JAMES L .

PRICE
Professor of Religion
Duke University

Luke 15:11-32
A GLANCE A T the history of this great parable's interpretation may occasion
surprise. Surely no part of Scripture is more widely known. Yet for centuries
its meaning has been under discussion and recent criticism seems to have multiplied
the alternatives. Varieties of approach to Jesus' parables are partly responsible
for an absence of concensus and some obfuscation of meaning, but one doubts
that the vagaries of criticism explain adequately the ambiguity which adheres
to this familiar tale. Apparently its message cannot be captured once for all in
summary, its meaning in popular paraphrase. Like an exquisite diamond, flashes
of light and color are seen when it is examined closely. Different and unforeseen
details of this parable have attracted the attention of its readers.
Perhaps the parable's traditional title, which entered the English language from
the Latin as early as the fifteenth century, both reflects and encourages a focal
interest in "the prodigal"—his fateful departure from home, the extravagant
welcome given him upon his return (vs. 11-24)—a narrative, some would argue,
complete in itself. Does the scenario of the father and the elder son (vs. 25-32)
impress one as an anti-climax? Not infrequently it has been proposed that Luke
conflated two parables of Jesus or possibly himself composed the final part. But
the division of the parable into two at verse 25 destroys a unity which is supported
by the introduction of two sons (v. 11), by the father's division of his property
between them (v. 12), and also by the repetition in verse 32 of the father's
joyful exclamation of verse 24. Ancient Jewish inheritance law explains "the
inconsistency" which some scholars have seen in the father's gift of his property
(v. 12) and his subsequent claim upon it (vs. 21-31 ).
Assuming the parable's integrity, one outstanding feature may be observed.
Jesus' story depicts two contrasting attitudes with which the reader may identify,
and a choice between them is pressed. On the one hand, the father's attitude
toward his wayward son is vividly portrayed : his is an immediate, unequivocal
action to restore a relationship broken by his progenies' callous rejection and selfish
neglect. Joyfully and without reservations the father bestows upon the wretched
pauper the status of sonship which he had willfully forfeited and honors him with
unexpected favors. On the other hand, with equal clarity, the attitude of the
elder son is described: his is an angry annoyance at his erstwhile brother's
profligacy and desperate homecoming and vexation at the silly old man's out-
landish indulgence. His father's appeal for genuine sympathy—which mani-
fests an accepting love and tenderness equal to that shown his younger son—is

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interrupted with protests of injustice. But the root of the elder son's annoyance
is found not so much in his sense of personal deprivation as in his outrage that
his father receives this reprobate with open arms and without a suggestion of
reproach! This comes to expression in his harsh condemnation, his inference of
gross sensuality, his disowning of his brother.
Before exploring what this parable achieves in its juxtaposition of these atti­
tudes, it may be helpful to consider why interpretations of it have proliferated,
if only in doing so one may avoid adding to their number. Readers of this
journal doubtless know that the tendency to treat Jesus' parables as allegories,
already discernible in the Synoptic Gospels (especially in Matthew), quickly
became the dominant hermeneutical tradition in the church. Believing that Jesus
intended to teach truths mysteriously hinted at in his parables, Latin and Greek
fathers ingenuously decoded their independent and interlocking details, translating
them into Christian doctrines and relating them to inner-church conflicts. The
Reformers rejected the heavy Medieval growth of allegorical mistletoe. Calvin,
for example, in his exposition of Luke 15 thrice reminds himself and his readers
that one must be content with the parables' sensus literalis. Yet allegorical exegesis
persisted, as is amply illustrated in that nineteenth-century anthology of interpre­
tations Notes ση the Parables of Our Lord by Richard Trench (principal edition,
1870).
Two versions of the parable's primary meaning predominated among the
allegorists. For one group of exegetes the two sons represented Jews and Gentiles.
The younger son's willful departure signified the apostasy of the Gentiles, his
sorrowful return to his father's house their gracious reception into the privileges
of the new covenant. The elder brother portrayed "narrow-hearted Jews" who
begrudged the admission of Gentile sinners to the same blessings as themselves and
who, on that account, "refused to go in." Interpreted in this national sense the
parable was understood as a prophecy of Jesus. A second company of exegetes
read the parable as an allegory of Christ's love for individual sinners. In the
younger son's departure is signified the tragic pattern of everyman's life—whether
Jew or Gentile, whether brought up under the old dispensation, or within the
"home" of the Christian church. These lost persons are retrieved by knowledge
of the grace of God revealed in Christ. For these latter exegetes the elder brother
represented either a narrow form of "real righteousness," or, interpreting the
elder's words to be only his self-estimation, a spurious righteousness unacceptable
in God's sight. Frequently these major positions are found in combination, it
being supposed that the parable invites secondary as well as primary applications.
With the passage of time the parable became overloaded with Christian sym­
bolism: the "citizen" of the "far country" to which the wayward son "joined
himself" was often identified with Satan or one of his minions, "the best robe"

