Self-Portraits of God

Studies in the Life and Work of Jesus

Lesson 2: Pictures from the Parables

Parable 1

The first story or parable, we are going to look at is of course a story that Jesus told; as such it is a story that is almost 2000 years old. But it is also a story that is so familiar that we could have taken it out of this morning’s newspaper! This story is all around us. But it has an ending that carries a message which is almost always overlooked! Now to Jesus’ story.

Then He said a certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said his father, father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me. So he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in the land, and he began to be in want.

Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself, he said, how many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will rise and go to my father, and will say to him, father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Make me like one of your hired servants.

And he arose and came to his father. But when he was still a great way off, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. And the son said to him, father I have sinned against heaven and in your sight, and am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet. And the bring the fatted calf here and kill it, and let us eat and be merry; For this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. And they began to be merry.

Now his elder son was in the field. And as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, your brother has come, and because he has received him safe and sound, your father has killed the fatted calf. But he was angry and would not go in. Therefore his father came out and pleaded with him. So he answered and said to his father, lo, these many years I have been serving you; I have never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends. But as soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him. And he said to him, son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.

It was right that we should make merry and be glad, for your brother was dead and is alive again, and was lost and is found (Luke 15: 11-32).

A father, two sons, and conflict over who is getting what; a familiar story, except that Jesus told it is a parable! So what is hiding in the story?

Notice the occasion for the telling of this story.

Luke 15: 1-3. Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him (Jesus) to hear Him.
(There was always a crowd around Jesus. On one location when He was talking to the multitude on the seashore they pushed so close to Him there was no space left for Him to stand and speak and be heard, so He got into a small boat and pushed out a little from the crowd. He seems to have preferred to be in the outdoors—many of His illustrations were drawn from nature. Also, there were no buildings large enough to accommodate the throngs of people following Him.)

And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, this Man receives sinners and eats with them.
(Jesus was nice to the people who came to see Him. He saw each one as they could be. The purer atmosphere surrounding Him, the gentle kindness with which He treated even the children, often caused people who came into His presence to wish to be worthy of His trust. It seems sometimes He did not even have time to eat.)

“So He spoke this parable to them.”

On this occasion (Luke 15:1-3), in responding to the complaints of the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus told the story of the father and his two sons which we have just recounted; He also told a story about leaven and a story about a lost sheep.

In the story of a sheep which gets lost the sheep knows that it is lost, but it cannot help itself. It is dependent on the goodness and efficiency of a shepherd to find it and take it to safety. Fortunately for the sheep in this story there is a good shepherd, who represents Jesus, who seeks diligently for the missing sheep until he finds it and carries at home.

This is one of the most famous of Jesus’ pastoral tales. It has often been the inspiration for an artist’s painting. It is seen in Christian homes, in children’s rooms, and in books around the world.

The second story Jesus told in responding to the Pharisees and scribes is the story of the lost coin. In this story of a coin that has been lost, the coin of course does not know that it is lost, or that it is a value; these elements are attached to the coin by someone who values did. In Jesus telling of the story the house is needing to be cleaned before the coin can be found! But when the coin is finally found the story is ended just as the story of the lost sheep—there is a call to the friends to “come and rejoice with me; I have found that which was lost!”

In both these stories Jesus attached a value to that which was lost that is only revealed to the hearer or reader of the story when the final line of the story is told; the love of the owner for the central object of the story—a love so strong that whatever the recovering of the lost requires is not considered too high a cost to the owner who has lost the valued item. And when the recovery has been accomplished the recovery is accompanied by much rejoicing!

(In some of Jesus’ stories, who the story was about was another element that was not clear until He said the final line!)

In the third story, the story of the father and his two sons reviewed above, these elements are again present; but there is much more. (This story was again for the complaining leaders!)

When Jesus divided this third story around two brothers, He used them to represent two kinds of people. The first brother represents a group who have a very good life. They have all the necessities of life and the loving parent who guides and provides. But they are openly dissatisfied and want a change. When they can, they take their life into their own hands and live the way that seems to promise all that they have ever wanted; they leave the father’s presence.

