Jesus frequently spent time with irreligious and disreputable people who came to him, which infuriated the "righteous" Pharisees. "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them," his pious critics complained (Luke 15:1-2). Jesus responded by telling three stories involving a lost sheep, a misplaced coin and a wandering son. Each parable ends with the return of what was lost and the joyous celebration of that fact (15:3-32).

The third parable involves a man with two sons. One serves him quietly and faithfully at home; the other, filled with wanderlust and yearning for adventure, requests his inheritance and goes to a distant country looking for a good time. Eventually he runs out of money and friends, is reduced to feeding pigs for a living, and finally comes to his senses. Humbled, he determines to return home without excuse or demand, where he intends to ask his father to hire him as a farm-hand.

He has always been on the father's heart, however, who longs for the day his son will return. When the boy does come home, the father treats him like a celebrity and throws a barbecue to celebrate the occasion. The older brother is indignant and boycotts the party. The father is equally kind to him. "You are always with me," he explains, "and everything I have is yours. But this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found."

We call the boy who left home the "prodigal" son, for that adjective means "recklessly wasteful" and this wayward lad squandered his entire inheritance in wild living. But the real "prodigal" in this story is the father -- the father who runs to meet his returning son while he is still a long way off, who welcomes the erring boy home without conditions, whose heart so bursts with joy that he cannot understand why everyone is not happy as he. God is this way, Jesus is telling us -- recklessly wasteful in mercy, extravagant in grace, squandering his kindness on undeserving children. That is why Jesus welcomed sinners. That is why he still does.

For more about God's heart of grace, click here.

To read about grace through Jesus Christ, click here.