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put on the returned prodigal signified the imputation to him of the righteousness
of Christ, the signet-ring, the sealing of the Holy Spirit, and so on.
As is well known, early in our century Adolf Jülicher attempted to deliver a
coup de grâce to this allegorical hermeneutic. He substituted for it the critical
principles that the interpreter of a Gospel parable should (a) look for its one
point of comparison (it being assumed that Jesus intended only one), and ( b ) ,
having found this, give it the broadest possible application. One may, for example,
read the three parables of Luke 15 as Jesus' observation that the loss of a possession
(a sheep, a coin, or a young son) enhances one's sense of its value and that a
successful search for or return of the lost gives one a keener happiness than the
"possessions" one never loses (the many sheep, coins, or the elder son). Such
generalizations have the effect of reducing Jesus' teaching to a folk-wisdom (cf.
Aesop's Fables). The serious challenge of the parables as they relate to the
offenses caused by Jesus' person and his eschatological proclamation is quite
neglected. As has been often observed, no one would have bothered to crucify a
teacher of artfully-crafted but rather commonplace maxims.
Many modern scholars, however, have followed Jülicher in his one-point ap-
proach, with an important reservation. The central thrust of each parable can
best be understood in the light of particular life-situations which confronted Jesus
and his first-century Jewish hearers. C. H. Dodd and Joachim Jeremías are
especially noteworthy as exegetes who have driven home the importance of a
genuinely historical approach. The parables of Jesus "are not—primarily at any
rate—literary productions, nor is it their object to lay down general maxims . . .
but each of them was uttered in an actual situation of the life of Jesus, at a
particular and often unforeseen point . . . they correct, reprove, attack. For the
greater part, though not exclusively, the parables are weapons of warfare. Every-
one of them calls for immediate response" (Jeremías, The Parables of Jesus,
trans, from the 6th Ger. ed., 1963, p. 21). While the precise circumstances of
many of Jesus' parables cannot be recovered with certainty, it is argued that the
Gospels provide knowledge of the general historical orientation of Jesus' ministry
—his proclamation of the Kingdom of God, and the fateful crises provoked by
offensive actions and teaching "with authority" which eventuated in his crucifixion.
Interpretations of Jesus' parables ought never to be abstracted from this recover-
able context.
Fortunately for our parable's exposition, most contemporary exegetes agree
that Luke has preserved its original setting in life (Sitz im Leben). The Gospels
preserve, in manifold forms, the fact that Jesus' table-fellowship "with tax collec-
tors and sinners" outraged the pious among "the Pharisees and the scribes," as
Luke reports in this context, 15:1-2. Accordingly, many persons are agreed that
by means of this parable, as in other ways, Jesus sought to vindicate his conduct.

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Interpretation

Luke 15:11-32 is a realistic story depicting Jewish family life (abundantly docu-
mented in recent commentaries). It was addressed primarily to persons whose
attitude was akin to that of the elder brother, and who were in his position. The
stress of the parable is therefore on its latter part. The appeal of the father to
his elder son is Jesus' entreaty to his critics to abandon their resistance to the good
news being proclaimed to the wretched and being received by them, to share
wholeheartedly the joy it brings, to welcome their wayward brothers into the
family of God. In the Jewish father's reaction to his younger son's leavetaking and
homecoming some aspects of God's disposition toward his children are revealed.
This father's love which knew no bounds was, for Jesus, an intimation of the
love of God, and in his own attitudes and actions toward persons Jesus exhibited
this love, as well as the joy of God in the recovery of the lost. In the historical
situation of Jesus' ministry the effect of this appeal on his critics was unresolved
for, according to the parable's conclusion, the response of the elder brother re-
mained in doubt (as indeed the future behavior of the forgiven prodigal). In
his patient, noncoercive love the father waits for the son who has never left home
but who is now at risk of being lost. Meanwhile his joy in his other son's return
from the far country knows no restraint.
Recently an objection has been raised to a rigorous application of this historical
approach. The story of the father and his two sons is said to reveal some things
about man's nature as man, as do many of Jesus' parables, truths about man's
universal experiences not merely those of first-century Jews. This parable should
be appreciated on its own terms as an autonomous work of art carefully com-
posed, exhibiting a universal narrative form—a figurai plot in "the comic mode"
—as well as a transcultural symbolism. Through a structural analysis of the
parable's plot and inner dynamics its meaning for modern readers can be better
understood. Dan Via and Dominic Crossan, to mention two of the new critics,
are seeking to develop a hermeneutic which transcends the historical setting of
the parables in Jesus' ministry, and their transformations in the early church,
and discloses their present applications, their understandings of man's existence
in faith or unfaith (See Inter p. Vol. xxv, No. 2 [April], 1971).
While not wishing to disparage the positive contributions of these modern ap-
proaches, a limitation should be recognized. Both the rigorously "historical" and
the "literary" expositions loose the parables from their canonical contexts. Both
approaches assume that in order to understand Jesus' parables one must go back
behind the Gospels. The meaning of Jesus' stories are to be derived from (often)
hypothetical earlier forms and settings or from their trans-historical symbolism and
plot structures, in either case meanings other than those supplied by the Evangelists.
Recent interpretations of the parables of Jesus have accented the crucial im-
portance of deliberately selecting a context for exegesis. These notes are con-