The second brother is used by Jesus to represent those people who give faithful service to the father and those around them, meeting the elements of life responsibly, for the reward of a steady and stable live.

The problem that the story brings to the reader is that neither son, the one who runs away, nor the one who stays home, loves the father; he is misunderstood by both sons.

The son who leaves home in search of happiness, and loses all, comes home to ask to be treated as a servant, while the son who stayed with the father and worked responsibly for him, instead of enjoying being in the father’s presence, has been counting what wages will be received; as such he acts like a servant. This son despises his father because the father is good to those the son thinks are unworthy of the father’s love.

In this dimension both sons are lost coin sons-they do not know that there is intrinsic value in themselves and those around them, even when those around them disagree with them. Both sons are also lost sheep sons. They seek only those things which they feel are necessary for the existence of this life. Jesus very gently puts the two sons who are at the center of the story in sharp contrast with the father.

In Jesus story, the son who runs away from home and comes to see no value in himself is all the time the object of the father’s love and concern; the father is presented as watching the road for him. And at the first intimation that the father’s presence might be welcome, while the son is still a long way off, the father runs to meet the son, the one who left the father’s home to be free of the father’s presence. In this, the son is not like the sheep; he could return home, if he chose to do so, but like the coin he does not know his own worth in the eyes of the father; nor does he know the character of the father-his father. This son only discovers the love of the father for him after he has turned to him as the source of that which is necessary for this life; but in turning he finds more than the necessities of life he was seeking for; he finds the loving father that was hidden from him before.

That love which he spent all he had to obtain he finds to have been beside him through all his journey, unrecognized, and therefore, like the presence of Jesus in the ship asleep, of no apparent value.

The other son, the one who stayed home and shared the father’s house all those years also does not know of the love of the father for his brother, or for himself. Therefore when he sees his father very happy because his lost son is found again, he is not only surprised to learn of the father’s love for his erring brother, but he is so unlike the father he has served for so long that he is unable to participate in the father’s joy. He anticipates that the returned brother of his will be given by the loving father some of that which he believes he has earned the ownership of.

While the story shows the father assuring the angry son that all that he has is his, the stay-at-home brothers, not as wages, but as a gift, this son does not, in the story, enter the house to be family with his father and brother, and the celebrating servants of the father, who were able to enter into the joy of the father and consequently be in his home as participants in the father’s joy—and as such become family to the father.

The story comes to an end with the son, who has been assured by the father that all the father has belongs to him, outside the home where the family reunion is going on, by his own choice. Those who are with the father are those who love what he loves, and therefore can enter into the joy of the father- members of His family.

The self-portraits here are of three kinds of people—those who discover the father to be their source of blessing; those who have by birth all they desire; and the father who loves all his children, while waiting for them to discover what he is like, so they can enter into his joy; something that is only possible as they come to love what he loves—the joy of giving.

The story started with the Pharisees and scribes complaining; we therefore know that they are represented by the loveless brother who serves in the family always, without discerning the father’s character, or love for those who choose to be separate from the father’s home; this portrait is of a child who does not know that it has a loving father.

The brother who learned only at great cost—all the father had was his brothers—represents those who so often are given up on by their peers; or are thought to be of no worth. This brother is now a child who has learned, from the joy that sprang from his return, that every gift from the father is according to love; the love of the father who saw him as he could be—and rejoices at the discovery. This portrait is of a father and a son.

This picture is in a side-by-side photograph frame. This is because in the story there are two portraits of the father. The first picture is of the loving competent father we all wish we had—with no family that recognizes him. The second picture is the reunion portrait; every one in the picture, father, son, and servers, is a member of the family we conclude because they rejoice with the father over the return of one who was lost and is home again.

In the Old Testament we find a very gentle portrayal of what God is like when the prophet writes that as a father pities his children so the Lord pities those who serve Him. Jesus’ parable of the father with two sons adds to this Old Testament portrait when it assures us that father is not only what God is like, it is what He is. Therefore we are not surprised that Jesus made all these stories end with the same ending; a call to, ‘’come rejoice with Me.”