Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So, to them Jesus addressed this parable: “A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’ . . .The younger son collected all his belongings and set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation. Coming to his senses he thought, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food to eat, but here am I, dying from hunger. I shall get up and go to my father’ . . . So he got up and went back to his father. Now the older son had been out in the field and, on his way back, as he neared the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean. The servant said to him, ‘Your brother has returned and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ He became angry and when he refused to enter the house, his father came out and pleaded with him. . . ‘My son, you are here with me always. Everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’” (Luke 15.1-3,11-32)
On this Fourth Sunday of Lent, we have for our consideration the well-known parable of the prodigal son, although the parable could just as easily be called the prodigal father because it is the father who is prodigious or excessive in his love and mercy. Whatever it is called, the story is one of the most beloved of Jesus’ parables and is quintessentially Lucan in its content, explaining, in part, why it only appears in Luke’s gospel and nowhere else.
Truth be told, it is a favorite because of the first part of the story. But, as we know, there are two parts because there are two sons in the story. People have a natural desire to identify with the younger son who holds the first part of the story, his selfishness and sinfulness bringing him more pain than the pleasure he assumed they would.
Errant in his ways, he comes to his senses as the gospel calls his turnaround, and he makes his way back to his father who waits longingly at his doorstep for his foolish son to come back home, a man whose love for his sons is boundless and whose mercy is prodigious. The first part of the story appeals to the human psyche because it has all the feel-goods of a return-to-grace story, a bad boy who is redeemed in the end always being a favorite trope.
As a result, most people stay with the first part of the parable, satisfied in knowing that however great the sins or however many the failures, we can always bank on the mercy of God to wipe away the stains from our souls and to open his arms to us if and when we also decide to come to our senses. Seeing as how we routinely fall short of God’s expectations through our own selfishness and waywardness, it is balm to our spirits to know that God has a forgiving side to him.
Of course, we routinely forget that the father’s mercy is contingent on the second son’s coming to his senses. No doubt Luke intentionally chose those words to describe the change of heart that the younger son experienced after hitting rock bottom. Sleeping with pigs can do that to a person. Nor should we think the road back home was a hop and a skip. For most people, it is a long road to conversion. Even Saul of Tarsus had to fall off his high horse and experience a hard knock on the head to get him to change his ways. Doing the hard work of getting us out of our rut is nothing to sneeze at and we don’t want to downplay it or eclipse it by a myopic focus on the mercy of the father.
But we do an even greater injustice to the parable if we ignore the second part, however cozy and comforting we find the first part. And while we find it easy enough to identify with the selfish and self-destructive second son, even if simultaneously whitewashing our own faults because they are not as spectacular as the fall from grace of this spoiled brat, we less easily shift our attention to the older son whose broody and bull-headed behavior is somewhat off putting.
It is not that we can’t put ourselves in his shoes. We can, but we don’t like to admit it because he comes off as judgmental and holier-than-thou, sides of our personality that we prefer to ignore or deny. However, deep down, we feel his pain because we don’t like to see someone such as the younger brother who doesn’t play by the rules get away with murder while he, law-abiding and responsible to the max, doesn’t get bonus points for his good behavior.
And therein is the problem with the second part of the story. It rubs us the wrong way because there seems to be some injustice at play, the foolish father forgiving his spoiled son while seemingly taking for granted his obedient firstborn son. In many ways, it is the same feeling we have when we hear Jesus tell the story of the lazy workers who show up at the last minute but who get paid a day’s wages the same as the guys who were hard at work at the crack of dawn.
But that is very much the intended purpose of the second part of the story–to pull back the curtain on our criticism and condemnation of others whom we feel are inferior to us in some way. In many ways, this part of the parable is the most important. The proof that it is meant to be the main point of the whole story is found in the introduction that Luke provides to it when he writes that “the Pharisees and scribes began to complain” about Jesus because he kept the company of tax-collectors and sinners.
So, the first part lays the groundwork for the second part, the spoiled and self-centered son becoming a stand-in for tax collectors and sinners while the self-righteous and judgmental older son serves as a substitute for the Pharisees and scribes. In effect, then, the primary thrust of the parable is not the mercy of the father who represents the forgiveness of God but the hard-heartedness of the Pharisees and scribes who are quick to pile up on others who fall short of the do’s and don’ts of a proper lifestyle.
