The Beautiful Scandal of Grace

 Scripture Reading: Luke 15:11-32

There’s something deeply unsettling about unfairness, isn’t there? Our neural pathways are literally wired for justice. In neuroscience, we have discovered that when we witness inequity, our anterior cingulate cortex fires with the same intensity as when we experience physical pain. We feel injustice in our bodies before we think it in our minds. It’s why we rage when the reckless driver cuts through traffic and somehow avoids the accident we’re convinced they deserve. It’s why we bristle when the coworker who cuts corners gets the promotion we’ve been working toward for years. It’s why our stomachs churn when we read about wealthy celebrities buying their children’s way into elite universities while deserving students are turned away.

I think about the story that the late great preacher, Dr. John R. Claypool¹ used to tell about his childhood in rural Kentucky, where his grandmother would spend hours preparing elaborate Sunday dinners. One particular afternoon, young John had been exceptionally well-behaved: helping with chores, being kind to his little sister, speaking respectfully to adults. He had earned his place at that dinner table. But just as they were sitting down to feast, his ne’er-do-well cousin Billy stumbled up the front steps, clothes wrinkled, smelling of alcohol, having clearly squandered his week’s wages in ways that would have horrified their grandmother. And yet, without hesitation, his grandmother set another place at the table, piled Billy’s plate just as high as everyone else’s, and welcomed him as if he had been the model of propriety all week long. Claypool remembered feeling a strange mixture of admiration for his grandmother’s kindness and indignation at what he called, “the cosmic unfairness of it all.”

This tension between justice and mercy has echoed through human experience since the beginning of recorded history. The ancient Code of Hammurabi demanded an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a perfectly logical system where consequences match choices, where people get exactly what they deserve, no more, no less. Even today, our entire legal system is built on this foundation of proportional response. We have elaborate sentencing guidelines, complex algorithms for determining appropriate punishments, detailed protocols for ensuring that justice is both blind and balanced.

But then there are those moments when grace breaks through, and everything we thought we knew about fairness gets turned upside down. I’m reminded of the extraordinary scene that unfolded in a Dallas courtroom in 2019, when the former police officer, Amber Guyger was sentenced to ten years in prison for the murder of Botham Jean², an innocent man she had shot when she mistakenly entered his apartment thinking it was her own. The victim’s younger brother, Brandt Jean, addressed the court with words that stunned everyone present: “I forgive you, and I know if you go to God and ask him, he will forgive you too.” Then, in a moment that defied every expectation of justice, Jean asked the judge if he could hug the woman who had killed his brother. As they embraced in that courtroom, tears streaming down their faces, something transcendent happened: grace made itself visible in a way that no amount of legal proceedings could ever have achieved.

Friedrich Schleiermacher³, the great German theologian, once observed that the most profound religious experiences often come not when life makes perfect sense, but when we encounter something so radical, so contrary to our ordinary expectations, that it expands our understanding of what’s possible. He understood that true spiritual awakening frequently requires a kind of cognitive dissonance — a collision between what we think we know about how the world works, and a reality so much larger than our categories can contain.

The ancient rabbis had a teaching method that Jesus both inherited and revolutionized. They would pose hypothetical scenarios designed to test their students’ understanding of divine law and human justice. “If a man steals a sheep, how much should he repay?” “If a daughter dishonors her family, what consequences should follow?” “If a servant runs away from his master, what punishment fits the crime?” These were orderly discussions with predictable answers, careful examinations of cause and effect, logical explorations of moral consequence.

But when Jesus told stories, something entirely different happened. You see, his parables didn’t confirm what people already knew about fairness:  they exploded those assumptions entirely. Workers hired at the eleventh hour received the same wages as those who had labored all day long. A Samaritan, member of a despised ethnic group, became the hero while religious leaders walked by a wounded man. A mustard seed, the smallest, most insignificant thing imaginable, grew into the greatest of all trees.

