The Prodigal God (Week 1): The People Around Jesus

I. Focusing on the younger brother aka the prodigal son misses the real message of the story. There are
two brothers, each of whom represents a different way to be alienated from God, and a different way to
seek acceptance into the kingdom of heaven (well unpack this throughout the upcoming weeks).
A little context: Luke 15: 1, 2.
Two groups of people came out to listen to Jesus:

Group 1: Tax collectors/sinners. This group is represented by the younger brother. They observed
neither the moral laws nor the rules for ceremonial purity followed by religious Jews. Like the
younger brother, they left home by leaving the traditional morality of their families and society.
Group 2: Pharisees/scribes. This group is represented by the older brother. They kept the rules and
did what they were supposed to do. They worshipped constantly, prayed constantly, and constantly
studied their sacred text.

Verse 2: And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, This fellow welcomes sinners and
eats with them.
The younger brothers were attracted to Jesus, and this angered the religious leaders. To sit down and eat
with someone in the ancient Near East was a sign of acceptance.
While the parable is targeted to both groups (younger brothers and older brothers), Jesus is especially
focused on the latter.
**Jesus challenges what everyone has ever thought about God, sin, and salvation. This parable reveals the
destructive self-centeredness of the younger brother, but it also condemns the older brothers moralistic life
in the strongest sense. Jesus is saying both the irreligious and the religious are spiritually lost, both lifepaths are dead ends, and that every thought the human race has had about how to connect to God has
been wrong.
II. Which side would Jesus choose?
Note: God is inclusive and loves all unconditionally!
Simply for the sake of this parable, the answer is that He is on neither the irreligious side nor the religious
side. But He singles out religious moralism as a particularly deadly spiritual condition.
III. Wrestle with this thought for the upcoming week:
Jesus teaching consistently attracted the irreligious while offending the religious people of His day.
If our churches arent appealing to younger brothers, there must be more older brothers
(possibly us) than wed like to think.