Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."
So Jesus told them this parable:
"There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, '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."' So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.
"Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.' Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, '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!' Then the father said to him, '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.'"
In the mid-1980s, I was fortunate to do my hospital Clinical Pastoral Education training with my CPE Supervisor, the Rev. Richard Flowers, who studied with Dr. Murray Bowen. Dr. Bowen (1913 – 1990) was a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who pioneered the idea of family systems theory. This was popularized during the 1970s by Dr. Virginia Satir and later adapted by Claudia Black and Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse and used extensively by the 12 Step recovery movement. In a nutshell, Bowen’s theory states that a family is not just a collection of individuals but an organic system. Each person in the family plays a role that serves to balance and maintain the emotional functioning of the family system. In dysfunctional family systems the roles often play out this way—there is the Addict, the Enabler/Rescuer, and the children unconsciously take on the following roles: the Hero/Responsible Child, The Scapegoat/Problem Child, the Mascot/Clown, and the Lost Child/Invisible Child. Today’s Gospel is traditionally called the Parable of the Prodigal Son. We usually assume this parable is about the prodigal younger son who ran through his inheritance right quick. The Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor preached a famous sermon about this parable in 2009 and called it “The Parable of the Dysfunctional Family.” I call it the “Parable of the Three Prodigals”, because all three, the father, the older son, and the younger son were prodigals within 1st century Jewish society. As Taylor says: ‘The beauty of a really good parable—in the case of the prodigal son, perhaps the most beloved parable of all time—is that it meets generations of listeners wherever they are: in first century Palestine, in fourth century Rome, in sixteenth century Geneva, or in twenty-first century Chicago. Everyone has a weird family.”1 The Parable of the Prodigal Son is the third in a trilogy of parables, the other two being about a lost coin and a lost sheep. This youngest son rejects responsibility. He wants benefits, without obligation or responsibility. In a modern dysfunctional home, he could have been either the scapegoat or the clown but when he absconded with his inheritance, he became the lost child. Mae West, who was a classic prodigal, once said: "Good girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere."
Mae West, circa 1920
We are so familiar with this parable we think about it only in terms of the 21st century. Instead, we need to hear this story in its original Palestinian honor/shame cultural context and in terms of its highly patriarchal system. To Jesus' audience, respect for the father was paramount, so when the younger son asked for his inheritance from his healthy father, he committed an unthinkable offense. It amounted to saying, "Drop dead. But before you do, give me your money.” In Jesus’ culture, when people heard this, they expected the Patriarch to say no. But this father didn’t do that. Instead, he was doubly generous. He gave both of his sons their inheritance. By doing so, he broke the law. The inheritance by law belonged to the whole family and to the elder son in particular, who would then be the one to divide the money after his father’s death. The older one stayed and works on the farm. He was the responsible child. Meanwhile the younger one cashed it all in to go live the high life in gentile territory, which was another slap in the face to his father, his family, and community. Both sons were prodigal, both accepted their inheritance when they shouldn’t have, basically saying to their father, “You are dead to us.” Of course, the younger son lost everything, and to his humiliation lost it to Gentiles—Roman citizens, pagan pig-owners, complete strangers to the God of Israel—another source of shame to his family and neighbors. Then a famine came. The younger son soon hit bottom and wallowed with pigs. He was so hungry, he would have happily eaten pig food. He was starving. Then Luke says “he came to himself." He realized who he was. Many bible translations translate this as “he came to his senses” as if he had been senseless beforehand. Unconscious.
Sometimes the best thing God can do to teach us is to give us what we want—to show us that our desires can’t bring us satisfaction. God is the only One enough for us. And so the famished son, repents, turns around, and heads home, rehearsing the words of the confession he’ll use to show how sorry he is. Barbara Brown Taylor states, “According to Old Testament scholars, what the younger son does is so reprehensible that the Talmud describes a ceremony to deal with it—a Qetsatsah ceremony, to punish a Jewish boy who loses the family inheritance to Gentiles. Here’s how it works. If he ever shows up in his village again, then the villagers can fill a large earthenware jug with burned nuts and corn, break it in front of the prodigal, and shout his name out loud, pronouncing him cut off from his people. After that, he will be a cosmic orphan, who might as well go back and live with the pigs. The prodigal’s only hope, apparently, is to reach his father before the village reaches him.”2 The Qetsatsah ceremony was more comprehensive than the Amish “shun”. When shunned an Amish person can at least eat at a separate table with the community. The first century Jewish shun was a total ban on any contact with the family or community. “But the father sees his younger son afar off, as if he was been constantly looking for him. Again, he breaks the pattern of a mid-eastern patriarch. He takes the bottom of his robes in hand and runs out to meet his pig-herding son in the street. He picks up his long robes and runs like a girl, like a mother instead of a father. Mid-Easterners did not run in their robes. Dignified men did not run. An ancient proverb says, ‘A man’s manner of walking tells you what he is.’ In Eastern eyes, it is so terribly undignified for an elderly man to run. Even Aristotle wrote, ‘Great men never run in public.’"3 The father grabs his son in his arms and kisses him like a mother. He does this before his long lost son is able to confess his sin. Out of compassion, he empties himself, assumes the form of a woman, a servant, and runs to be reconciled to his estranged son. Why does he do this? The father needs to reach his son before the village does, to save his son from being shunned. By doing so, he can salvage his relationship with his son and maybe save his family’s honor. This of course will make people respect him less but if that was the price of love, so be it. Ironically, the elder son was just as prodigal as his younger brother. (It is interesting to note that Luke uses the Greek word "presbyter" for the word “elder” here, which puts a different twist in the story. In the early church, Presbyters were priests—not Presbyterians.) The eldest son was the responsible one—all work, no play, and full of resentment. He didn’t go away geographically, like his younger brother—but maybe he did emotionally and spiritually. There are many ways we can distance ourselves while staying in a family. The older son's conduct—refusing to join the party for his brother and arguing with his dad in front of the guests was no less outrageous. Hospitality was of supreme value in 1st-century Palestine. The entire village would likely have been invited to the party, and the oldest son would be expected to co-host the proceedings. He should have been the maître-de, chief welcomer of the guests. As the elder brother, he had to honor his father with his presence. His refusal was another round of humiliating rejection for the father. Despite this, the father once again goes out looking for this older son just as he did the younger one, entreating him to come join the party. There the story ends. Jesus leaves it unfinished. Will the older son abandon his need to be right and in control and accept the extravagant gift of his father's love? Or will he refuse to reconcile with his father and his brother? We don’t know. Barbara Brown Taylor again says: “[This parable] is a reunion story, not a repentance story. It’s about the high cost of reconciliation, in which individual worth, identity and rightness all go down to the dust so that those as good as dead in their division may live together in peace.”4 One final story. The Rev. Michael K. Marsh, rector of St. Philip’s Episcopal Church in Uvalde, Texas, wrote: “Several years ago I was teaching a class about the Parable of the Prodigal Son. As soon as class was finished a man who had been sitting in the back of the room started coming toward me. I could tell he was upset. He was probably in his mid-seventies and had been very attentive during class but hadn’t said anything. ‘What about the bath?’ he demanded. “You didn’t say anything about the bath. Why didn’t you talk about the bath?” I told him I didn’t understand what he was talking about. He became more agitated and said, ‘You know where that kid had been! And you know what he smelled like and what was on him. He was dirty and smelly. The father would never hug him, kiss him, or put a robe on him until he first had a bath. Why didn’t you talk about the bath?’ "I told him that a bath was not part of the story but he didn’t believe me, so we read the story together. When we got to the end he started weeping. He said, ‘All my life I thought this story said that he had to take a bath before he could go home.’ I asked him, “And have you, all your life, been trying to get clean enough to go home?” He nodded in silence as tears ran down his face.”5 I believe one of many messages from this parable is that all of us, whether we’re like the oldest son, or the youngest or even the father, have sinned. Some of us spend a lifetime trying to come clean before God. To be good enough. But we never can, because it is not in our power to do so. Only God can forgive us and make us clean. But the Good News is that no matter what we’ve done, no matter what shape we’re in, God has already done so! Whatever we are, whether the eldest or youngest, middle or only child—whether we are even the shooter from Uvalde, Texas, God keeps searching for us. God calls to us tenderly, "Come home, come home, you who are weary come home. Come join the party!"
Prodigal Son by by Fr. Sieger Köder
Inspirational Quotes “All sons, like all daughters, are prodigals if they're smart. Assuming the old man doesn't run out on them first, they will run out on him if they are to survive, and if he's smart he won't put up too much of a fuss. A wise father sees all this coming, and maybe that's why he keeps his distance from the start.”—Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark “For no matter how much we give to the notion of free grace and dying love, we do not like it. It is just too . . . indiscriminate. It lets rotten sons and crooked tax collectors and common tarts into the kingdom, and it thumbs its nose at really good people. And it does that gallingly, for no more reason than the Gospel’s shabby exaltation of dumb trust over worthy works.”—Robert Farrar Capon, Kingdom, Grace, Judgment: Paradox, Outrage, and Vindication in the Parables of Jesus “The difference between mercy and grace? Mercy gave the prodigal son a second chance. Grace gave him a feast.” Max Lucado “One of the hardest things in the world is to stop being the prodigal son without turning into the elder brother.” John Ortberg “For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair. Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home.”―Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming
Separation
by W. S. Merwin6
Your absence has gone through me
Like thread through a needle.
Everything I do is stitched with its color.
Prodigal
by Bob Hicok7
You could drive out of this country
and attack the world with your ambition,
invent wonder plasmas,
become an artist of the provocative gesture,
the suggestive nod, you could leave
wanting the world and return
carrying it, a noisy bundle
of steam and libido, a ball of fire
balanced on your tongue,
you might reclaim Main Street in a limo
longer than a sermon, wave at our red faces
while remembering that you were born
a clod hopper, a farmer’s kid,
and get over that hump once and for all.
HAPPINESS
by Jane Kenyon8
(1947–1995)
There’s just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.
No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.
It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.1 Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Parable of the Dysfunctional Family,” sermon preached at Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Illinois, on March 18, 2017.
2 Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Parable of the Dysfunctional Family, Ibid.
3 Taylor, “The Parable of the Dysfunctional Family, Ibid.
4 Uvalde, Texas is the home of the tragic mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in 2022.
5 Michael K. Marsh, Interrupting the Silence, “The Bath—A Reflection on the Prodigal Son”, Luke 15:11-32”, May 1, 2010.
6 W. S. Merwin, “Separation” from The Moving Target (New York: Atheneum, 1963) 9.
7 Bob Hicok, The Legend of Light (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995) 18.
8 Jane Kenyon, Otherwise: New and Selected Poems (St. Paul, Minnesota: Graywolf Press, 2005) 3.