The Prodigal Son is arguably the most beloved parable Jesus ever told, and one of the most misread. It is the third of three parables in Luke 15, each about something lost and found: a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. Jesus told all three in response to grumbling Pharisees who complained that He received sinners and ate with them. The story: a younger son demands his inheritance early (effectively wishing his father dead), travels to a far country, squanders everything in "prodigal living," and ends up feeding pigs in a famine — a uniquely degrading image for a Jewish audience. "When he came to himself" (Luke 15:17) he rehearses a repentance speech and starts home. His father sees him "when he was still a great way off" (15:20) — he had been watching — and ran to him. In first-century Middle Eastern culture, a dignified patriarch never ran; for the father to lift his robes and run meant taking on his son's shame to cover him from the village's scorn. He cuts off the repentance speech, calls for the best robe, a ring, sandals, and the fattened calf. "For this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found" (15:24). But the parable does not end there. The older brother — who had stayed home and served dutifully — is furious. He refuses to go in to the feast. And the father comes out to him too. He pleads. "Son, you are always with me, and all that I have is yours. It was right that we should make merry and be glad" (15:31-32). The parable does not tell us whether the older son came in. That ending is aimed at the Pharisees (and at us). The parable is not primarily about the younger son's sin or the older son's self-righteousness. It is about the father whose love pursues them both.