THE PARABLE OF THE LOST SON
[ Also known as the Parable of the Prodigal Son ]
Luke 15:11-32
[11] Then he said, "A man had two sons, [12] and the younger son said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.' So the father divided the property between them. [13] After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings and set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation. [14] When he had freely spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he found himself in dire need. [15] So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens who sent him to his farm to tend the swine. [16] And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody gave him any. [17] 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. [18] I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. [19] I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers." [20] So he got up and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. [21] His son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son.' [22] But his father ordered his servants, 'Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. [23] Take the fattened calf and slaughter it. Then let us celebrate with a feast, [24] because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.' Then the celebration began. [25] 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. [26] He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean. [27] 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.' [28] He became angry, and when he refused to enter the house, his father came out and pleaded with him. [29] He said to his father in reply, 'Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. [30] But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.' [31] He said to him, 'My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. [32] 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.’”
INTRODUCTION
This third parable in the series of three parables (the first is the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the second is the Parable of the Lost Coin) repeats the principal point of the former two: that God gladly receives repentant sinners. However, the third parable stresses still other important points: The joy of the father in the first part of the parable contrasts with the grumbling of the elder brother in the second part. The love of the father was equal for both his sons. Thus the parable teaches that God wants all people to experience salvation and to enter the kingdom. "This parable is often called ‘The Prodigal Son,' but it is really about different reactions to the prodigal. The key reaction is that of the father, who is excited to receive his son back. Thus a better name for the parable, according to some commentators, is 'The Forgiving Father.' A sub-theme is the reaction of the older brother, so that one can subtitle the parable with the addendum: 'and the Begrudging Brother’.
VERSE BY VERSE ANALYSIS
Verses 11-12
The man in the story had two sons, a younger and an older one. Therefore the younger son's inheritance would normally have been one-third of his father's estate since the older son would have received a double portion or two-thirds (Deuteronomy 21:17). Since the father is still alive, the sons have no right to ask for their inheritance. They will inherit only after the death of the father. The younger son, in disregard not only of the law but also of the culture of their time, shamelessly demands from the father his share of the inheritance. It is like saying to the father, “I cannot wait for you to die. I want my share now.” The father's willingness to accommodate his younger son's request shows that he was gracious and generous.
In the parable, the younger son represents sinners and the father represents God. Here, the attitude of the younger son reveals the nature of sin as a selfish desire to live independently of God.
Verse 13
The younger son converted his share of the inheritance to cash and went abroad, where he squandered his money on debauchery and riotous living. He led a life of sin.
Verse 14
He spent all his money and became penniless. This is what usually happens to people who overindulge in vices of all sorts.
Verse 15
Feeding pigs was, of course, unclean work for a Jew and a job that any self-respecting Jew would only do out of total desperation (Leviticus 11:7). The fact that the prodigal son was reduced to tending pigs in order to survive --- he became defiled by coming into contact with the pigs --- shows that he had reached the extreme limit of poverty and degradation. He had sunk so low that no one showed him any compassion. The Pharisees and the scribes would have recognized this young man as representing the sinners and tax-collectors whom they despised.
Verse 16
The prodigal son wanted to eat even the feed for pigs, which is not fit for human consumption. But even this feed for pigs, nobody would give him.
Verse 17
"Coming to his senses" is an idiom that indicates repentance. He changed his mind about his attitude and decided to make a change in his behavior.
Verses 18 and 19
He decided to go back to his father to ask forgiveness. He thought out what to say: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers." The young man meant that he viewed his actions as sin against his father and against God. The son's proposal to his father shows the genuineness of his humility and repentance. He was willing to serve his father as a hired worker since his father had a reputation for paying his servants generously.
Here, there is a division of opinion among commentators. Some believe that the repentance of the prodigal son was motivated by the fact that he was hungry and he needed to return to the father’s home so he could work and survive. In this view, there was yet no genuine repentance. The genuine repentance will come later when the father will receive the prodigal son with love and, only at that point, will the prodigal son come into genuine repentance.
