What we see is the culmination of many heated discussions between the father and the eldest son.

5. Somewhere in these two brothers we must be shove the epic brotherly discord of the Bible: Cain and Able, Ishmael and Issac, Esau and Jacob, Joseph and his brothers, Aaron and Moses, and then, Israel and Judah, and now perhaps Jews and Christians, Catholic and Protestant, and dare I say Mainline and Evangelicals. Will there be celebration or will there be mortal discord until the end of time?

Luke 15 From the Greek New Testament

I have probably dwelt on this too long, so now without further delay here is my rendering of the text from the Greek New Testament.

1. All the tax collectors came close to hear him.

2. The Pharisees and scribes were grumbling, ‘This person welcomes sinners. He even eats with them.’

3. So, he told them this parable:

4. If some man among you has a hundred sheep, and he should lose one, would he not leave behind the ninety-nine in the wilderness then go out for the one that was lost until he find it?

5. And when he finds it, he puts it upon his shoulders, rejoicing.

6. When he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors saying, ‘Rejoice with me, because I found my lost sheep.’

7. This is what I say to you, this same kind of joy will be in heaven for one sinner who repents more so than ninety-nine righteous ones who have no need of repentance. 

8. What kind of woman who has ten valuable coins that, if she should lose one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the home while she carefully seeks until she finds it?

9. Then, when she finds it, she calls together her girlfriends and the neighborhood women saying, ‘Rejoice with me, because I found the coin I lost.’ 

10. I say to you this, there is joy before the angels of God for one sinner who repents.

11. Then he said, ‘There was a man who had two sons.

12. The younger said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the property,’ and he divided to them the estate.  

13. It wasn’t many days later when the younger son collected all his things and traveled to a distant land. There, he squandered his wealth on extravagant living.

14. After he had spent everything, a severe famine spread across that land. He began to be needy. 

15. Being so far away, he hired on with a citizen of that land wo sent him into the fields to feed pigs.

16. He craved the slop the pigs ate; no one gave him anything.

17. Then he came to himself. He said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants abound with bread, yet I am dying in this famine.’

18. He rose up. ‘I will travel to my father. I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned to heaven and before you.

19. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.’

20. Rising up, he went to his father. While he was yet far away, his father saw him and was moved to compassion. Running, he hugged and kissed him. 

21. The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned to heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22. But the father said to his slaves, ‘Bring out quickly the best robe and put it on him. Give him a ring for his hand and sandals for his feet.

23. And, you must bring the fatted calf. Kill it, then let us eat and celebrate

24. because this son of mine was dead, and he came to life. He was lost and he was found. Then they began to celebrate.    

25. But his elder son was in the field. As he neared the house, he heard music and dancing. 

26. Calling over to the slave boys he began to enquire what was going on with all this?

27. He said to him, ‘Your brother has come home. Your father killed the fatted calf because he received him back alive and well.’

28. But he was angry, and refused to go in, so his father went out; he comforted him.

29. Yet he answered his father and said, ‘Look at how many years I worked as a slave for you, and never did I disobey your commandments, and you’ve never even given me a goat so I might celebrate with my friends.

30. But this, your son, after having eaten away your very life with hookers, came home and you kill the fatted calf for him!’ 

31. Then he said to him, ‘Child, you are always with me. Everything that is mine is yours.

32. We must celebrate and be happy, because your brother, who was dead has come back to life. He was lost and was found.’