And then there was this story, perhaps the most scandalous of them all, about a father whose response to his son’s betrayal violated every social convention of the ancient world. Picture the scene as Jesus’ original audience would have understood it: a young man approaches his father with a request so shocking, so culturally unthinkable, that it would have made Jesus’ listeners gasp audibly. “Father, give me my inheritance now.” In Aramaic, the language Jesus spoke, this request carried the implicit message: “I wish you were dead.” The word for inheritance, “נַחֲלָה” (nachalah) [nakh-uh-LAH], wasn’t just about money; it represented the family’s honor, their ancestral connection to the land, their covenant relationship with God stretching back through generations.

Any self-respecting patriarch in first-century Palestine would have immediately disowned such a son, struck his name from the family records, declared him dead to the household. That’s what justice demanded. That’s what honor required. That’s what everyone expected to hear as Jesus continued his story.

But instead, incredibly, impossibly, the father divided his property between his two sons. He gave away half of everything he had worked for his entire life. He watched his younger son convert his inheritance to cash — probably at a significant loss, selling family land to strangers, dismantling generations of careful stewardship in a matter of days. And then, most shocking of all, the father allowed that son to walk away, knowing full well where such a path would lead.

Harry Emerson Fosdick⁴ used to preach about the mystery of divine love that refuses to control even when control might prevent disaster. He understood that authentic love always involves risk:  the risk that the beloved might choose poorly, might reject relationship, might break the very heart of the one who loves them. This father in Jesus’ parable embodies that terrifying vulnerability, watching his son disappear toward the horizon, powerless to prevent the coming catastrophe.

And catastrophe it was. The Greek text uses vivid language to describe the son’s descent: “διασκορπίζω” (diaskorpizo) [dee-as-kor-PI-zo], meaning “to scatter” or “to squander. ” It’s the same word used to describe seeds thrown carelessly to the wind, blown away with nothing to show for their potential. The young man even found himself feeding pigs which, for a Jewish audience, was the most degrading occupation imaginable; it was ritually unclean work that would have made him an outcast even among outcasts. This younger son was so desperately hungry that he longed to eat the carob pods meant for swine, but no one would give him even that meager sustenance.

This is where most justice-oriented stories end, isn’t it? With a stern moral lesson about consequences, about reaping what we sow, about the inevitable price of foolish choices. The son got exactly what he deserved — poverty, shame, alienation, the bitter taste of regret. Case closed. Justice served. Everyone can go home satisfied that the moral order of the universe remains intact.

But Jesus was just getting started with his assault on conventional wisdom.

The turning point comes with one of the most psychologically astute phrases in all of scripture: “εἰς ἑαυτὸν δὲ ἐλθών” (eis heauton de elthon) [ice hay-ow-TONE deh el-THONE] — “he came to himself.” Not “he came to his senses,” not “he realized his mistake,” but “he came to himself.” It was as if everything that had happened in the far country had been a kind of amnesia, a forgetting of his true identity, and now, finally, he was remembering who he really was. A son. Someone’s beloved child. A person who belonged somewhere, to someone, in a place where even the hired servants had enough to eat.

Walter Brueggemann⁵ has written extensively about this moment of recognition, this painful but liberating return to truth. He suggests that all genuine repentance begins not with guilt or self-flagellation, but with the recovery of our authentic identity — the remembering that we are created for relationship, made for love, designed for connection rather than isolation. The far country, Brueggemann argues, is not ultimately about geography but about forgetting who we are and whose we are.

So, the son begins his journey home, rehearsing a speech that reflects his understanding of justice and fairness: “I will say to my father, ‘I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’” This is a reasonable request, a measured response that acknowledges wrongdoing while proposing a fair solution. He would work off his debt, earn his way back into good standing, prove through years of faithful service that he had learned his lesson and deserved a second chance.

It’s exactly the kind of proportional justice that makes sense to our carefully calibrated moral sensibilities. It’s exactly what we would expect a responsible person to propose after such spectacular failure. Right? But it’s exactly what never happened.

