Prelude to a Parable

The gospel reading for the 4th Sunday of Lent (year C) is Luke 15:1-3, 11-32. 
If you are looking for a translation and commentary on Luke 15:1-10, click here. 

The parable of the Prodigal Son is well known and it is not clear to me that a translation of it is the best approach to understanding it, particularly with reference to preaching it. So, instead, I offer a translation to the prelude of the parable, verses 1-3, and below that a presentation of Karl Barth's powerful interpretation of this story. 

Luke 15:1-3

¹ ησαν δὲ αὐτῷ ἐγγίζοντες πάντες οἱ τελῶναι καὶ οἱ ἁμαρτωλοὶ ἀκούειν 

αὐτοῦ. 

Then the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to him to hear him.

ησαν: IAI 3p, εἰμί, 1) to be, to exist, to happen, to be present

ἐγγίζοντες : PAPart npm, ἐγγίζω, 1) to bring near, to join one thing to another  2) to draw or come near to, to approach

ἀκούειν: PAInf, ἀκούω, 1) to be endowed with the faculty of hearing, not deaf

1. I don’t know Greek grammar well enough to know if the verb “to be” plays the role of a linking verb, “were ... drawing near,” making the present participle, in effect, part of the past tense verb, or not. That is how most translations interpret the verb ησαν and its relation to the participle ἐγγίζοντες , so who am I to argue? However, if I were the one to argue, I might make this more like, “Then there were, drawing near to him, tax collectors and sinners, to hear him.” But that’s kind of lumpy, so I’ll go with the experts on this one.

2. The point, I think, is that these folks were coming to Jesus and so Jesus has a choice whether to welcome them or to tell them to turn around and clean up or to despise them. Hmm... how will Jesus react to the errant, the lost, the undeserving?

²καὶ διεγόγγυζον οἵ τε Φαρισαῖοι καὶ οἱ γραμματεῖς λέγοντες ὅτι Οὗτος 

ἁμαρτωλοὺς προσδέχεται καὶ συνεσθίει αὐτοῖς.

And the Pharisees and also the scribes were murmuring having said “This one welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

διεγόγγυζον: IAI 3pl, διαγογγύζω, 1) to murmur  1a) either of a whole crowd, or among one another  1b) always used of many indignantly complaining 

προσδέχεται: PMI 3s, προσδέχομαι, 1) to receive to one's self, to admit, to give access to one's self

συνεσθίει: PAI 3s, συνεσθίω, 1) to eat with, take food together with 

1. Note that the complaint is not that Jesus has been rousing the rabble or saying the kinds of things that draw this wrong crowd, but that when this crowd draws near to him Jesus welcomes them and eats with them. I suppose they expect him, instead, to excuse himself. I’m remembering Peter’s expressed discomfort when entering the gentile Cornelius’ house in Acts 10. The first thing he says is, “I’m not supposed to be here, you know” as if distancing his personal sanctity from what the vision he had experienced was telling him to do. Perhaps that is what the Pharisees and scribes expected of good, law-abiding Jews – to distance themselves somehow from these errant, lost, undeserving folk. Far from distancing himself, Jesus welcomes and eats with this wrong crowd.

 ³ εἶπεν δὲ πρὸς αὐτοὺς τὴν παραβολὴν ταύτην λέγων,

But he said to them this parable, saying,
1. As we’ve seen over the last few weeks, Luke uses “δὲ” a lot. Each time the translator has the joy of interpreting the nuance of it. “But he said to them ...” “Then he said to them ...” “And he said to them ...” are all perfectly legitimate.

2. However we interpret the “δὲ”, it is the connective tissue between the murmuring of the Pharisees against Jesus for welcoming sinners and the parables that follow. Significantly, v.11 introduces the Parable of the Lost Son/Elder Brother with the same word.

3. It becomes important, then, to remember these three verses when interpreting the parable. The occasion is the Pharisee’s refusal to rejoice in the fact that tax collectors and sinners are gathering to listen to the preaching and are finding welcome. 

