By Jared Warner
Willow Creek Friends Church
March 30, 2025
Click Here to Join our Meeting for Worship
Luke 15:1–3, 11b-32 (ESV)
1 Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 So he told them this parable: 11b “There was a man who had two sons. 12 And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’ And he divided his property between them. 13 Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. 14 And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs. 16 And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything. 17 “But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger! 18 I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” ’ 20 And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. 21 And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 23 And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. 24 For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to celebrate. 25 “Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. 27 And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’ 28 But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, 29 but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’ 31 And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’ ”
Today we discuss arguably the most well known parable of Jesus. I am sure we have all thought about it many times over the years. I know I have. But like usual when I approach it this week I am once again fascinated by the story.
“A man has two sons and the younger says to the father give me the share of property that is coming to me.” We often look at this story and we focus on one of the two sons. I believe the first time I spoke on this passage while here at Willow Creek, I focused on the older son. The last time I spoke on this parable I focused on the younger son hiring himself out to one of the citizens. This time I am going to take a different approach.
The younger son wanted the property.
Our initial thought is that this was an ungrateful son only concerned with money. We judge this younger son. We fixate on his sinful behavior. This is part of the story and it is right for us to look at that. But there are layers to scripture. Layers upon layers that each reveal something amazing about the kingdom of God, here on earth as it is in heaven.
The word property in English is used four times in this passage. The younger son wants his share of the property, now. This is somewhat uncommon in ancient times but not unheard of. Inheritance law among the Hebrew people was important and structured. This man had two sons so it is actually fairly easy to calculate. The father’s estate would be divided into thirds, and the older son would receive two thirds and the younger son would get a third. The reason behind the double portion is fairy straight forward, when the father passed away the eldest son would become the patriarch of the family, he was the social safety net. The younger siblings would go out into the world to make their own name, while the oldest would remain at the family manor to preserve the family name and estate. The requirement of the double portion came with strings, the younger siblings were always welcome back into the family. If their investments did not pan out the eldest sibling was to welcome them back, ensuring that their siblings did not starve.
The uncommon part of this is that usually the inheritance was not divided until after the death of the father, although it was not unheard of. That is why Jesus uses this to teach. There were contemporary issues at play. Remember there was one conversation with a wealthy man regarding income dedicated to the temple, so it could not be used to assist their aging parents. This is what is going on in this parable. The living parent divided their property prior to their death, and the living children were unwilling to support their parents.
We look down at the young man in this family. He gets that reputation for a reason. He desires wealth and he is impatient. His desire is to live extravagantly and he does not care about much else.
As I mentioned before there are layers to scripture. And the layers that inspired me this week was the word property. Upon first look this does not seem too interesting when we look at the passage in English. But in Greek there are actually two different words used that are translated as property. The first is Ousias (pronounced oo-see-ah). This word refers to capital or financial wealth. This is the property that the young man is speaking of when he is demanding his portion of the inheritance. This word is used two times in this passage, both times is in reference to the young man. The first is when he is demanding his share, and the second time is when he squandered his wealth or property in the foreign land. But I said property was mentioned four times in this passage.
The second word translated as property is bion which is a form of the word bios. Usually when we see this word we think of life because most of us only encounter this word when we are speaking of biology. When used in this manner the word refers to livelihood or manner of life. It is the totality of this man’s being.
I have read this passage multiple times. I have studied and spoke on this passage several times, including at least twice here. And I did not notice that there was two words translated as property, even after reading the same commentaries. This is why the study of scripture is so fascinating. Each time we read them something different is revealed. It is not that it is completely unknown, but the circumstances of our life are different so it hits our minds differently.
This man’s son comes to him demanding a third of his wealth, a third of his property. And this man divides his life between them. I want you to sit with this for a moment. He bestows his life to his sons. He pours his life, his lifestyle into his sons.
I want you to think about what that means. It is more than wealth, more than real estate or financial capital. He gives his life for his boys.