Because while the son was still a long way off – before he could deliver his carefully prepared speech, before he could offer to work for forgiveness, before he could begin the long process of earning his way back into the family – his father saw him. The Greek word here is “σπλαγχνίζομαι” (splanchnizomai) [splankh-NEE-zoh-my], derived from “σπλάγχνα” (splanchna), referring to the deepest internal organs, the seat of emotion. This father didn’t just feel sorry for his son; he was moved in the very core of his being, his compassion arising from the most fundamental depths of his nature.

And then this dignified patriarch, this respectable pillar of the community, this man who should have been concerned about maintaining his reputation in a shame-honor culture, did something absolutely unthinkable: he ran. Middle Eastern men of his social standing didn’t run — it required hiking up their robes, exposing their legs, appearing undignified in public. But this father abandoned every social convention, every concern for appearances, every principle of appropriate masculine behavior, and ran toward his wayward son like a man whose house was on fire.

The embrace came before the apology. The kiss came before the confession. The restoration came before the repentance was even complete. Before the son could finish his prepared speech about becoming a hired servant, his father was shouting orders to the household: “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate!”

This is where Jesus’ story becomes truly scandalous, where it moves beyond heartwarming family reunion into the realm of theological revolution. The robe wasn’t just clothing, oh no. It was a symbol of status, marking the son’s restoration to full family membership. The ring represented authority, the signet that would allow him to conduct business on behalf of the household. The sandals distinguished him from slaves, who went barefoot, identifying him as a free person, a son rather than a servant. And the fattened calf – this was the animal reserved for the most auspicious of occasions, the celebration that would have fed the entire village and announced to everyone within miles that something extraordinary had happened in this household.

None of this was earned. None of this was deserved. None of this made sense according to any reasonable standard of justice or fairness. It was pure, scandalous, overwhelming grace.

Carlyle Marney⁶, that great Baptist preacher and theologian, used to say that grace is God’s way of loving us while we’re still unlovable, of choosing us while we’re still unchosen, of calling us home while we’re still running in the opposite direction. You see, Marney understood that the scandal of grace lies not in its generosity but in its timing – it comes not after we’ve cleaned up our act, not after we’ve proven ourselves worthy, not after we’ve jumped through the appropriate hoops of penance and reformation, but right in the middle of our mess, while we still smell like pig slop and failure.

But Jesus wasn’t finished demolishing our assumptions about divine justice. Because there was another son in this story, an older brother who had stayed home, who had done everything right, who had never asked for his inheritance early or squandered his share on reckless living. This elder son was the model of faithfulness, the kind of person any parent would be proud to claim, the sort of individual who forms the backbone of every stable community.

And when he heard the music and dancing, when he learned the reason for the celebration, when he discovered that his wastrel brother had been welcomed home with honor rather than shame, his reaction was swift and completely understandable: he was furious. The Greek word “ὀργίζω” (orgizo) [or-GHEE-zoh] suggests not just anger but righteous indignation, the kind of moral outrage that rises when our sense of fairness has been violated so profoundly that we can barely contain our emotions.

“Look!” he said to his father, his words dripping with resentment, “All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!”

Every word of this complaint makes perfect logical sense. Every accusation is factually accurate. Every bit of indignation is morally justified. The elder brother is absolutely right about the unfairness of the situation, completely correct in his assessment of the cosmic injustice taking place in his own front yard.

And that’s exactly the point Jesus was making.

Because sometimes God’s grace is most scandalous not to those who receive it but to those who think they don’t need it. Sometimes the greatest obstacle to experiencing divine mercy is not our sin but our righteousness, not our failures but our successes, not our distance from God but our certainty that we’re already close enough.

The elder brother had been keeping score his whole life—tracking his good deeds, cataloging his faithful service, maintaining a mental ledger of everything he had done right and everything his brother had done wrong. And by any reasonable standard of measurement, he was winning by a landslide. He deserved the party. He had earned the recognition. He was entitled to the reward.

Except that grace doesn’t operate according to the logic of earning and deserving. Grace doesn’t follow the rules of merit and achievement. Grace is scandalous precisely because it violates our human sense of fairness and challenges us to live in a kingdom where love trumps law and mercy triumphs over merit.

