“…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.” (Luke
15:32)
We
all know this story, right? The Prodigal Son? I bet you’ve heard it dozens of
times in church. I know there are some folks who hate this parable because it
seems so unfair. This numbskull kid pisses away his inheritance, but his old
man still takes him back and lavishes more stuff on him while his older
brother—who has done everything right, mind you—gets bupkis. But there’s more
than fairness at issue here. As I read this story over again, I see a lot of
stuff—a longing for freedom and self-determination, despair, repentance,
forgiveness, resentment, and family.
For
a pretty major chunk of human history having a big family was pretty important.
You worked on the land, and if you were lucky enough to have a couple of sons,
you’d have a built-in labor force to help you out with the plowing and
harvesting and weeding and such. The trouble was, when you died, you couldn’t
leave your land to all your boys (figure your girls would get married and get
land of their own from their husbands). If you did divide it up, and then your
sons did the same, in a few generations there wouldn’t be enough land left to
put a porta potty on let alone plant wheat or grapes or whatever you were
planting. So? You left the land to your oldest son. He’d take over, and his
little brothers would each get a chunk of change large enough to get them
started in a new life.
You
can see where the Prodigal is coming from, right? This kid knows he’s never
going to get Dad’s land unless his big brother dies first. Other than wasting
his youthful energy on property which will never belong to him, he elects to
cash out now and go find himself. His dad agrees to this because every kid
needs to grow up, self-actualize, and be free to explore his options. I
recently heard a quote from the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel (a good
Lutheran if ever there was one) who said, “Freedom does not mean being free of
something, but free to do something.[i]” The lad in Jesus’ tale
may have escaped the constraints of his father and his father’s land, but what
was he freeing himself for?
Every
dumb thing we’ve ever done must’ve seemed like a good idea at the time. The
Prodigal, achieving his freedom but lacking the maturity to know how to use it,
blows all his cash in some distant land[ii]. If this kid had stayed
home and let his pop teach him how to manage money, he’d be in much better
shape.
As
things would have it, there’s famine in the land and the bottom falls out of
the economy. The only gig this kid can score is feeding pigs—which would be an
abomination for a nice Jewish boy. It seems he’s working at less than minimum
wage. He’s starving and even pig slop is starting to look good to him. What
happens when you have no money and no self-respect left? Jesus says he “comes
to himself.” That is, he has his moment of repentance.
I
think what’s really significant about this parable is the contrition of this
protagonist. The boy knows he’s screwed up. He doesn’t try to spin his
circumstances or blame his failure on the economy. He knows there’s no one to
blame but himself—which, if you ask me, is pretty mature of him. He decides to
go home and ask his dad to hire him and let him work as an employee and not as
a member of the family. He’s willing to try to earn his way back. As the
Psalmist said, “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken
and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.[iii]”
And
his father doesn’t despise it, either. In fact, this kid doesn’t even get much
of a chance to apologize before the old man showers him with forgiveness. Ol’
Dad doesn’t even need to hear the boy’s case because A) it’s his son and he
loves him and B) he has compassion for him. I think “A” is the way God sees us.
“B” is the way we are expected to see others. Maybe the father saw how shabby
this kid looked and felt it was his duty to wash, clothe, and feed him
(obviously the boy was barefoot). Compassion does not ask how the poor became
poor. It seeks to address the poverty.
But
now we get the age-old problem of resentment. Big Bro isn’t having any of this
forgiveness or compassion stuff. No sir. He’s one of the vast number of us
sinners who’d rather see the deserving go hungry than see the undeserving get something
to which they are not entitled. This, of course, begs the question: who of us is
worthy to decide who is entitled? We just love to put ourselves in the place of
God, don’t we? In his great indignation, Number One Son tells his dad Little
Bro has “devoured your property with prostitutes.” I’m not sure just how,
exactly, he knows this about his sibling. The earlier text says nothing about hookers—it
only says the kid was lousy at managing his money. But resentment and
indignation can fire the imagination and create lies. Even if we have no proof
of the lies we imagine, we will start to believe them as the truth.
Families
are messy. Mistakes get made and wounds are inflicted. Sometimes we enjoy the
luxury of being wounded so much we don’t want our wounds to heal. I
think what Jesus is trying to remind the Pharisees by telling this parable is
we are all family. We are all equally loved by our Father. And we are
taught by Jesus and the Holy Spirit that some day all the Father has will be
ours.
Thanks
for reading this week. Be good to your family. Practice patience, repentance, and
forgiveness, and come see me again.
[i] I
heard this on a podcast, so I don’t have an exact citation. However, you can
look this quote up online. It is attributed to Frau Merkel.
[ii]
The Greek here reads “zon asotos” which is best translated “living wastefully”
as asotos is the opposite of “saving.” Asotos is also understood to mean
“recklessly” or “immorally.”
[iii]
Psalm 51:17.
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