When we think of livelihood, or lifestyle, this includes a great deal. In the Hebrew culture their was a basic educational system within the synagogues where the boys would go and learn the scriptures. This was to train them to become men within the community. Then when they reached what was considered adulthood, around the age of twelve or thirteen, they would go to the temple and offer sacrifices for themselves. At this time there were potentially two paths available to them. They could be invited to live as a disciple of one of the rabbis or they would learn a trade, usually follow in their father’s business. It was an honor to continue with their education, but this was not always an option because to follow in the footsteps of a rabbi meant that your family would be required to pay the rabbis for that education. Most families could not afford to allow their children to take that route, and we see this even in the life of Jesus. When his parents lost Jesus in Jerusalem for three days, they found him with the rabbis discussing scripture and the teachers marveled at Jesus’s knowledge. He most likely would have been asked to stay and learn, to become one of their disciples, but his mother spoke up. She chided Jesus for treating them badly. I always wondered why she was so upset when she should have been overjoyed at finding him safe. But I got to thinking, Jesus embarrassed her. He put her and Joseph in a position where they had to stand before the elite of their community and basically announce that they were financially unable for their son to be a disciple. And Jesus went home with them.
I have been in that position too many times. I have had to admit that I cannot afford what my children want. I do not have the wealth.
The second path is to return to the father’s house, to learn the business, to work along side your relatives. The vast majority of young Israelites were in this group. And this was the path that Jesus took as well. Jesus went home and learned the trade of Joseph. We commonly know this trade as being a carpenter but it was more than that. He was a craftsman, a handyman, he was a construction worker. Most likely he was a stone mason because the word used can mean all those things. Jesus went home and he learned the livelihood, of Joseph. Joseph and the rest of the family taught Jesus and all the young men of their family. They showed them how to handle the tools. They taught them how to make the material do what they wanted and needed it to do. And by the time Jesus entered his ministry, he had seventeen years of experience in construction. He would have been known as a master builder.
Parents invest their lives, their livelihood and lifestyle into their children. They teach them how to live. They show them what to do, and how to provide for their family. As a parent we teach our children what is important to us and they take these things with them into their lives.
Jesus in this parable says that the man divided his property, or his livelihood between the boys. This man diligently taught the boys what was important to him, and how to live as he did. But all too often the youth do not recognize the wisdom our parents bestow to us. We go off on our own thinking we have everything under control and that we will be successful in our own right. We head out of the house knowing everything but then reality sets in.
This young man gathered all he had. And he went away to a far country. He left home to start his own job. His brother received the farm, he had to make his own way. He would need to get a job in the city so to speak. And we are told that he squandered his property, his wealth, in reckless living.
At this point we are not told what he did with his financial capital. We assume he went out throwing parties and lived it up but this is only alluded to us by the discussing between the father and the older son later in the passage. Jesus does not tell us if that was actually how the man squandered his capital. All we know to this point is that he was reckless.
If we are to look up the word for reckless, it is undisciplined. Usually this refers to a vice, but there are other ways that we can be reckless. Maybe he invested in a business that failed. Maybe he gambled on the gladiator games. Maybe he did throw parties as his brother suggested. He was undisciplined, he went to a far off country and he disregarded the teachings of his father. He turned his back on his father’s property.
“And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed the pigs.”
The last time I spoke on this passage I mentioned that the sense of the phrase, “hired himself out,” was more than simply getting a job. He bound or cleaved to that citizen. Which means he fully integrated himself into their society. He completely turned away from his heritage and he became a citizen of the foreign land. He spoke their language, he ate what they ate, he worshiped how they worshiped. As far as anyone could tell he was just one of them.
But there was a famine in that country, and his job was to feed the pigs. This was an insult to someone of Hebrew heritage. To this day for swine are thought of by the Jewish culture as the definition of unclean. Anything in connection with them is unclean. The food, the skin, the meat, everything connected to a pig is unclean. This was widely known in ancient cultures as well. One of the greatest antisemitic thing to do was to force them to handle pigs. And the abomination that causes desolation that our contemporary end times theologians tend to speak so much about was something that happened historically when a pig was offered as a sacrifice in the temple to the one true most high God. Which desecrated the temple and initiated the revolt lead by Judas Maccabeus.
