The Prodigal Son, as told at the DMV - Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Church is a pretty good place to learn about Jesus. But if you really want to know about the gospel, I recommend a trip to the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration. Being there with all sorts of people is what we in the business call a spiritual growth opportunity. And the same is true for its affiliate, the state police testing center for the learner’s permit exam. We were there last week so our oldest could take the test. We had made an appointment online, and showed up thirty minutes early as instructed. We brought the required forms of identification, including a passport and an original birth certificate, and a few extra forms of ID for good measure. I suspect that my various forms of privilege and strong rule following tendencies were on full display. 

The mom and teenager checking in next to us were a different story. They didn’t have an appointment. We overheard that the kid had tried to pass the exam before. For this attempt, the mom’s driver’s license didn’t match her legal name, which she had recently changed. No wedding ring, maybe recently divorced, I thought. The identification she brought for her son was not quite kosher either. She was getting frazzled as the check in wore on. A supervisor had to be called in. That’s where we left off as observers, since we had to wait outside the testing room. To my surprise, they must have sorted it out because the kid took the test and came out at the same time mine did. I don’t know whether he passed, and I hope he did, but the fact that he got to take the exam at all felt like a DMV metaphor for how the grace of God works. The gospels are clear that grace is bestowed equally on the righteous rule followers and on those who don’t have it quite as together.

We’re never quite satisfied with that, however, not really. When we’re following rules, we are judgy about those who are not. And when we’re the ones with messy lives, we feel unworthy of grace from God or anyone else. In both scenarios, grace bestowed on the unworthy feels unfair. So, we prefer to insert a redemption story whenever possible. It goes something like this: instead of the woman and her son getting away with breaking the DMV rules, we would prefer to think that she has been having a hard time and is trying to get her life in order. Maybe she is doing her best to parent her son in the rocky  teenage years. Or maybe he is trying to get a hardship license to help ease the stresses at home. Whatever challenges they are facing, they are working hard to create a better life. I don’t think this is conscious in us, but we tend to assign a little more worth to someone for trying to turn things around. And, because of this common love for redemption stories, we tend to misread the parable of the prodigal son entirely. And, by extension, we misread the grace of God. 

The Pharisees are offended by Jesus again. This time it’s for hanging out with the wrong people, sinners and tax collectors, and Jesus isn’t very tolerant of their intolerance. So he begins a remarkable story: “There was a man who had two sons.” The younger son asks his dad for his inheritance early, leaves the country, and squanders it in loose living. He ends up in poverty and shame, feeding pigs in order to get by. Meanwhile, the elder rule-following son lives responsibly, helps his dad with the chores and obviously keeps track of all his official forms of identification.

As Jesus tells this story, it’s easy to imagine his listeners becoming more and more offended. Why is it that the prodigal son, who disgraced his father, has a homecoming fit for a king? The elder brother has to watch their father forgive his no-good brother – and of course he’s outraged. That kind of grace, that kind of love and forgiveness fly in the face of his careful system of playing by the rules as the basis for his goodness and worth. It flies in the face of our careful systems, too. 

But here’s the kicker. We assume this story hinges on a redemption story, found in the moment when the prodigal son “comes to himself” among the pigs. We think that is the moment he repents and feels really bad about what he’s done. But the text never mentions repentance. The guy could be remorseful and sad, but he could also be just be scheming. Maybe he thinks he can con his way back into his dad’s good graces and his cash. Sincere or scheming, genuinely sorry or total con, we’ll never know (David Lose). The father forgives him either way. We usually think that if a person admits their mistakes and changes course, they become a little more worthy. That’s how any good redemption story works, right? Luke isn’t so clear. It’s possible that there isn’t a sorry bone in that son’s body. The true grace of the story lies in that ambiguity. 

We assume that if we live our lives better, behave better, and get better at letting go of our vices, we will be more worthy, more deserving of God’s love and favor. And, of course, the love and favor of other people. But the moment we think that we can somehow earn God’s grace, or that someone else can or can’t, then we’re not talking about grace anymore. Jesus says it doesn’t work that way. Notice that when the father sees his lost son coming down the road, he runs out to greet him. The son has a whole speech planned. But the father’s love and forgiveness are offered before the son can get the words out. The parable is not really about the son’s wandering and coming back so much as it’s about the prodigality of the father, of God - and the lavish and extravagant love freely offered and most definitely unearned. The parable is not about the prodigal son’s redemption story of getting something right as he sits among the pigs.   It’s not about our individual redemption stories, either. It’s about a much bigger redemption story - God’s own  - the grand redemption story of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ for us  all. That’s the story that heals whatever we worry will separate us from the love of God. And it is the essence of how grace works. 

In his stories, Jesus often presents two kinds of people - the prodigal son and the older brother, the tax collector and the Pharisee, the wheat and the chaff, the sheep and the goats, the prepared mom and the unprepared mom at the DMV, you get the idea. The truth is we are both kinds with some regularity. When we’ve screwed things up and wandered far from God, Jesus wants us to remember God’s mercy. And when we have our act a little more together, we need to extend that same mercy to those who don’t. 

Whatever is going on in your life right now, maybe you feel like the older brother or the younger one in today’s story. Maybe you’ve got your act together at the DMV, or maybe not. Either way, the parable of the prodigal son invites us to see everyone from the perspective of the father - the one who loves us fully before any of us can even get the words out. That’s our true redemption story.