The Prodigals

Luke 15:11-32

 

            I have heard on more than one occasion a parent sigh wistfully about their college child come home; perhaps some of you will identify with this experience.  On the one hand, it’s good to see the son or daughter again.  On the other hand, they bring a lot of energy and disruption into the house.  On the one hand, we’ve missed hearing their voice and their laughing with friends.  On the other hand, we haven’t missed their sleep patterns or their music.  On the one hand, it’s good to see them come home.  On the other hand, it’s good to see them go back to school.  Anyone relate?  Anyone at all?  I see many of you parents nodding your heads.

 

            Our problems are so simple.

 

            Some of you parents know the darker side of this story of children leaving home.  It is a story of unbearable heartache.  On the one hand, you know they need to leave, for they are destroying what semblance of family you have remaining.  On the other hand, you cannot bear to see them go.  On the one hand, you know it is for their own, ultimate good that they leave, for only the real world experience of hard knocks might teach and grow.  On the other hand, you cannot bear to see them go.  On the one hand, they will be gone.  On the other hand, they will be gone.  Anyone relate?  Anyone at all?  No one’s head is nodding, but I suspect some hearts are breaking.

 

            Our problems are so complex.

 

*****

 

            Jesus’ greatest parable is called the “Parable of the Prodigal Son.”  The word “prodigal” means extravagant.  The parable is so named because the younger son is said to have squandered his inheritance in “extravagant living”; therefore he is known as prodigal.  But I would argue that the younger son is not the only prodigal figure in this parable. Prodigal is not merely a name for the younger son; indeed, as we shall hear as we listen to Jesus’ story, prodigals are all around.

 

            The parable begins with the younger son requesting his inheritance from his father, which is fine except for one thing: the father is still alive!  Essentially, he is saying to his father, “I wish you were already dead! But since you haven’t had the good grace to hurry up and die, you can make it up to me by giving me the cash that’s due to come my way.”  For those of you who are unclear about the propriety here: in the Middle East this is a bit of an insult!  Ken Bailey, a New Testament scholar who has lived in the Middle East for much of his teaching career and who will be our theologian in residence in October, tells the story of a Syrian farmer who was asked this question by his son.  The farmer struck his son, drove him out of the house and it took five years for them to reconcile.  The father is supposed to be angry.  The father is supposed to cut off the son, refuse to acknowledge him.  The older brother, and this is important to understanding the parable, is supposed to begin a shuttle diplomacy between father and younger brother: “Dad, he’s just a stupid kid.  He doesn’t understand what he’s doing.”  “Listen, little brother, you get yourself up to the house and apologize to the old man!”  But no shuttle diplomacy occurs; the older brother is silent.  He watches passively as the younger brother goes. Already Jesus accuses the Pharisees, as older brothers for Israel, of neglect in their duty as religious leaders and spiritual guides.

 

            Much to the amazement of the entire village, the father divides his property.  Evidently, the father has already made an oral will.  The traditional oral will of the day divided the property by a two-thirds / one-thirds split, two-thirds for the older brother and one-third for the younger brother. The will didn’t vest until the father was dead.  Now, if the oral will is made, then the father has rights over all cash flow and income to spend or give away as the father desires, but if the father does not spend the income in a given year, then the profits become part of the family capital and cannot be spent.  This is important and will show up later in the parable!

 

            The younger son not only asks for a division of the property – “Tell me which fields are mine” – but also for permission to sell the property.  This is a horrific request.  The younger son is denouncing and denying his family, his heritage; he is spitting on the grave of his ancestors.  The villagers, no doubt, cannot believe the younger son’s impudence. They are more than willing to beat the youngster if the father so indicates that would be helpful.  They are wondering about the father and why he has not already brought out the cane against the boy.  Within a few days, the younger son has sold the property; he had to act quick since the village was so angry with him.  The village was angry but not so angry that they weren’t willing to snatch up a bargain on some land they’ve had their eye on for a while.

 

            The younger son goes off into the “far country,” which in first century Israel was code for “off to live among the Gentiles.”  So the younger son has denounced his family and now left his faith heritage and his nation as well.  The text tells us the young man wastes his money on “expensive living,” that’s all the text says.  The Greek language is neutral here: “expensive living”; this is important and will show up later in the parable!  The younger son literally ends up wallowing in pig dung, which, given the Jewish food laws against eating anything associated with a pig, is Jesus’ way of saying the young man had reached rock bottom.  Lowest of the low.

 

            The boy is hungry, broke and out of options.  His only option is to return home.  But he is afraid, for he has broken both the law and relationship with his father.  The only thing he legitimately could expect to  endure would be the kezaza, a ceremony of banishment enacted by the village folks to anyone who shamed the village.  His only hope was that somehow his father would protect him from the villagers, but why would the father do that? “I know,” he says to himself, “I will make myself a craftsman.” What the younger son has in mind is that he would become one of his father’s workers and save enough money to pay his father back.  Of course, the younger son is completely missing the point: the problem is not the money but the father’s broken heart.  In fact, the way Jesus tells the story the younger son is adding insult to injury by making his relationship with the father into a business transaction.

 

 

            The Pharisees who heard Jesus no doubt applauded Jesus at this point because, at this point in the story, Jesus seems to be saying the younger son must make amends, fully and completely, before he is restored.  Full and complete amends was the Pharisees’ idea of repentance.  But Jesus has other notions of repentance in mind.  For Jesus, repentance means accepting one’s own acceptance; accepting the father’s love.  I hope all of us realize that there are some people in this room who have done things so horrible they can never make amends: for instance, a murderer cannot bring back the life of the one he or she has killed, a sexual offender can never fully and completely make amends for the loss of innocence he has robbed.  I hope also that all of us realize that we are all in the same boat with the murderer and the sexual offender; we’re rowing a different oar, but we’re in the same boat.

