#12 The Power of a Trilogy
On being a disciple who doesn't abdicate mission
I am a big fan of film trilogies!
Whether Back to the Future, The Dark Knight Series, the Original Star Wars, the Bourne films, or even Toy Story, there are some absolutely brilliant tales that have been told in three or even more parts.
For me, there is no contest when it comes to which trilogy is right at the top of my list….
I gotta go with The Lord of the Rings right?
I still remember catching the school bus as a teenager and reading my original dog-eared copy of The Two Towers almost as if I was watching a film leap out from the page. And when I finally got to see The Lord of the Rings movies in real life….
Pure Cinematic Joy! 😊
Why not take a moment and tell everyone your favourite trilogy in the comments?
Did you know? Jesus was partial to a trilogy too.
In the beginning of Chapter 15 of his Gospel, Luke recounts a story about Jesus enjoying time with a group of so-called “Tax Collectors and Sinners” (which by coincidence is a great name for a band). These scoundrels and scallywags didn’t fit the pharisees neat and tidy religious criteria so they were having a go about it!
If you’ve ever felt like an outsider then you know how awful it is to be looking at the in-crowd and wishing you were invited. Yet in this case the insiders were not exactly people you would choose to be around! The religious elite were having a right moan about this man Jesus who seemed to dangerously ignore their rules about who was ‘in’ and who was ‘out’.
Rather than being grumpy about their murmurings, Jesus in his inimitable way, goes into storytelling mode and tells three back-to-back parables. There is one about a lost sheep, another about a lost coin, and finally one about a lost son. Most of us skip right to the famous third story (like those who go straight to The Return of the Jedi) but this is a trilogy well worth considering in context for a moment.
The Lost Trilogy
Film franchises tend to follow the same pattern of storytelling in their sequels to try and replicate the success of the first movie (think all three Matrix movies).
In the case of Christ’s Lost Trilogy (see Luke 15) we have a familiar plot line in the first two films told over three acts.
Act 1: Something gets lost: a coin or a sheep.
Act 2: Someone looks for it: a shepherd or a widow.
Act 3: Something gets found and there is a celebration.
On first impression, you might assume that the third story follows the same pattern. Yet the positioning of the first two stories gives the third one a different meaning. A subtle change of the rhythm sends a deliberate and intentional message.
Here is a closer look at the end of the trilogy (The Lost Son).
Act 1: Something gets lost: In this case it is now a son who wanders like a sheep far from home.
Act 2: Someone goes looking… But wait…. NO ONE goes looking for the son!
This is where the narrative structure is turned on its head in an apparent PLOT TWIST!
Act 3: We are back on track when the son gets found and there is a celebration.
But that’s not where the story ends. There is a hidden Act Four to come.
Act Four sucks. A bitter unresolved epilogue paints a picture of an older son who is unable to reconcile the idea that the Father would invite the younger son back into his fold. He wanted him to remain an outsider.
This ending would have left the Middle Eastern audience as shocked as a Marvel fan leaving the cinema after watching Avengers Infinity War (sorry for the superhero reference non-MCU fans). It was an unresolved cliffhanger.
We see the first two stories come into sharp focus in the third one.
One brother is like the lost sheep that needs rescuing.
One brother is like the coin who is lost despite still being in the house.
Being lost can be a matter of the heart, not just a matter of location.
The ending of film 3 would have resonated with the audience because they knew full well by now that Jesus was really telling a story about them.
Unpacking the Plot Twist
Tim Keller, in his book, Prodigal God, points out that when the inheritance in this story was divided the older brother would have received the greater portion according to Jewish tradition. As a result, when the Father says to the elder brother, “everything I have is yours” he is speaking the literal truth. The elder brother would have therefore been endowed with the responsibility to carry on the father’s business.
So, in light of this, whose responsibility was it to go out and find the lost son?
Who should have been the one going looking in Act 2?
As Keller reminds us, it is in fact the elder brother in the parable, who should have said something like this:
“Father, my younger brother has been a fool, and now his life is in ruins. But I will go look for him and bring him home. And if the inheritance is gone—as I expect—I’ll bring him back into the family at my expense.”
Jesus is speaking to a group of people who had a problem with him welcoming and eating with sinners. He is effectively telling his audience “if you really understood the Father’s heart then you would be the ones inviting the outsiders.”
I can’t help but wonder if the older son should have been the one running down the path with a ring and a robe?
Framed like this, then the whole story becomes about abdicated responsibility.
For Jesus, living on mission, was not a job for the other - it was a job for the brother.
And this message of abdication still resonates in our churches today.
When the church stops inviting we become inward looking and exclusive.
When the church stops restoring we become judgemental and harsh.
When the church stops celebrating the outsiders we forget whose house we belong in.
That is why the story of the prodigal son is still so important (even when we’ve heard it a thousand times) because it reminds us that we always have a choice:
Will we be a people that extend the Father’s invitation?
Will we be a people that walk others into the Father’s restoration?
Will we be a people that join with the Father’s celebration?
We still live in that constant cliff-hanger where we get to choose the ending for our story. Will we be the generation that catches God’s heart for mission?
Or do we still think it is someone else’s job?
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Just because I’m losing doesn’t mean I’m lost.
Coldplay.