Christchurch Parish News, March 2018. A previous version of this article was first published in News & Views, a quarterly magazine of the Bournemouth Coastal Area Religious Society of Friends. It is republished with the kind permission of the editor.
A short reflection on the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
Once more, Jesus is hanging out with all the wrong people. From corrupt tax collectors to those ‘of doubtful reputation’, everyone can’t help but try and get closer to Jesus to hear all that he has to say about the good news of the kingdom of God.
It’s driving the religious folk crazy. But they too can’t help but come along and listen to him. Knowing that they’re there as well, Jesus proceeds to tell them all, religious nitpicks and sinners alike, three stories on the topic of losing and finding. These stories have become known as the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the prodigal son. All of them are recorded in the New Testament in the gospel according to Luke, chapter 15.
The story of the prodigal son begins very simply, ‘There was a man who had two sons.’ Immediately, we are introduced to the three characters of the story, who are the father, the younger son and the older son. To start with, the focus is on the father and the younger son. Out of the blue, the younger son says to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ In asking that, he might as well have wished his father dead – then as now, you only inherit your parents’ property at the time of their death. In our culture today, this would be hugely disrespectful, but even more so back then in what was a traditional, agrarian society. Jesus’ audience would have been appalled at the callous audacity of the younger son. But they would have been even more amazed and appalled that the father proceeds to comply. He divides his property between the two of his sons, divesting himself of all his wealth and status in the process. Not only that, he thereby renders himself utterly dependent on his two sons for his own future security.
Rather than care for his father, however, the newly enriched younger son takes his money and leaves town. He goes to a distant country, where he proceeds to lead a wild life full of the worst that money can buy. But pretty quickly, his funds runs out. Just as they do, the country he’s moved to is hit by famine. In desperation, the younger son takes a menial farm job feeding pigs. As he does so, he finds himself licking his lips at the site of the pods the pigs are eating. He’s so hungry, he’d even eat food meant for pigs.
It’s at this low point that he suddenly has a brainwave and hatches a plan. ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger. I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ The motivation for his return to his father’s house is not because he’s suddenly realised how dreadfully he’s behaved towards his father. No, it’s still self-interest that’s driving his behaviour. He’s only going back because of what’s in it for him.
The scene then changes and the way Jesus tells the story, we’re suddenly standing with the father who is looking out for his son, patiently waiting for the day when he will return home. While the younger son is still far off, the father sees him. Jesus tells us that the father is ‘filled with compassion’. He runs out to meet his son and puts his arms around him. Again, Jesus’ audience would have been shocked. Elderly men do not run. It’s not dignified. It’s beneath them. Imagine a foreign dignitary arriving for an important international political meeting only to proceed to run along the red carpet that’s been rolled out in welcome. It’s just not done.
But this father does. He not only runs to his son, he also wraps his arms around him and kisses him on the neck. And this is before the younger son has even a moment to get a word out edgeways. The son begins his spiel but the father’s not interested. He’s already forgiven his son and is summoning his staff to begin the celebrations, ‘“for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.’
But not everybody. This is where the elder son enters the story. And remember, Jesus is telling this story not only to tax collectors and sinners (who would likely identify with the younger son) but also to Pharisees and scholars of religion. Who are they going to identify with in the story? Jesus continues, ‘“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.”’ The elder son asks what’s going on and when he hears that ‘“Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound’”, he has an almighty strop. He refuses to come down from the fields and join in the celebrations.
The father once more demeans himself and leaves the party to entreat the elder son to come and join in. But the son is livid. ‘“Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!”’ The elder son is saying that he’s been the good lad, lived the right life, behaved the right way, treated his father with respect all the way along and yet who’s getting all the fuss? ‘That son of yours.’ He doesn’t even refer to his younger brother as his brother. For the elder son, his younger brother is not even family anymore.
At this point, you can imagine the Pharisees and religion scholars, who have been listening to Jesus, start to shuffle awkwardly and mutter amongst themselves, ’Is he talking about us?’ They also wonder, and so do we, how is the father going to respond to the older son? Jesus tells us as he finishes the story, ‘“Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”’ Jesus is addressing the Pharisees and scribes through the mouth of the father character in the story. Look, he’s saying, these tax collectors and sinners are being welcomed back into the kingdom of God. We have to celebrate and rejoice. These corrupt and dissolute brothers and sisters of yours were dead but now they have new life; they were lost and now they’re found.
How does the elder brother respond? We don’t know. The story doesn’t tell us. That’s one of the parable’s key functions. It’s a type of short story that’s intended to provoke a response. It makes us question ourselves. Do we think the father was right to do what he did? To forgive his younger son, even before a word had been uttered? How would we respond if we were in the position of the elder brother? Or do we see ourselves more in the character of the younger son?
But there’s an even more important question. As I said at the beginning, Jesus’ message is the good news of the kingdom of God and that this kingdom is open to all those whom you might not expect it to be, including the corrupt and wayward. God is running to meet those who previously thought they were lost. He’s wrapping his arms around them, kissing them on the neck, telling the cooks to fire up the kitchens and to start preparing the feast. And what a feast it’s going to be! Such food, such music, such dancing, such joy! Even if your reasons for coming back weren’t pure, God doesn’t care. He loves you so much and delights to have you return home.
So what’s the key question? Well, it’s this: is God really like this? It’s a great story for sure, but is it true? Does God really welcome us back when our lives have gone off track and we’ve messed up? Does he run to meet us, wrap his arms around us and kiss us? Or is this just a comforting story but actually we don’t really know? We’d like to think it was like this – or maybe we wouldn’t, if we find ourselves identifying more with the elder brother – but just because we’d like something to be true, doesn’t make it so.
What matters here is who the storyteller is and what happened to him. Jesus told this story, probably many times as he went from village to village, but there were lots of people telling stories back then. Why pay this one any more attention than any other? The reason why we do, and why this story has such a hold on us, is because after hearing any number of stories like these and many others, the religious and political authorities of the day had enough of Jesus and his message and so conspired to have him executed by the state. So he was strung up on the cross and killed. By rights, other than being a historical footnote of possible interest only to scholars, that is the last we should have expected to hear of Jesus and the stories he once told.
But three days after his execution, his utterly dejected disciples, who had no sound reason to make anything up as it would only further imperil them in the sight of the brutal authorities of the day, were unexpectedly met by Jesus who had been raised from the dead to new life by God the Father. This is why we listen to this story and all the others that Jesus used to tell, and accord them such authority. His resurrection means many things but one of them is simply this: Jesus’ resurrection is God’s vindication of the stories Jesus told about God. The reason why we can have confidence that God is truly the one who runs to meet us, who wraps his arms around us, kisses us and then parties with us till the sun comes up, is because he is the God who has already raised Jesus from the dead. Just as one day, he will raise us, too.