Friedrich Nietzsche⁷, that fierce critic of Christianity, understood this tension better than many believers. He recognized that the gospel presents a fundamental challenge to human pride, to our desire to justify ourselves through moral performance, to our need to feel that we’ve earned our place in the universe through good behavior. Nietzsche rejected Christianity not because he thought it was false but because he found its implications too disturbing – the idea that we are all equally in need of grace, that none of us can claim moral superiority, that God’s love is freely given rather than carefully earned.

The father’s response to his elder son’s complaint reveals the heart of the gospel in all its scandalous beauty: “My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”

Notice that the father doesn’t argue with his elder son’s facts. He doesn’t deny the unfairness of the situation or defend the younger son’s behavior. He doesn’t minimize the elder son’s faithful service or suggest that it wasn’t valuable. Instead, the father does something much more radical: he expands the conversation beyond the categories of justice and fairness into the realm of relationship and love.

“Everything I have is yours,” the father says – not as a future inheritance to be earned but as a present reality to be received. The elder son had been working like a slave to earn what was already his as a gift. He had been laboring to deserve what had been freely offered from the beginning. He had been trying to purchase with his good behavior what could only be received through grace.

Henri Nouwen⁸ spent years reflecting on this parable, recognizing himself at different times in each of the three main characters. In his profound book “The Return of the Prodigal Son,” Nouwen writes about the spiritual journey that moves us from being either the rebellious younger son or the resentful elder brother toward becoming the gracious father – that is, learning to love with the same scandalous generosity that God shows toward us.

But Nouwen also recognized something that many readers miss: This parable ends without resolution. We never learn whether the elder brother chose to join the celebration or remain outside trapped in his own righteousness and resentment. Jesus left the story open-ended because he wanted his listeners – then and now – to write their own conclusion through the choices they make about grace.

That open ending is perhaps the most important part of the parable, because it forces us to confront our own response to the scandal of grace. When we see others receiving mercy we don’t think they deserve, when we watch people being blessed in ways that seem disproportionate to their efforts, when we witness grace breaking the rules of fairness that we’ve spent our lives trying to follow:  What is our reaction?

Do we celebrate the restoration of relationship; or do we calculate the unfairness of the distribution? Do we join the party, or do we stand outside keeping score? Do we allow grace to expand our hearts, or do we let resentment shrink our souls?

The beautiful scandal of grace is that it’s available to both sons – to those who have wandered far from home and to those who have never left the family property but have somehow lost touch with the father’s heart. Grace offers the prodigal a way back from the far country of shame and separation. And grace offers the elder brother a way forward from the near country of duty and resentment into the joyful country of relationship and love.

But grace cannot be earned by good behavior any more than it can be forfeited by bad behavior. It can only be received as gift, welcomed as surprise, embraced as mystery that transcends our understanding of how the world is supposed to work.

The neuropsychological research I mentioned earlier reveals something fascinating about forgiveness and grace: when we choose to respond with mercy rather than justice, when we extend grace rather than demand payment, our brains actually generate new neural pathways associated with wellbeing, compassion, and social connection. It’s as if we’re neurologically wired not just for justice but for something beyond justice, which is for grace that heals both the giver and the receiver, for mercy that creates new possibilities for relationship and community.

This is the kingdom that Jesus proclaimed; not a place where good people get rewards and bad people get punishments, but a realm where grace reigns supreme, where love has the final word, and where the possibility of restoration always exceeds the reality of failure. It’s a kingdom that makes no sense to our carefully calibrated moral sensibilities, that violates our deep-seated need for fairness, and that challenges our assumption that people should get what they deserve.

And perhaps that’s exactly why it’s such good news.

Because if we’re honest with ourselves, if we look deeply into our own hearts, if we examine our own track record of love and faithfulness and integrity, most of us realize that getting what we deserve is the last thing we actually want. Most of us, if we’re truthful, recognize that we need grace more than we need justice, mercy more than we need fairness, love more than we need law.

The scandal of grace is not that undeserving people receive God’s love; the scandal is that we’re all undeserving people, and God chooses to love us anyway. The scandal is not that some people get more than they merit; the scandal is that all of us get more than we merit every day, in ways we’re often too busy or too proud to notice.