                  Karl Barth's Exegesis of the Prodigal Son

                  D. Mark Davis 1/16/2010

Karl Barth was one of the most significant Protestant theologians of the 20^th century.  His most influential works, Church Dogmatics, measures about 6 feet long on the bookshelf and is a strongly written, massively detailed explanation of Christian theology that is thoroughly grounded and centered on the God who is made known to us in Jesus Christ. 

Pages 20-154 of Karl Barth’s second part on reconciliation are entitled, “The Homecoming of the Son of Man.” Already in that title we get a sense that Barth is speaking of the Doctrine of Reconciliation with the language of the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). But, of course, to make this parable a story of the homecoming of the “Son of Man” is almost completely contrary to how we often read it - an issue that Barth acknowledges quite freely. So, I want to explore four different ways that Barth reads this Parable, with particular attention to the interpretive strategy behind his fourth, Christological reading of it. 

Prior to this section on “The Homecoming,” Barth has been summarizing his first chapter on reconciliation and has already employed other phrases that he borrows from the Parable of the Prodigal Son.

 For example, he describes the doctrine of atonement as God’s free turning to “the [human] who had turned away from Him and was therefore lost.” In that sense, Barth is using the Parable’s language in a fairly traditional way, as describing humanity’s waywardness and need of redemption. 

But, then he says, “We recognized the true Godhead of Jesus Christ in the humility of the obedience in which He, the eternal Son of the eternal Father, humbled Himself in the omnipotence of His mercy, and went into the far country, and was made flesh, and took our place as a servant in our cause …”(p.4, emphasis mine.) These two uses of the language of the Parable to describe, first, humanity’s turning away from God and, second, Jesus’ act of reconciliation are keys to what follows, as Barth recognizes the primacy of the traditional interpretation, but also works toward interpreting it Christologically.

The section entitled “The Homecoming of the Son of Man” is part of Barth’s explanation of the reconciliation that Jesus brings between us and God. Having begun this section with obvious reference to the Parable of the Prodigal Son –by using the language of family and geographical from that parable – Barth turns to that small-print annotation commentary of his to address the parable directly. In doing so, he gives four different meanings of the parable, using the term ‘exegesis,’ which is one of our guild terms for ‘the interpretation of texts.’ 

The first exegesis of the parable is what Barth calls a ‘direct’ exegesis. It takes into account the fact that this parable is the last of three parables addressing lost things, preceded by the parables of the lost coin and the lost sheep. Within this context, the direct meaning of the parable is that it speaks of the sin of humanity and the mortal threat which comes to us in consequence, of our repentance and return to God, and of the overwhelming grace with which we are received back by the God whom we spurned. 

Within this direct reading, the younger and elder sons take on roles, again determined by the context of the parable. The younger son gives a view of the “publicans and sinners” (from vv. 1-2) who come to Jesus and hear Him and whom he receives, just as the father received back his lost son. In contrast, the elder gives us a view of the “Scribes and Pharisees” who seem to shun Jesus for receiving sinners, and out of anger refuse to participate in the feast prepared by the father. The “direct reading” of the story, then, talks about the turning away and turning back of sinful humanity to God, in which there is not only no lessening but indeed a heightening of the father’s attitude toward the wayward one. And this is all that we can say “directly” according to Barth, based on exegesis of the text. 

Second, Barth turns from a direct exegesis of the text to an ‘indirect’ one. He plainly notes that it is riskier to do this, but also that it is necessary to do so in order to show what is truly stated indirectly in the text. Relying on an interpretation of the text that Augustine emphasized years ago, the ‘indirect exegesis’ of this text shows that the lost-then-found younger brother, as well as the publicans and sinners (to which he directly refers), can be interpreted to refer to the Gentile world as it turns to the Gospel. Likewise, then, the elder brother, as well as the scribes and Pharisees to which (he directly refers), can be interpreted as Israel, which excludes itself from the Messianic feast. 

