Luke 15 contains three stories - a shepherd that loses a sheep, searches for it, pursues it, then brings it back home; a woman who loses a valuable coin and stirs up a dirt cloud looking for it; and of course the famous story of the Prodigal Son. Jesus tells these three stories to the Pharisees, his angry critics, because he wants to wake them up to the reality of God's love and how they have misunderstood it.
Jesus uses characters and situations that are offensive to the Pharisees and religious leaders. Shepherds: if you are a high and mighty religious leader of the time, you stay far away from dirty, smelly shepherds. Jesus compares God to a shepherd looking for a lost sheep and that offends people. The prodigal son turns his back on his father and his family. He lives a life of wild, wicked, nasty sin and then his father forgives him and welcomes him home? The Pharisees are angered because they believe this "sinner" is far away from God and doesn't deserve a second chance. They are angry that Jesus compares God to the welcoming father, to the shepherd, and to a woman.
Jesus is willing to offend and anger because he is trying to shake them up, rock their boat, get them to wake up about their own distance from God. So he tells stories that don't put people to sleep but stir up extreme emotions instead. His stories force people to ask "is that true about God, people, or life?"
When we read the parables of Jesus we should be looking to see if he uses a "turn," the soul stinging moment, or as Jeffrey Arthurs calls it: "hidden land mines." This is the moment when the story moves past everyday people and situations responding as we think they should to a response that is unexpected, surprising, offensive, or abnormal. The father welcomes home his son who sinned greatly, wasted his money, and turned his back on his family. We would expect the father to punish him, to yell and scream at him, to turn him away, or to at least interrogate him a little. In fact, the Pharisees hearing the story would conclude that in their mind before Jesus got to his own conclusion.
Instead, the father acts unexpectedly - he welcomes the son home and restores his family name and honor. Then he throws him a huge party! This moment angers the Pharisees and surprises the heck out of us (at least it should or have we read the story so many times we are numb to its absurdity?) but the story forces them and us to make a decision: can we really say that God is like that father?
As we read Jesus' parables, what would happen if we began asking ourselves "How is Jesus trying to get our attention about something we've got wrong or refuse to accept about God and other people? What do we learn about God in this story?"