Luke 15:11-32: Two Perspectives
The love with which God has loved his children through Christ is amazing, magnanimous, and over-generous. It is prodigal. He demonstrated that love most fully on the Cross, but Jesus also illustrated that love in his parables, particularly his story of the Lost Son. In Luke 15:11-32, Jesus responds to the criticisms of the Pharisees for his eating with sinners by telling three stories of seekers who rejoice when they find a lost thing they were looking for. The third, and most pointed, is the parable often called the Prodigal Son. Dr. Roy Clements, former pastor of Eden Baptist Church in Cambridge, and Dr. Philip Ryken, pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, each exposit this text well, for they both understand that the story is at least as much a lesson about the elder son as about the prodigal son.
Clements’ sermon is relatively simple in its organization. He begins with a n observation that relationships normally break down in two ways. In what he calls “the big row,” the relationship is severed drastically, by an argument or some catastrophic event that propels the two parties away from each other. Conversely, in “the big freeze,” the relationship just slowly and quietly fades away, as the affections grow cold and what once was love fades to indifferent acquaintance. Both are equally disastrous, but in fact it is easier for the prodigal son to be restored after the big row than for the elder son (and the Pharisees, and religious hypocrites today) to be restored from the big freeze. Clements, finally, has two major areas of application. We should consider the overwhelming, costly, self-giving love of the Father’s free grace, and we must see the terrible danger of spiritual pride, “the mackintosh that grace just cannot get through.”
Ryken’s sermon is similarly structured, though rather than using relational terms for his homiletical framework, he uses the concept of lostness. His main points are two: that we should realize how lost the prodigal son is, and that we should also realize how lost the elder brother is. Regarding the prodigal son, he has three sub-points. First, the brother was lost before he ever left home, since he was impatient for his father’s death, wanting only the material benefits his father could give him. Second, he was lost when he ran away, since he fundamentally wanted freedom to sin. Third, he was still lost even when he decided to return home, for he was thinking as a servant rather than as a son. The elder brother was also lost, as he had likewise rejected his sonship.
Exegetically, these brothers both do fine work. They each do a good job of referencing the context of the story, showing how the parable is Jesus’ response to the criticism of the Pharisees. Each pastor gets to the basic point of the parable, which is focused not so much on the rebellion and repentance of the prodigal son as on the welcoming love of the Father and the resentfulness of the elder son. Both Clements and Ryken draw the comparison between the hypocrisy of the elder son in his pretension of virtue and the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in their works-based righteousness. What Ryken draws out that Clements doesn’t however, is that Jesus is drawing a contrast with the parable—as well as the two it follows—between the joy of the loving Father at finding and receiving lost sinners, and the cynical refusal of the Pharisees to share that joy regarding the sinners Jesus ate with.
Homiletically, both sermons were a minor disappointment. While they each, especially Clements, have a conversational manner that is easy to listen to, neither of them were particularly clear with the outline of their sermons. The points listed above were there, I think, but none of them were particularly clear. Clements’ were more like recurring themes than concrete points around which the sermon was organized. Ryken’s points were a bit clearer, but they sort of applied only to a portion of the sermon, rather than serving as an outline for the entire talk.
Nonetheless, both of these men seem to be gifted preachers dedicated to expositional preaching. They both do an able job of opening God’s Word up for God’s people. They both apply it well, asking piercing questions that force the listener to examine his own life for traces of the pride and hypocrisy that characterized the elder brother. Both of these sermons are fine meditations that show evident laboring in the Gospel.
Clements’ sermon is relatively simple in its organization. He begins with a n observation that relationships normally break down in two ways. In what he calls “the big row,” the relationship is severed drastically, by an argument or some catastrophic event that propels the two parties away from each other. Conversely, in “the big freeze,” the relationship just slowly and quietly fades away, as the affections grow cold and what once was love fades to indifferent acquaintance. Both are equally disastrous, but in fact it is easier for the prodigal son to be restored after the big row than for the elder son (and the Pharisees, and religious hypocrites today) to be restored from the big freeze. Clements, finally, has two major areas of application. We should consider the overwhelming, costly, self-giving love of the Father’s free grace, and we must see the terrible danger of spiritual pride, “the mackintosh that grace just cannot get through.”
Ryken’s sermon is similarly structured, though rather than using relational terms for his homiletical framework, he uses the concept of lostness. His main points are two: that we should realize how lost the prodigal son is, and that we should also realize how lost the elder brother is. Regarding the prodigal son, he has three sub-points. First, the brother was lost before he ever left home, since he was impatient for his father’s death, wanting only the material benefits his father could give him. Second, he was lost when he ran away, since he fundamentally wanted freedom to sin. Third, he was still lost even when he decided to return home, for he was thinking as a servant rather than as a son. The elder brother was also lost, as he had likewise rejected his sonship.
Exegetically, these brothers both do fine work. They each do a good job of referencing the context of the story, showing how the parable is Jesus’ response to the criticism of the Pharisees. Each pastor gets to the basic point of the parable, which is focused not so much on the rebellion and repentance of the prodigal son as on the welcoming love of the Father and the resentfulness of the elder son. Both Clements and Ryken draw the comparison between the hypocrisy of the elder son in his pretension of virtue and the hypocrisy of the Pharisees in their works-based righteousness. What Ryken draws out that Clements doesn’t however, is that Jesus is drawing a contrast with the parable—as well as the two it follows—between the joy of the loving Father at finding and receiving lost sinners, and the cynical refusal of the Pharisees to share that joy regarding the sinners Jesus ate with.
Homiletically, both sermons were a minor disappointment. While they each, especially Clements, have a conversational manner that is easy to listen to, neither of them were particularly clear with the outline of their sermons. The points listed above were there, I think, but none of them were particularly clear. Clements’ were more like recurring themes than concrete points around which the sermon was organized. Ryken’s points were a bit clearer, but they sort of applied only to a portion of the sermon, rather than serving as an outline for the entire talk.
Nonetheless, both of these men seem to be gifted preachers dedicated to expositional preaching. They both do an able job of opening God’s Word up for God’s people. They both apply it well, asking piercing questions that force the listener to examine his own life for traces of the pride and hypocrisy that characterized the elder brother. Both of these sermons are fine meditations that show evident laboring in the Gospel.
posted by Jeff at 6:55 PM
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