Barth frankly admits that “There is no explicit mention of the Gentiles in the text.”(p.22) But, he argues that the theme is everywhere in the New Testament and especially in the mind of Luke, with his very pronounced universalistic interest. So, while the relationship to the Gentiles is not in the text ‘directly,’ we actually fail to do full justice to the text if we leave out this relationship simply because it is not given directly in the exegesis of the text. 

So far we have a direct interpretation and an indirect one, both of which are important to hearing the text rightly. Now, Barth refers to a third reading of this parable, which he denounces. It is the interpretation offered by Adolph von Harnack (in Essence of Christianity, Lecture 8), which points out that this parable is a story of redemption that is based simply on God’s overwhelming love, without reference to the person and work of Jesus Christ. Likewise, the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee (Luke 18:9f) and the parable of the Sheep and Goats (Matthew 25:31f) do not mention the person and work of Christ and yet are about redemption. So, Harnack concludes, it is not the Son and the atonement that the Son accomplished, but God’s own goodness that unites the soul to God. And, Harnack points out, this is precisely the reconciliation that Jesus himself preached, a reconciliation that is grounded in God’s love and not in Christ’s atoning life, death, and resurrection. 

Now we get to the fourth interpretation of this parable, the “Christological Exegesis” of it. If you know Barth’s theology, you would know that Harnack’s interpretation of this parable is precisely what Barth struggles against. Harnack has argued that Christ is not necessarily a part of redemption because, as this parable shows, redemption is grounded in God’s good will, not Christ’s person and work. Barth’s target, in his fourth interpretation of this parable, is not the traditional way of reading it, but Harnack’s reading of it. But there is a problem here: Barth has to admit that in the plain and ‘direct’ exegesis of this text, the redemption of this story does indeed rely solely on the Father’s good will. There is nothing ‘redemptive’ about the wayward son; rather, he is the one who needs redeeming. Now we can see why it was important for Barth to demonstrate interpretation #2, the ‘indirect’ reading of the story, to show how an indirect reading has integrity and might even be necessary to bring out what is truly said ‘indirectly’ in a text. This fourth reading of the story – the Christological reading – intends to be another indirect but valid reading of this parable. 

To understand this reading, we have to remember how seriously Barth took the words of the Council of Chalcedon that described Christ as “fully human and fully God.”

  

And here it goes: Barth begins his section on “The Homecoming of the Son of Man” with reference to John 1:14, “The Word was made flesh and lived among us.” He said that if we focus on the word “flesh” in this text, then it is a statement about God: “We say – and in itself this constitutes the whole of what is said – that without ceasing to be true God, in the full possession and exercise of His true deity, God went into the far country by becoming [human] in His second person or mode of being as the Son – the far country not only of human creatureliness but also of human corruption and perdition.”(20) In other words, it is Jesus, who is and remains fully God, who goes into a ‘far away country’ by becoming fully human. 

On the other hand, he says, if we focus on the word “Word” in John 1:14, we make it a statement about humanity. We say that “without ceasing to be man, but assumed and accepted in his creatureliness and corruption by the Son of God, humanity – this one Son of Man – returned home to where He belonged, to His place as true man…” In what Barth calls two elements of a single action, the atonement is that action where God in Christ “goes into a far country” and humanity in Christ “returns home” (p.21) In other words, when Jesus is reconciled with God all of humanity is reconciled with God because to say that Jesus, as ‘fully human,’ is ‘true humanity.’ 

So, in this indirect but necessary Christological reading of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Barth sees the movement of ‘God with us’ in the son going out into a far away country; and the movement of us reconciled to God in the return and acceptance of the Son in his Father’s house. 

There is much more that can be said about Barth’s interpretation, but just one last word about his exegetical method: Barth acknowledges that his ‘indirect’ interpretation is open to criticism biblically and theologically. It is ‘indirect’ and it is a ‘feeble representation of the doctrine of reconciliation. But, he say, there are in fact some inescapable ‘direct’ references in this story that give us reason to look at it Christologically: