“The Parable of the Prodigal Son...Part 1”

Thursday February 25, 2010

Psalm 51

Our journey through Jesus’ parables brings us, today, to one of his most famous stories – the parable of the Prodigal Son.

This story is one of the most iconic stories in our culture – when a child leaves their parents home, under strained circumstances, to venture into the world, it is not uncommon to refer to them as a prodigal; and individuals, themselves, sometimes reflect on their own journeys of leaving and returning as their own prodigal journeys.  The image of the prodigal’s father, rushing out to meet and embrace his returning son, has been woven into the art and music of our culture – in everything from Rembrandt’s famous depiction of the “Return of the Prodigal” to the number of popular songs which make references to ‘prodigals’ including the song entitled “Prodigal Son” on the Rolling Stones’ album Beggars Banquet.

This parable, however, is a story in three acts – and only two of the acts are written in this text.  First, we have the story of the younger brother, the Prodigal Son, which will form the basis for our reflections this week.  Next week, we will ponder the story of the older brother’s reaction to the return of his younger brother.  Those are the two acts that we are told about.  The final act invites our own reflections.  Next week, we shall note that the Father goes out to the elder son in the field; he invites him to come in to celebrate the return of the Prodigal – but the elder son’s response is not recounted.  Does the third act lead to the reconciliation of the brothers, or to continued estrangement and resentment in the family?

But more about that next week.

This week, we focus our attention on the experience of the younger brother. 

The passage opens simply.  The author of Luke sets the story within a series of stories which were told in response to the grumbling of the scribes and the Pharisees.  In the opening verses of chapter 15, we read, “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to him.  And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”  Jesus’ willingness to associate with people whose lives and actions were objectionable led to a level of disdain from the religious authorities of his day.  Rather than engage in those debates, Jesus told the simple but profound stories that we find in Luke chapters 15 and 16 – the story of a shepherd’s celebration after finding one lost sheep; the story of a woman’s desire to throw a party in response to the fact that she had found a lost coin; and, as today’s reading suggests, the celebration that is thrown when a lost and wandering child returns home.

But in order to comprehend the full impact of this story, it is necessary to note a few important details about the culture in which this story is set.

In the ancient world, there were quite strict rules of family and domestic life.  Rules concerning inheritance rights had quite significant cultural and legal implications. 

One of the remarkable dimensions to this story is found in the cultural significance of a child asking for his inheritance.  According to Jewish custom, it was appropriate for a younger son to receive one third of his father’s wealth upon the father’s death.  To ask for the inheritance before his father died – and then to leave – was a terribly offensive thing to do. 

The younger son was essentially saying that he was more interested in his father’s wealth than in a relationship with his father and his family.  And, in light of the fact that the father was not dead yet, the younger son was essentially saying that he wished that the situation was such that the father had died.   Give me the money, dad; I am out of here; if only you were dead, I would be able to go and do my own thing.

Although the father would undoubtedly have been offended, he nonetheless acquiesced to his son’s desire. 

And the son left.  He went to a distant country, where he wasted what he had been given.  Finally, he found himself in a pig pen, eating the pig’s food – which, itself, would have been a particularly offensive image to Jesus’ original Jewish listeners in light of the Jewish distaste and dislike for pork and for pigs.  To be stealing food from a pigpen in a distant country was a shorthand way of stating that the younger brother had gone beyond his family, his community, his country, his culture, his religious practices, and even beyond the covenant.

It is at this point in the story that a most intriguing statement is made.  In verse 17, we read, “but when he came to himself”. 

When he came to himself.  There he was, in that pigpen, and suddenly he remembered his true identity; he remembered who and whose he was; and that moment of self-knowledge, self-awareness led him both to humility and to a desire to return to his true home.  That moment of self-knowledge and self-awareness also helped him to realize that the home that he had left was infinitely better than the world that he had set out to find.  Even the servants in his home had a better life than the life that he had found in the world to which he had fled.

So he headed home; and we know the story from there.  The father, far from castigating or criticizing the young man, ran into the road with open arms, rejoiced at the return of his son, and called for a party to be thrown to celebrate the prodigal’s return. 

The prodigal did not deserve such a welcome; no one would have faulted the father for expressing his displeasure or letting the prodigal know how offensive his actions had been; but in this is the difference between our vision of justice and God’s vision of grace.  Sometimes, grace is not fair;

So what might this parable have to say to us?

It is interesting to ponder both the meaning and the movement of this story.  Whether we like to admit it or not, there are parts of the prodigal in every one of our lives – and not just in the lives of those who have embarked upon journeys away from faith that have been as radical and dramatic as was the journey of the prodigal in this story.  In every one of our lives, there are experiences and places where we do want to receive the blessings of God, as the younger son wanted to receive his inheritance, but in which we neither want to acknowledge God’s presence, or perhaps even wish that God did not exist.  We want to take what we feel is ours, and then head out on our own terms – sometimes putting ourselves beyond the reach of faith, beyond the call of obedience, beyond the claims of our covenant obligations.  We want to head out to our own distant countries, in which we no longer have to abide by or be bothered by the presence or claim of God. 

And, too often, we find out, to our detriment, that those far countries, those places and situations in which we have sought to ignore or escape from the claims of God, are not quite as glorious and gracious as we imagined them to be.  Too often, we discover that life, on our own terms, is not quite as incredible and exciting as we had envisioned.  And, in those moments, we sometimes have experiences where we “come to ourselves” – experiences when we suddenly realize who and whose we are, and that life for even the most humble servants of God is better than a life lived entirely on our own terms.  It is sometimes not until we leave, sometimes not until we have tried to construct life without God, sometimes not until we have journeyed to our distant countries, that we realize the true beauty of grace. 

And, in those moments, we remember who and whose we are; and that moment of self-knowledge and self-awareness leads us to long to return to our true identity in relationship with the One who longs to welcome us with open arms.  That moment of self-knowledge and self-awareness helps us to realize that the home that we have sought to escape, is infinitely better than the world that we have set out to find.  That moment of self-knowledge and self-awareness is the first step back to grace.

And, when we begin to head back, in humility, we realize the true nature of grace – that grace has been waiting for us all along.  God is not waiting to castigate and criticize and recount, to us, all of the ways that we have offended – God is waiting with open arms.

It is this idea of a God who longs for us to return and to be reconciled that has led many commentators to conclude that we should change the way that we refer to this parable.  Although it is often called the parable of the prodigal son, it should more likely be known as the parable of the loving father – the image of the One who is more interested in reconciliation than in judgement, forgiveness rather than fairness, extending grace rather than making a person suffer for their mistakes.

And it is when we realize that this is a parable of joy, of the possibility of reconciliation, of undeserved forgiveness and of unexpected love that we begin to realize why it is such an apt summation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

After all, the good news of God in Jesus Christ is also a proclamation of joy, of the possibility of reconciliation, of undeserved forgiveness, and of unexpected love.  

But that’s the good news for the prodigals.  Next week, we will ponder the fact that the parable does not end there. 

There was also another brother.