The Old/New Prodigal?

from http://charper89.wordpress.com

     In starting, we just need to put it out there: for most people sitting in the pew, the text for Sunday is so well known and familiar it will be difficult to hear any other way.  The text is from Luke 15, and is actually the introduction and then a second parable in a series.  The parable is known as the Prodigal Son.  Now, before you go and read it, I want you to write it down, or say it - in as much detail as you can.  Every little, minute detail.  Really, do it...
     So?  How did you do?  If I had to guess, here's how I think you wrote it down:

There were two sons, and the one asked his father for his half of the inheritance (which was a huge offense to his dad).  However, the father loved him and gave it to him.  So when he received his inheritance he went off and spent it gambling and on prostitutes.  He runs out of money, however, and his life spirals downward until he ends up a starving slave feeding pigs - and while he's in the muck of his life (literally and figuratively) he thinks that maybe his father would take him back.  Not as a son, but as a slave.  So he turns home, tail between his legs, and as he is returning, his father sees him and runs out with open arms.  He is so joyful the son has returned he orders a festival and kills the fatted calf.  The lost son is found!  Meanwhile, the older son, who has been working hard on the farm this whole time, comes home to find his no-good low-life brother returned and his father actually happy about it.  He is mad - livid - and won't join in the party.  So his dad comes and reminds him that he has always been with him and his brother was lost but is now found.

Is that about right?  That's how I remember the story, anyway.  So now, let's actually read the story from Luke 15.  In reading the story from scripture, there are a few things I would like to note.  

1. Even before the actual parable begins, we read that Jesus tells us this parable because the Pharisees were complaining that Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners.  In other words, the story is already set up so that the Pharisees will hear themselves as the older brother.
2. His downward spiral is actually a result of a few things.  Pay attention to verse 14, "When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need."  It is because of an economic recession brought on by a famine in conjunction with his out of control spending that he begins to be in need.
3. When the younger son is returning home, and his father sees him coming, it is because the father is "filled with compassion" that he goes running to him (verse 20).
4. It is the younger brother's plan to return and tell his father, "I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands," (verse 19) yet when we hear the older brother's argument to his father he says, "For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends," (verse 29).

Now, these are all fairly small details, little clauses in sentences, little nuances that often go overlooked and unnoticed.  However, any one of these could be cause to pause and reconsider the story.  Why did Jesus choose to tell this parable to the Pharisees?  Was he trying to help them open their mind to how God's grace is for everyone?  What does the detail about the famine go along with the fact that the younger brother had spent all he had?  Can that in any way be a telling of the story in which our country finds itself today?  How is the father filled with compassion and run to his son after all that time?  Is this helping us see that compassion and love are inextricably linked?  Why does Jesus make a play with the slave role in the sons?  Could it be that it often seems like a life of obedience and faithfulness feels more like the life of a slave rather than the life of a true-born child?
     When a story is so familiar we can say it by heart, and when we think we know everything about it, I think we have an extraordinary invitation to listen to the Spirit and to see how the Spirit reveals different things at different times.
     So this week, I wonder, what do you hear that is new in the old?  How can the familiar invite you into the mysterious?  How is the prodigal new again for you?