Gospel: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
I’m not a betting man, but I think I could safely wager that nearly all of you heard the first few verses of today’s reading from Luke and in your head finished reciting the parable long before I finished reading it.
It would be a great understatement to say it’s one of Jesus’ best-known parables. For fun, I went to a few websites to see where it ranked on the list of the ones he shared (and yes, I know checking out random internet surveys that literally anyone can create doesn’t give special validity). Everywhere I looked, what’s traditionally called the Parable of the Prodigal Son was often in the top five in these lists, if not the top two.
Yes, it’s a familiar teaching moment for Jesus’ disciples and followers and for the Pharisees and scribes who stood in opposition to him (and here, were grumbling about him). But as I thought this week about what to say to you on something you know quite well, my attention was drawn to two seemingly overlooked areas of the parable. They’re ones I’ve not paid much attention to before, largely because they’ve been drowned out by the volume of the familiar parts of the story: younger son asks for his share of the inheritance; younger son runs away; younger son blows through his inheritance and in desperation returns home; father joyfully welcomes his son home without condition.
My first observation is rooted in the share of the inheritance the younger son requested, specifically the reasons for asking. Guidelines on how an inheritance is to be distributed are found in several places in the Old Testament, including Deuteronomy where we find that the oldest son is to receive a double share.[1] In this instance, then, the younger son would have received 1/3 of all his father had – and he displayed enough gumption to ask for it.
Now.
But what’s the underlying reason for the haste, and what can be drawn from his asking? In his powerful reflection on this parable through the lens of the famous painting by Rembrandt, Henri Nouwen cites the work of theologian Kenneth Bailey in saying that this request “is tantamount to wishing his father dead.”[2] Nouwen quotes further from Bailey’s discussion of this parable,
After signing over his possessions to his son, the father still has the right to live off the proceeds … as long as he is alive. Here the younger son gets, and thus is assumed to have demanded, disposition to which, even more explicitly, he has no right to until the death of his father. The implication of ‘Father, I cannot wait for you to die’ underlies both requests.[3]
Then the younger son goes even farther – literally – by traveling to a far-off land. He has his money; now he wants to put as much space as possible between himself and his father and brother. He wants to sever ties completely with his old life and his legacy, “a betrayal of the treasured values of family and community.”[4]
Let’s pause to consider this for a moment. With the understanding of the situation as outlined by Bailey, we have a younger son who hates his life, presumably hates his father, and wants to take what he feels is his and go – now. He wants to leave the stability that he sees as unhappiness for what he seems to think will make him happy, despite the massive unknowns the move entails. How much more is the sadness of the father magnified when viewing this not just as a moment of “I want to be on my own” but as “I hate everything about all of this, and I don’t want to be part of your life or anything you have to offer”?
Fast forward to the return of the younger son and reframe the question: How much more is the joy of the father magnified when viewing this not just as a moment of “I want to come home”? What does it say about the father – what does it say about God – that his son – that we – can act so horribly and so hurtfully and yet he without hesitation still rushes to the child to celebrate the return? How much more is the love of the father magnified?
My second observation is that this is an open-ended parable. There’s no end. The parable as titled – the Prodigal Son – has been resolved; despite what he’s done and said, the younger son has been welcomed home with abundant joy and unsurpassed love. But change the title – think of it as the Parable of the Angry Son – and what do we have?
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![5]
In the beginning the younger son, out of selfishness, demanded something: money. Now we have the older son, also out of selfishness, demanding something else: recognition and praise. Both sons sought something from their father: one, release; the other, gratitude for staying. With the return of the younger son we witness the incredible power of the father’s love. With the older son we still witness the incredible power of the father’s love as well as… what?
We don’t know what we’re witnessing because this son doesn’t respond. The younger son put physical distance between himself and his father, only to erase that distance when he came home. The older son stayed close, only to have the joy of his brother’s return burn into him and that – together with his own need for recognition and validation – creates emotional distance between himself and his father. But there’s nothing else beyond that; we don’t know where his journey will take him.
I think the true power of this parable – besides being reminded of the enormous love of God – is that each of the characters speaks to us, depending on where we are at any given moment. Frankly, each of the characters is us. Dissatisfied and restless; angry and resentful; concerned and loving. At one point or another in my life I know I’ve fallen into one of these three groupings, moving from one to another as easily as the wind blows. Those to whom the parable was first directed moved among the three; I’m sure most of you do as well.
But just as the sons moved – physically and emotionally – close to and away from their father, one thing was constant: his love. As we move closer to and away from our father, and from one another, that same constant remains: God’s love. We can work to tear down or build up ourselves; we can work to tear down or build up others. Regardless of what we do and to whom we do it – and here I offer a third title: the Parable of the Forgiving Father – God’s love remains.
As Nouwen wrote, “… God is always there, always ready to forgive, absolutely independent of our response. God’s love does not depend on our repentance or our inner or outer changes. Whether I am the younger son or the elder son, God’s only desire is to bring me home.”[6]
Amen.
[1] Deuteronomy 21;17 (NRSV).
[2] Henri Nouwen. The Return of the Prodigal Son, p. 35.
[3] Nouwen, p. 36.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Luke 15:29-30 (NRSV).
[6] Nouwen, p. 78.