This man was out in the fields feeding the pigs. He was out in a foreign land, a culture he fully embraced and became integrated into. He was there after squandering all his wealth only to find that his investments dried up and he was starving, longing to eat the slop he was feeding to the pigs. And then there was a revelation. No one gave him anything.
No one gave him anything.
We often overlook this statement, but it is at this point the story changes. After he recognizes this we are told that he came to himself. Something connected in his mind, causing him to change his way of thinking.
“How many of my father’s hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger!” he says to himself.
I again want us to stop and just let that sit with us for a moment. The man divided his property between them. He divided his life, his lifestyle, his wisdom and teaching. He taught his boys what was important to him. And this young man began to realize something important. In his father’s house, even the hired servants had food. His father’s livelihood, his wealth was not focused on the material aspects of life. He did not care about money or profit. What was most important to his father was life. His father used what he had available to him to invest into the lives of those around him, and not one of his hired servants went hungry. And in this foreign land, no one gave him anything.
Grace and mercy was the true wealth his father possessed. Grace and mercy.
His father did not give out of expectation to receive. Instead his financial profit grew from of his grace and mercy. This young man after losing everything realized that grace was missing from his current cultural experience. Mercy was absent in the society in which he was residing. And he said to himself, “I will repent. I will return. I will go to my father and confess, I will seek his mercy and his grace.”
He rose up and began to walk. He walked from the field of pigs, and began that long journey of self assessment and repentance. And while he was still a long way off, while he was still far from his father his father saw him and ran out to meet him. His father embraced him, kissing him. This young man began to confess his sins to his father, yet while he was speaking his father was putting grace and mercy into action.
And this is where the other son comes into the story. The other son did not leave. The other son did not demand his portion of the inheritance, yet his father divided his property and gave it to him as well. He had lived with the father. He had known everything the father had known. He had participated in the life of the father never once turning away.
But he refuses to participate today. His father comes out to him. Again the father meets his son at a distance and this son complains to the father. “Never once did you give me a goat to celebrate with my friends, but when this good for nothing son of yours comes, this one that devoured your property with prostitutes you kill the fattened calf.”
This is the forth use of property, and this again is bion or bios, the form word that means life, livelihood, or lifestyle. This older son is complaining that this younger brother had devoured his father’s good name, he became an embarrassment to the father’s reputation.
This older brother, although he lived with the father, had not understood the father’s teaching either. He, like the younger brother, was focused on profit and wealth, he was focused on the transaction and getting what is deserved. The younger son did not deserve a celebration. He sold himself to a foreign culture. He was a sinner. He did not earn his place in that family. But neither did the older son.
The father said to him, “You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”
Grace and Mercy. No one gave him anything. And he came to himself.
I sat this week in study. I sat in prayer. And I came to myself. We live in a worldly system where the norm is so often, “no one gave him anything.” we live in a society where everything is transactional. Our world leaders go out demanding payment for assistance. We become irate because we are seemingly not getting the same treatment as someone else. And we want that to change. But we are missing the point of the kingdom. It is not about profit. It is not about property in the sense of financial gain, but life.
Our focus should not be on what I get but what I can give to encourage others. It should not be on my own enjoyment, but how I can be a blessing to those around me. We so often sit in the pig slop lamenting because “no one gave me anything,” or we sit brooding over the fact that someone is getting something they do not deserve. And we fail to live. We fail to recognize that the true profit of life is in others. The kingdom is loving God, embracing the holy spirit, and living the love of Christ with others. Let us come to our senses and reflect that life, that lifestyle with all we meet this week.
Previous Messages:
Ransomed to Love
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church April 19, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili 1 Peter 1:17–23 (ESV) 17 And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time…
Born Again to a Living Hope
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church April 12, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili 1 Peter 1:3–9 (ESV) 3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born…
Broken Dreams Restored
By Jared Warner Willow Creek Friends Church April 05, 2026 Click here to join our Meeting for Worship Click to read in Swahili Bofya kusoma kwa Kiswahili John 20:1–18 (ESV) 1 Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene came to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the…
To Donate to Willow Creek Friends Church Click here:
To donate directly to Pastor Warner click here:
Discover more from Jwquaker's Blog
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Discussion
No comments yet.