Every breath we take is grace. Every sunrise we witness is mercy. Every relationship we enjoy, every moment of beauty we experience, every opportunity we receive to love and be loved:  All of it is gift, all of it is beyond what we could earn or achieve or deserve through our own efforts.

And if that’s true – if grace really is the fundamental operating principle of God’s kingdom, if mercy really does triumph over judgment, if love really is stronger than law – then perhaps we’re called to live differently. Perhaps we’re invited to embody that same scandalous grace in our relationships with others, to extend the same shocking mercy that we ourselves have received, to participate in the beautiful work of restoration and reconciliation that God is always doing in the world.

This doesn’t mean abandoning accountability or ignoring genuine harm. It doesn’t mean pretending that choices don’t have consequences or that behavior doesn’t matter. But it does mean recognizing that the goal of accountability is restoration rather than retribution, that the purpose of consequences is healing rather than punishment, that even justice, at its best, is meant to serve the larger purposes of love.

The father in Jesus’ parable didn’t ignore his younger son’s betrayal or pretend that the pain wasn’t real. But he refused to let that betrayal have the final word. He chose relationship over righteousness, love over law, restoration over retribution. And in doing so, the father made visible the heart of God: a heart that is always watching for our return, always ready to run toward reconciliation, always prepared to throw a party when love wins.

The invitation of this parable is not just to receive grace but to become people of grace – to scan the horizon for prodigals making their way home, to run toward reconciliation even when it costs us our dignity, to choose celebration over condemnation, mercy over merit, love over law.

Because in a world that operates on the principles of earning and deserving, of merit and achievement, of justice and fairness, the most radical thing we can do is embody a different way of being. We can become living demonstrations of grace, walking testimonies to the possibility of love that transcends logic, mercy that exceeds measure, forgiveness that knows no limits.

We can learn to love with the same scandalous generosity that God shows toward us. We can practice the beautiful scandal of grace until it becomes as natural as breathing, as automatic as heartbeat, as certain as sunrise.

And when we do, something extraordinary happens: the kingdom of heaven becomes visible on earth, the love of God takes flesh in human community, and the far country becomes a little less far, a little less lonely, a little less hopeless for everyone who is still trying to find their way home.

The beautiful scandal of grace is not just something we receive: it’s something we become, something we embody, something we live out in the world as partners with God in the ongoing work of restoration and reconciliation.

That’s the scandal. That’s the beauty. That’s the grace that changes everything.

Closing Prayer

Gracious and merciful God, we confess that we are often like both sons in this ancient story – sometimes running far from home in our rebellion and selfishness, sometimes standing close to home but far from your heart in our self-righteousness and resentment. Help us to receive the scandalous grace you offer freely to all your children. Teach us to run toward reconciliation as you run toward us. Make us people who celebrate restoration rather than calculating fairness, who choose mercy over merit, who embody the beautiful scandal of grace in all our relationships. May your kingdom come and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven, through the power of love that knows no limits. In the name of Jesus, who told this story to reveal your heart, we pray. Amen.

References

¹ Claypool, J. R. (1982). The preaching event. Word Books.

² Kenney, A. (2019, October 2). Brother of Botham Jean hugs Amber Guyger after sentencing in emotional courtroom scene. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/02/us/amber-guyger-sentencing-botham-jean/index.html

³ Schleiermacher, F. (1999). The Christian faith (H. R. Mackintosh & J. S. Stewart, Trans.). T&T Clark. (Original work published 1821-1822)

⁴ Fosdick, H. E. (1956). The living of these days: An autobiography. Harper & Brothers.

⁵ Brueggemann, W. (2001). The prophetic imagination (2nd ed.). Fortress Press.

⁶ Marney, C. (1962). The recovery of the person. Abingdon Press.

⁷ Nietzsche, F. (1989). The antichrist (R. J. Hollingdale, Trans.). Penguin Classics. (Original work published 1895)

⁸ Nouwen, H. J. M. (1992). The return of the prodigal son: A story of homecoming. Doubleday.