Other commentators believe that the prodigal son’s confession that he has sinned against heaven and against his father, coupled with his willingness to receive the punishment for his sin of being demoted from a son to a hired worker is a manifestation of genuine repentance. I agree with this point of view, especially because the prodigal son represents sinners and tax-collectors and their coming to Christ in repentance paves the way for their salvation. The prodigal son’s coming back to the father to ask forgiveness, after a life of sin, dramatizes the coming to Christ of repentant sinners.
Verses 20, 21 and 22
While the prodigal son was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. The father ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him repeatedly. When the prodigal son left the father in the circumstances described in the parable, we can reasonably assume that the incident became the talk of the village. What the prodigal did was reprehensible and he must have earned the odium of the village folks. The father ran to meet the son and kissed him repeatedly so his son will not walk alone under the sarcasm of the village folks. The father also wanted the village folks to see that he was not angry with his son and that he wanted the village folks to welcome his son.
The father ordered the servants to put on his son a robe, a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. The robe is a symbol of honor. The ring signifies authority. The sandals signify that the prodigal son was being welcomed as a son and not as a servant. Servants went about barefooted.
Verse 23
The father ordered the servants to slaughter the fattened calf. A fattened calf is too big for just a family celebration. This means that the father wanted a village feast where he was going to invite the village folks to celebrate with him the return of his son who was lost and is now found.
Verse 24
The reason for the feast, according to the father, was “because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.” This statement of the father means that the prodigal son was forgiven, was restored to the status of a son and was fully reconciled with the father.
THE OLDER BROTHER (15:25-32)
Verses 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30
The elder bother resented the feast and inflicted an insult on his father by refusing to participate in the feast hosted by his father and quarreling with him. The older son boasted of what he had done for his father, unlike his younger brother who took his inheritance and squandered it all in loose-living. Clearly he felt that the father's response should reflect justice rather than grace. He was counting on a reward commensurate with his work (cf. Matthew 20: 1-15). This hardly reflects a loving relationship. He hasn't stayed home because he loved his father, but because working in his fields was a way to get what he wanted. The parable pictures the older brother, symbolic of the Pharisees and scribes, as working hard for the father. The Jews as well as the Jewish religious leaders likewise enjoyed the privileged status of an older brother in the human family because God had chosen them for special blessing (Genesis 19:5-6). Similarly the Pharisees grumbled because God received sinners and welcomed them into His Kingdom.
Verses 31 and 32
The father, instead of castigating his elder son for his insolence, responded with a show of humble love. Leaving the guests already assembled, the father personally went out of the house to plead with his elder son. “My child” is an affectionate response of the insulted father. The words “you are always with me” and “all I have is yours” have a double purpose. First, they are meant to correct the purely legalistic approach of the elder son to ownership within the family; if the young man really loved his father and trusted him, he would know that he needed no permission to kill a goat or a fattened calf in order to feast with his friends, since true love between father and son necessarily meant mutual sharing of everything. Secondly, they are meant to reassure the elder son that he will not lose any of his hereditary rights with the return of his younger brother.
The father concludes by inviting the elder son to the feast to “celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.” Here we see the invitation of Christ to the listeners --- the Pharisees and the scribes --- to join him in welcoming repentant sinners.
Thus the parable teaches that God loves sinners; that God searches for sinners; that God restores repentant sinners; and that God confers the privileges and blessings of sonship on those who repent and return to Him.
APPLICATIONS AND REFLECTIONS
First Reflection. Sin is always fundamentally a selfish desire for independence, a desire to live our life far from God, instead of receiving it from his hand. God appears as the one thwarting our fulfillment, as an enemy instead of a father. Hence, there is a yearning to leave him in order to go away and enjoy life far from his embarrassing presence, taking with us everything he has given us since our birth.
