Cultural Misconception of Luke 15

Points of Cultural Misconception of the Parable of the Compassionate Father

1. The request:  The prodigal's request is an unthinkable breach of traditional culture. (He wants his father to die.)
2. His father's gift:  The father reprocesses anger into grace and thereby deeply violates the code of an Oriental patriarch.  (As is shown five times in the parable).
3. A hurried sale:  The prodigal triggers the anger of the community. (He must leave town quickly.) 
4. The kezaza ceremony:  A threat hanging over the prodigal as he leaves town. (He must not lose the money.) 
5. Expensive living:  Not riotous (KJ), nor loose (RSV), nor dissolute (NRSV),  nor wild (NIV).  (The Greek word asotos is literally  a + sozo, i.e. without saving. No hints of immorality) 
6. Search for employment:  The prodigal must find a paying job so he can repurchase the land. (The kezaza ceremony now threatens.) 
7. Inauthentic Repentance: He projects A self-serving plan: (Augustinian or Pelagian?  Complications with the lost sheep and coin.) 
8. Turning point:  The costly demonstration of unexpected love. (Grace not law.  Love is offered before the confession.) 
9. A father who behaves like a mother. (The father is defined by Hosea 11, not by Middle Eastern culture.)
10. Authentic Repentance: The Prodigal Revises His speech – he is not interrupted. (Like the lost sheep, he accepts to be found). 
11. Christology:  Incarnation and atonement meet. (This happens with the shepherd, the woman and the father.) 
12. The meaning of the banquet (a theological trialogue): 
• Father's comments:  Because - He was lost and is found .. dead and is alive (divine passives)
• Young boy:  .... Because, he (the Father) received him (the prodigal)  with peace. 
• Older son:  You killed for him the fattened calf. 
13. Older son's anger at grace. (for some grace is not only amazing – it is also infuriating!)
• His mentality:  (You get what you pay for, don't you?)
• His response:  (He breaks his relationship with his father - like the prodigal, only more so.) 
14. Father's response:  The Father once again reprocessed anger into grace.  At the same time the father  urges the older son dealing with the prodigal in the same way. 
15. Older son's final reaction:  An unfinished theological symphony (participation theater). 

Reference: Kenneth E. Bailey.