That's why I think today's parable is not really from the perspective of the prodigal, the younger, child at all. It's really a morality-tale about the life and times of the older child, the one who was left holding the bag, earning all the sweat equity, when the ‘darling baby' of the family went prodigal! In a way it's no wonder that we've made it the tale of the other son, the younger prodigal one, because at least an R-Rated movie could be made about that! Jesus, however, in telling this parable focuses on the day when the perpetual problem child comes home.  

From the perspective of the older brother, you can just imagine how he planned to name this scene in his diary: The Day of Judgment. The Day of Vindication. There were probably a few pages left blank to fill in when the dust settled and that so-and-so brat finally gets his due and has to pay up for being the scoundrel his older brother had always known him to be, if only someone had listened. Judgment for the prodigal will be almost as sweet as vindication will be for the first-born, who will finally get his due for being such a goody two shoes all those years.

Of course it wasn't to be. Even though it almost got to be the parable of the older child - a parable of vengefulness and self-righteousness - it really wasn't in the end a parable that featured either of the children. It's really a much more subtle, and powerful, story, as Jesus told it. It's the story I think Jesus might have called: The Parable of the Gutsy Father.

For you see, we're all children. And this isn't a story told so that one of God's children can wind up, feeling superior, certain that they got the last word on another one of God's children for not living up to their standards. The parable is really about the nature of God - the gutsy parent who knew that being either the young child or the older one, either the prodigal or the overachieving first-born, was not enough to put anyone in a position of advantage with God.

This is also a Parable of Radical Hospitality. It is the story at the very heart of the Christian Gospel, the story of God's Grace, a grace that sets the banquet table for each and every one of us again and again and serves up the very best that God has to offer. It is the parable of a God who sets the table for us to come and eat with Jesus, was willing to do whatever it took to welcome each of us to the banquet that will never end - even if it killed him. And, of course, it did.

"Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." So he told them this parable: "Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.'"