The Prodigal Son
Every couple of months of so I get an invitation to explain Christianity to a class at a local art institute named “Myth, Magic and Ritual”. It’s an opportunity I always look forward to and am never disappointed. Many of the students have little positive experience or knowledge of Christianity so I always make a point of telling the story of the Prodigal Son (also known as the parable of the Lost Son) out of Luke 15. For some of these students it is the first time they’ve ever heard the story. At that point in my lecture they are usually riveted to what for many of us is common and familiar, this father sprinting down the path to embrace his lost so before the village elders can exclude him for crimes against the village. Our hearts long for this vision of a saving, loving, rescuing God.
The Younger Brother’s Speech Writer
Most Christians believe the son repents because of the misery of the far away pig pen. Kenneth Bailey who has spent a lifetime as a Bible scholar living in the Middle East believes this isn’t the case. He notes that the younger brother, the rebellious one, concocts the speech he’ll give to his father as a self-serving way of escaping the calamity of his previous self-service. Bailey looks at how the eastern church translated “he returned to himself” and it never implied “repented”.
The force of all three stories of Luke 15 (lost sheep, lost coin, lost son) is that a rescuer must come otherwise the sheep, the coin and the son will remain lost. The son’s monologue is in the son’s mind an attempt to improve his lot, now since his original plan to improve his lot has proven to be disastrous for all involved.
Before the son is able to finish the speech and ask to be made a servant, the father has his own speech to give. It is not manipulative, it is not a speech to convince, it isn’t even given to his son. He orders his servants to restore him and do so quickly.
The son’s speech as many fail to notice is not original to the younger son. This was the same speech that Pharaoh gives to Moses after the plague of locusts has destroyed his country. Pharaoh and the younger brother both anticipate a negotiation. Neither Yhwh, nor the father of Luke 15 will negotiate.
Two Speeches, Two Outcomes Continue reading
