When I was a child and I heard sermons on the Parable of the Prodigal Son, I reached the not surprising conclusion that the word prodigal meant bad, just plain old bad. I didn’t quite understand all of the bad things the younger son was reported to have done, but it all sounded pretty awful to me. Indeed, in the time of Jesus, a son asking for what would be his inheritance from a living father would have been completely unthinkable. He might as well have said, “Dad, you are already dead to me, so I think you should just go ahead and give me what I have coming to me.” In going off to a distant country and behaving as he did, the Prodigal Son surely acted as if he had no living family who cared about him. He was just mean and bad.
When I finally looked up the meaning of prodigal, I was quite surprised. There are actually two connected definitions of the term, and both convey the idea of extravagance. The first definition is “wastefully or recklessly extravagant.” That is certainly the one we associate with the “bad” son. But the second definition entirely changed my perspective on the meaning of this parable. The second definition of the word “prodigal” is this: “giving or yielding extravagantly.”
When I have pondered the parable in the past, even preached on it, I have posed a common question: When we study this parable, which of the three main characters, the prodigal younger son, the forgiving father, or the self-righteous older son, do we most identify with? It seems to me now that at different times in our lives, we may have found ourselves acting the role of each: doing things that ultimately shame us, receiving the mercy and forgiveness of our loved ones, or feeling righteous and secure enough in our own “goodness” to judge others. What if we are called to consider instead how the term “prodigal” can be applied to each figure in the story?
The younger son, the one identified as the Prodigal, fulfills his name by acting as the ultimate model for extravagant wasteful spending and self-indulgent sinful living. Out of desperation alone, it seems, he decides to return to his home and seek his father’s mercy. Before he can even complete the statement of remorse he has rehearsed, his father, overcome with emotion, interrupts him with orders to his servant: “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 celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!”
The Prodigal may have expected anger and rejection from his father; surely such a response would have been reasonable, considering the circumstances. Imagine his amazement to find himself lavished with forgiveness and rewarded with celebration by a father who can only rejoice at his son’s return. In this way, the father himself can be called prodigal in that other sense of the word: giving or yielding extravagantly. As Jesus told this parable, those listening may have been as surprised at the extravagant mercy of the father as are his sons in the story. After all, in that time, a father would have been expected to turn his back forever on such a sinful son. Yet this father, the embodiment of love and mercy, runs to meet the returning prodigal son when he sees him approaching at a distance. This loving father, who surely represents our Heavenly Father in the story, requires only a tiny sign of repentance, of turning things around, in order to lavish his son with merciful, forgiving love. The father seizes on that particle of repentance when he sees his son coming home. We are told, the father “ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.” Remarkable love, isn’t it? But are we w to receive that much unearned mercy from a Father who can be so prodigal in his love for any old sinner?
That question may hold the key to understanding the third character in this story, the obedient older son. He is the one who has done everything right, who has stayed home and worked for his father, who has, as far as we know, never done anything that might shame his father and his family. I think most of us can feel his pain when he realizes the spoiled kid brother has come home and his father has killed the fatted calf. He has never asked his father for anything, and he is angry. When he confronts his father, it becomes clear that this older “good” brother has been hoarding his own goodness, his own sense of righteousness. Like the Pharisees Jesus so often chides, he takes his rightful place for granted; he is the “good” son, after all. Has he trusted so much in his own goodness that he has failed to offer his Father a loving place in his heart? When he confronts his Father in anger over the celebration for the prodigal brother, the older brother accuses the Father of keeping him at arm’s length. There have been no parties or rewards for him. Yet, in his own prodigal—extravagant—self-righteousness, has the older brother not been the one who has kept the father at a distance?
The father’s response to his elder son always bring tears to my eyes. It is the response of a father whose love for both of his sons has been complete, full, if not always fully repaid. The father simply says, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” In this statement of unconditional love, the father extends an opportunity for loving reconciliation to both sons.
Paul’s words today, from his second letter to the Corinthians, address the extravagant love our Father God has for us, calling this love “the ministry of reconciliation.” As Paul explains, “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them…” The father in the story of the Prodigal Son effects just such a reconciliation with each of his sons. He forgives them with tender mercy for the ways they have wronged him, not holding their trespasses against them, and calls them into full and loving relationship with him—and with each other—once more.
It is our need for such a reconciliation, for such a closeness with our God that brings us to church and may bring us to our knees in prayer. The banquet God prepares for us is celebrated in the communion of the body and blood of Christ. Here at the chapel, we share in God’s loving presence as we break bread together at dinner. Whether it is in the symbolic ritual, the sacrament of communion, or at our potluck, we can experience God in a shared meal. We seek God’s presence in each other, as we hope to exemplify that loving presence within ourselves. As today’s collect beseeches, “Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in him.” Abiding with and within us, Dear Lord, help us to love more perfectly our neighbors as ourselves. AMEN.
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