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eluded with brief comments on the implications of two such choices. On the one
hand, an exposition of the story of the father and his two sons based upon a
supposed "original" setting; on the other hand, an exposition based upon its
canonical context, its setting in the narrative of Luke-Acts. One should neither
ignore this distinction (a fundamentalist tendency) nor blur it by means of
allegorical exegesis (which remains an alluring mode of translation).
On the assumption that this parable was originally addressed to unbelievers,
then the hearing of it enjoins the church of Jesus' disciples to proclaim God's un-
conditional love and forgiveness, by word and action, to that growing number of
non-Christians in today's world. Some of these, as in Jesus' lifetime, not only
reject the gospel themselves but view with cynical disgust or indifference the
"repentance" of notorious sinners and see no sense in the fuss made over such
"conversions." But members of the church may also need to hear again this
parable of "the historical Jesus" as addressed to themselves. As an example, one
may point to a distinction between the conception of repentance which receives
special emphasis in Luke-Acts and that which is exhibited in Jesus' parable. At
numerous points in Luke's narrative the Evangelist emphasizes the necessity of con-
crete moral acts in response to the gospel. Yet in this parable repentance is
portrayed as a recognition of one's willful estrangement, a throwing of oneself
upon the mercy of God who forgives unconditionally. Some scholars have seen
in these different emphases evidence that Jesus' parable was transmitted without
accommodation to Luke's moral theology. Be that as it may, by means of this
parable Christ continues to teach his followers that a moralistic conception of
obedience threatens true fellowship with God, that to conceive of repentance/
reformation moralistically may obscure the joy inherent in an experience of God's
reconciling love. Conversely, Luke's moral emphasis, exhibited in other parables
and incidents from Jesus' ministry, provides an important corollary to the parable's
portrayal of repentance and forgiveness grounded in grace alone. In its Gospel
setting this parable is not the whole message of Jesus. What of the forgiven son's
future? Will his life now "bear the fruits that befit repentance" (Luke 3:8.
Recall 13:6-9 ) ? Having been forgiven much, will he love much ( See Luke
7:36ff; also 19 : Iff) ? Or will he by his actions cheapen the free grace which gave
him a new beginning, and turn a festive homecoming into a melancholy finale?
Its canonical shape provides another specific context for interpreting the parable.
While Luke very probably reports the situation in Jesus' ministry which occasioned
it, he did not merely pass it on. For the Evangelist this parable was a testimony
of the church to its risen, reigning Lord; it now served a function in relation to
that church's Spirit-led mission to all peoples—Gentiles especially, as well as to
Jews. By his redaction of Jesus' parable, Luke freed it from its original, limited
setting and pointed the way to its application within the inclusive, ongoing com-

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munity of Jesus' disciples. Shortly thereafter, by the incorporation of Luke and

of Acts into its canon of Scripture, the church acknowledged that the acquired,
extended meaning of the parable was the Word of God, God's joyful word of
forgiveness in the gospel of his Son to all his wayward children, but also a word
of judgment, his reproach of Christians who are all too prone, as Calvin com-
ments, "to restrict God's grace," "to begrudge poor sinners their salvation."
To interpret this parable in its canonical setting, as a text of Holy Scripture,
is at once a most important and a most challenging task confronting its Christian
expositors today. Much interest is currently being shown in Luke's theology; but
agreement with regard to its distinctive themes and emphases, even its main
contours, has not been reached. One concern of the Evangelist, however, is uni-
versally acknowledged, a concern most clearly expressed in a special source from
which Luke drew this parable and thirteen others : the source commonly identified
by the symbol "L." Luke 15—19, mostly composed of this traditional material,
has been aptly called "the Gospel of the Outcast" (T. W. Manson). Its parables
and related teaching emphasize God's compassion towards persons whom men
often condemn and despise. But in the same material a tragic consequence is
narrated. While wretched sinners are embraced by the divine mercy, some among
the righteous respond with a harsh, censorious attitude towards the repentant.
Evidently Luke was concerned not only to celebrate the wonder of God's love for
the ungodly but to disturb the conscience of godly church people who belonged to
his time and place. This application of Jesus' parable establishes a contemporary
context for its liberating word. Are we able joyfully to proclaim and acknowledge
God's forgiveness of the human derelicts of our society? And can we welcome
the repentant among them—this may require a greater measure of grace. Can
we welcome them without reserve as brothers and sisters and so gladden their
homecoming? Restore unto us, O Lord, the joy of thy salvation, and enable us
to share in it.

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