What if it is Jesus in the ditch?

We can't tell for sure, and that is the way it is intended to be because that is how parables work. We can't tell for sure which character is intended to represent Jesus, and so let us consider that it is Jesus who is lying in that ditch, wounded and in need of life-saving help.

 What could we learn from that?

Clearly we aren't going to 'save' Jesus.  Clearly Jesus can 'save' himself if needed.  So why put the face of Jesus on that anonymous man in the ditch?

Perhaps so that whenever we look upon the wounded and abandoned people of our world we will see the face of Jesus.  Perhaps so when we encounter the lost, the lonely and the unwanted ones - especially the ones which will require some sacrificial giving on our part - we will see the face of Jesus, the wounded one.  Perhaps so we will begin to understand that to love God is to love that anonymous neighbor in need.  It is an understanding of the heart and not the head: we are reaching out not only in Jesus' name but we are reaching out to Jesus himself.

That's the way love works.  It generates deep compassion for those around us.  God's love for us in Jesus, the one who reached out to give us life and wholeness becomes the compassion with which we reach out to our neighbors.  The life Jesus gives us wells up into life-giving compassion for our neighbors in a never ending circle.  Love God - love neighbor - be loved by God - go love neighbor - love God.

One biblical author asks, How can you love the God you cannot see when you do not love the neighbor who is right there in front of your face? (clearly a paraphrase).

All this to come to the answer of the lawyer's question  Who is my neighbor?

The answer is Yes.

An Outrageous Father and a Ne'er do Well Son

So, the Prodigal Son, better named the Outrageous Father, is a story about a father with two sons.

The younger one is an upstart, full of himself, confident of his own ability.  He asks for and receives his part of the inheritance (effectively saying to his Father, "you are as good as dead to me") turns all that cattle into cash and takes a trip to a  foreign land where he immediately spends all his money. Then there is a famine and no one knows him and no one will help him.

He gets a job feeding pigs.  Think about that for a moment:  a Jew feeding pigs....and he is so hungry he is tempted to eat the pig food.  "Aha! he exclaims."' My Father treats his hired hands better than this....I will go home, apologize profusely and offer to work as his servant."

And so a plan is hatched.  He rehearses his speech before he arrives.  "Father I have sinned against heaven and before you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son."  You have to admit, it's a very good apology.  This young man is repentent and humble, a very good combination for getting our sympathy.

We are more than ready to make a path back into the family for this son.  Perhaps a few years of difficult work.  Perhaps he will always be a hired hand.  Perhaps he will have to take his meals at the 'kids table' in the future.  But we can see a way back for this son.

So can the father.  He sees him far off and runs to meet him - throws his arm around him and does everything but dance a jig. " Hurry! he calls. "Kill the fatted calf.  My son has returned and we must celebrate."

So if God is the Father in this parable, then we can well imagine that God has enough love to welcome back the younger son, even to throw him a party.  It gives us comfort to encounter this God because we want a God who has enough love to cover us when we act like idiots and wander off into our equivalent of pig country and find ourselves stuck in the mud.

We are grateful for a God whose love is this big because this is the God we want to encounter as we prepare our repentent cries and seek the Lord's favor.  We want to face a God who has room in his heart for a broken person, especially one who is repentent and humble.....as it should be, especially for those who are working very hard to be good. These are exactly the kind of people God's love should cover.

If only Luke had stopped there, we could have twisted this little parable into any number of interpretations that require the broken ones to work their way back to the Father.  We could have rested easy with a God who loves the occassionally lost one.

The problem is there is one more son, and his is an entirely different story....that, and on any given day, we are either one of the two.