Repentance and the Grumblers

From The Gospel of Luke: Empowered Living through Holistic Redemption, in the Everyday Bible Study series.

The first two parables in Luke’s fifteenth chapter do not raise repentance in their little stories but each of them ends with that theme, reminding us to keep our eyes on the grumblers who are irritated over the tax collectors and sinners turning over a new leaf.

But the lost son parable provides brilliant introspection about repentance, which we can only list here because space prohibits and you can easily unfold each item:

(1) the son chooses to leave home for the diaspora;
(2) the son creates distance between himself, his father, and home as a sign of running away;
(3) the son’s patterns of behavior violate Jewish piety;
(4) the son’s suffering from a lack of food is a consequence of his reckless behaviors;
(5) the son hits rock bottom when he feeds pigs and no one is there to help him;
(6) the son “came to his senses” when he realized, in his suffering, his own culpability for all he had done;
(7) the son determined to return home and confess his sins to his loving father;
(8) the son realized being a “hired servant” in his father’s home was better than his distant residence and his own status as a son;
(9) the son came home and the father embraced him.

That list identifies elements of repentance: sinfulness, recognition of one’s sinfulness before God, even shame for what one has done, determination to return, choosing to act in returning, and confession to the father for what he had done. Another example is Zacchaeus (19:1-10), but the words of John the Baptist to his audience illustrate repentance as does the example of Peter (3:7-14; 5:1-11).

Such persons are lost and then found. Such persons are the source of God’s joy and heaven’s celebrations. Such persons are restored to family status as God’s children.

Grumblers welcome

We have traditionally stopped right there in our reading of this third parable, but we cannot. This is a parable, not just about the so-called prodigal, younger son, but the parable of two lost sons.

Luke really cares about the older, grumbling son. In his grumbling the father goes out to him (as he did to the younger son) where he gets an earful from his grumbling son over how he has been disrespected. He thinks he has deserved – notice the context of this parable again – a party for his observance and family commitments. The father does not reject the son but reminds him that “you are always with me” and even more “everything I have is yours” (15:31). So he enjoins the older, grumbling son to turn from grumbling about the sinner-son to “celebrate and be glad” because the sinner-son was “lost” and is now “found.” He was “dead and is alive again” (15:32).

If God welcomes sinners home so should the grumblers and so should we. But I riff here on something said by Tim Keller: forgiveness may be enacted quickly but reconciliation between an abused or sinned-against person can take time because it requires truth-telling, repentance, and the restoration of trust, but trust is earned over time. Here are his wise words:

On the other hand, “I forgive you” does not mean “I trust you.” Some people think they haven’t reconciled until they can completely trust the person who did the wrong. That is not the case. Forgiveness means a willingness to try to reestablish trust, but that reestablishment is always a process. The speed and degree of this restoration entail the re-creation of trust, and that takes time, depending on the nature and severity of the offenses involved.

Until a person shows evidence of true change, we should not trust him or her. To immediately give one’s trust to a person with sinful habits could actually be enabling him to sin. Trust must be restored, and the speed at which
this occurs depends on the behavior (see below).

Where was your head when you read this story?

This is what I think we nearly all do. We point out fingers at the older son and say in ourselves I am not the older son. But Jesus told this story because, more than we care to admit it, we, too, are more like the older son than we care to admit. Instead of pointing our fingers at the Pharisees and teachers of the law, let us not be like their finger pointing but be like the angels in heaven who rejoice over known sinners returning home to enjoy family fellowship.

Tim Keller, “Forgiveness and Reconciliation,” https://lindawillows.com/2021/06/14/forgiveness-and-reconciliation-tim-keller-pursuing-truth-love-relationship/#:~:text=%2C%20Love%2C%20Relationship)-,SERVING%20EACH%20OTHER%20THROUGH%20FORGIVENESS%20AND%20RECONCILIATION%20by%20DR.,within%20a%20community%20of%20believers.