With that in mind, we do ourselves a better service if we spend more time on the second part of the story instead of soaking our feet for a long spell in the warm waters of the first part. Whatever the length and breadth of the father’s forgiveness, Jesus did not intend the parable to be a bedtime story that allows us to fall asleep without worry or concern, wrapped snugly in the blanket of God’s mercy.
As a rule, Jesus’ parables were intended to make us uncomfortable, forcing us to look behind the veil, requiring us to stretch beyond our limits, opening our eyes to see what we prefer not to see. The parable of the prodigal son is no exception, but instead is very much of the same ilk, a sure clue and caution that we don’t want to sunbathe overly long on the sandy beach of the first part, in this way avoiding the hard truths about ourselves that await us in part two.
Oddly, some scholars want to divide this parable into two separate parables, the parable of the prodigal son and the parable of the elder brother, a division that simply makes little to no sense at least so far as Luke constructs the story. The two depend on each other. Put simply, the prodigal son requires the elder brother and the elder brother requires the prodigal son in the same way that the Pharisees required the contemptible sinners and the sinners required the snooty-nosed Pharisees. Both are essential if the text is to be understood in its fullness.
Given that the story has been selected as a spiritual exercise for the season of Lent, we certainly want to mine it for all its richness. For my part, I believe the most benefit comes to us when we put ourselves in the company of the elder son, in this way prodding us to get off our high horse and to stop our harsh criticism of others who do not meet our standards in one way or another.
As already noted, it is clear that the second son came to his senses, meaning he made a turn around in his life, but there is no indication that the older son did the same. So far as we can glean from the story, the older son stayed self-righteous and stood his ground, refusing to swallow his pride or to join the party for his brother who had lost his way but who had finally got back on solid footing.
Now, he is the lost son, his refusal to let go of his judgmentalism and his criticism of someone he considers lesser than him resulting in his being outside his father’s reach. He stonewalls every attempt by his father to reconsider his stance, even when the father pleads with him, telling him, “My son, you are here with me always. Everything I have is yours.” Nothing seems to penetrate his hard-heartedness, content to close himself off not only from his brother but also now from his father whom he judges as harshly as he has judged his younger brother.
It is clear from the litany of grievances that the elder son throws before his father that he is nowhere near changing his mind or coming to his senses. He prefers to wallow in his self-righteousness, a noxious brew of contempt and criticism, and refuses to swallow his pride, a deadly potion of exceptionalism and superiority. He may not be sleeping with hogs as did his younger brother, but he still carries the ugly stench of sanctimonious snugness.
Many pages before the telling of this story, Luke has Jesus state in his sermon on the plain, “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven” (9.37). His words have fallen on deaf ears when it comes to the Pharisees and the scribes who refuse to drop their superiority and their super egos.
Here, in telling the story of the man with two sons, Jesus is saying much the same thing in yet another way, reminding the Pharisees and the scribes once again that judging and condemning others puts them outside the father’s house, their fault-finding and finger-pointing resulting in their blindness to their own wrongdoing, leaving them as lost as the younger son ever was. To his credit, the younger son had the good sense to throw himself upon his father’s mercy, something the elder son refuses to see as necessary for his own salvation.
As the days of Lent steadily move along, we have much to consider, aided as we are by this gospel text that wants us to look in the mirror to see if we share the same features as the elder son, someone who is filled with anger and antipathy, believing himself superior and above the muck of much of humanity, refusing to accept that he is little different in the final analysis than his younger brother except in the one thing that matters the most. The younger son came to his senses. The elder son did not as we will see soon enough as the story takes on flesh and blood in the Pharisees and scribes who bring charges against Jesus, resulting in his being nailed to a cross.
Their only hope for salvation will be found in Jesus’ dying words on the cross, “Father, forgive them for they do know not what they do,” a prayer that asks the Father to show mercy to those who could not themselves show mercy, the final test of just how prodigious will the Father’s mercy be in the end. As I said, there is much to be pondered here and in the days ahead.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 