 

            The Pharisees were no doubt outraged when they heard what the father did.  Watching from the road for his son – how long had the younger son been gone?  How many nights had the father waited, watching? Several weeks?  Several months? – the father saw the boy and his heart melted.  The father ran to meet his son.  You need to know that for a man to run was highly embarrassing. Older men especially did not run; older men walked; walking was dignified.  Running lacked dignity…mostly because one had to hitch up one’s robe and show one’s briefs to run.  But the father runs, greets his son, interrupts the son’s speech about how their relationship is a business transaction.  The father yells to his servants to put sandals on his feet – symbol of his sonship – a robe on his back – symbol of his father’s respect – and a ring on his finger – symbol of his father’s authority.

 

*****

 

            Meanwhile, the older son is out in the field; do you remember the older son? The older son is in the field and he hears the drumbeat from the village.  The party is waiting until he, as the eldest son, gets there.  It is his job, as the eldest son, to stand and serve the guests, to show forth the family hospitality.  But the older son remains outside the party.  This, too, is a great embarrassment to the father.  The father has been humiliated in front of the entire village.  Either he should go out and thrash the older son, or ignore the older son while the party is on and thrash him later.  But clearly, for the father to regain his honor, the older son must be thrashed.

 

            But what does the father do?  Once again, in a costly (to the father) display of love, the father goes out, reaches out, to meet the older son.  The older son is angry with righteous anger!  “All these years I’ve been slaving for you…you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.  But when this son of yours who has squandered your property….”  Ah-ha!  We now have an issue.  Do you remember when I said that an oral will made by the father meant the father had control of current income but not saved income?  Do you see the older son’s issue?  The father is spending all this money entertaining the entire village, killing the fatted calf, with his, the older son’s, inheritance!  The older son, like the younger son, was seeing his relationship with his father as a business transaction.

            But the older son is not finished: “This son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes….”  Ah-ha!  We have another issue?  Do you remember what the Greek says? The younger son wasted his money with “expensive living,” a neutral term.  So how does the older son know what the younger son has been up to?  The older son has been in the field; he hasn’t spoken with anyone.  He has assumed the worst about his brother.  The father is put in the position of defending his love, explaining his joy.  So twisted is the older son, he cannot understand the greatest and most basic form of love there is: the love of a parent toward a child. Then the parable ends, without a proper conclusion.  Or more correctly, with you and I, the listeners, providing the conclusion.  Will we join the party, celebrate the festival of God’s love?

 

*****

 

            Catholic priest Andrew Greeley wrote, “Reject Christianity if you will out of a motive of cynicism; turn away from it because you believe Reality is malign and punitive; choose a God that is cantankerous, vindictive, forgetful, or determined to keep humankind in their place, if such a God is more to your choosing.  If you cannot accept the idea that love is at the core of the universe, that is your privilege.  If you do not believe that the Absolute passionately wants to be our friend and our lover, then by all means reject such a seemingly absurd notion.”

 

            In our day our religion is polarized by all the wrong things…no, actually that’s not it. We are polarized by all the secondary things.  Those on the religious right seem overly concerned with abortion and homosexuality, and if one is not against both, one is not really a Christian, at least according to the religious right.  And those on the liberal left seem quite aggrieved by the war in Iraq and injustices in our economic policy, and if one is not against both, one is not fully in the will of God.  Now both the religious right and the liberal left are passionate about their beliefs and those of you who know me well know that I have some strongly held views on all sides of these issues.  I, personally, believe these political issues of morality and social justice are  very important.  But I stand before you to tell you that, according to Jesus, they are secondary.

 

            In Jesus day there were also moral and social issues of great concern.  The great moral issue of the day was how to observe the Law, for it was believed that if the nation could only observe the Law more faithfully, then God would send Messiah to liberate them. The great social issue of the day was bondage to the Romans, with the belief running decidedly in the direction of militarism as the best way to deal with them, which is why there were four major rebellions by Jews within a 200 year period around the time of Jesus.  One of the reasons the Pharisees were so angry with Jesus is that, in their opinion, Jesus glossed over these great moral and social issues of the day: “What about the Romans?  What about the Law?  Whose side do you take in these controversies, Jesus of Nazareth?”  And Jesus’ response was to give them the parable of the prodigals and, essentially, say to them, “It’s not about these other issues.  It’s about the Father’s love.  These other issues don’t matter, if you don’t understand the Father’s love.  If you cannot accept the idea that love is at the core of the universe, if you do not believe that the Absolute passionately wants to be our friend and our lover, then you do not understand my teaching.”  And so they hated Jesus, for he would not take sides in their great and weighty debates.

 

            Perhaps it is true that only the parents who have lost a child can fully understand the parable of the prodigals.  Perhaps it is that the parents who best understand this parable are those who have waited – or who are waiting – for their child to return from the far country, to come home.  But all of us must choose how we will conclude this parable.   On the one hand, we can imagine our relationship with God is a business transaction: how many times do we go to church?  How often do we pray?  Are we giving enough money?  On the other hand, we can have a relationship with the Father, who loves us more desperately than we can imagine. On the one hand, we can imagine that unless we make amends, fully and completely, we will never be right with God.  On the other hand, we can know with some certainty: we ain’t never making enough amends, and be right with God anyway.  On the one hand, we can debate our great debates that divide ourselves into “us” and “them.”  On the other hand, we can dive into the heart of God and discover that love is at the core of the universe.

 

On the one hand, we remain outside.  On the other hand, we join the party.