This description may seem harsh, but it is true. In theory, we know very well that God wants our true happiness, that his law is wholly directed towards securing our authentic fulfillment, that his love is unconditional and that the need for our obedience to him is for our own good. But all this fades into the background and loses all power of persuasion at the moment of temptation. For it is the specific effect of temptation to present to our eyes the forbidden fruit as a delicious and infinitely desirable object. And then in comparison, God's law seems very hard and arbitrary. Why does he forbid this pleasure, this relationship, and this behavior? To the prodigal son who was dreaming of the distant land and its enticements, the presence of his father could only have a dampening effect.
However, sin soon reveals itself for what it is. The marvelous distant land, at the beginning so full of delights and exhilarating experiences, proves little by little to be a desert. The mirage of the distant land fades away and is substituted by an awful emptiness, without love. For how indeed can there be love in the sphere of sin, when "love comes from God" (1 John 4:7) and when sin is the rejection of God? Actually every sin, because it is a choice in favor of the self, is always an act of selfishness, the very opposite of love. That is why, in the distant land where the prodigal son emigrated, there was only the desert of pleasure without love. And as the human heart is made to love, it ultimately finds in this land utter disenchantment. One has only to frequent certain "fun" spots to measure how much sadness there is in sin. This is the bitter lesson the prodigal son had to learn.
By forbidding us sin, God is merely seeking to spare us these bitter experiences. For "the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life" (Romans 6:23).
Second Reflection. The parable teaches us that God is a loving Father. If the loving fathers on earth know how to forgive, how much more so does God. He is the one who ceaselessly welcomes His prodigal sons without ever tiring from it. Now Jesus, the perfect revelation of the Father, is like him. His enemies accused him of being “the friend of tax-collectors and sinners” (Luke 7:34). They were right. Jesus was and still is the friend of sinners. This means that, if I am a sinner, Jesus is my friend.
Third Reflection. Once settled in the distant land, the prodigal began to live with bad company. His life became a string of clamorous revelries, parties and orgies. Everything was drowned in noise, agitation, frenzy. With money and wine being poured out so freely, he was surely never alone. One always finds friends in such circumstances.
Besides, what would he have done with a solitude he did not in the least desire? It might have reminded him of his father, and him he wanted to forget. There is therefore the need for constant noise, comings and goings. And there was also the fact that the "jet set" of the big city was so fascinating with its fashions and its peculiar chic! How many things he had to learn in order to have people forget he was at bottom only a country lad with no urban sophistication. His new friends told him how to go about it.
This is what the prodigal son has become: a pleasure-seeker and a noise-addict, a puppet in the hands of his so-called friends, a too generous young simpleton whom everyone takes advantage of shamelessly. From the free man he was in his father's house, he has become the slave of a social class, and soon a hired hand tending pigs.
Are we not sometimes like that, naively at the pursuit of pleasure? Don’t we sometimes have a yearning to being entertained, amused and feted? Solitude scares us. We think we are freeing ourselves in order to be ourselves, and we discover that we are less free than ever, at the mercy of the latest fad or fashion or slogan --- the so-called “in-thing.”
Man cannot be without a master. If he chooses himself as his master, he will be the slave of his whims and egotism. If he chooses God as his master, he will know "the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Romans 8:21).
Fourth Reflection. We all know the type of persons who are wholly dedicated to their duty, but in a way which is peculiar to them. They are not content with executing their duty in the best way they can. They are "nailed" to their duty, "victims" of their duty. And the worst of it all is that they draw from this a secret satisfaction, self-complacency from the fact that in their own eyes they are haloed with the glory of martyrdom. In the last analysis, when they serve others "out of duty," it is themselves they serve; it is their statue they sculpt. They serve, but they do not love.
The elder son belonged to this category of people. As regards his father, he describes himself in terms of a servant: "Look how many years I've been serving you." He does not love his father, he serves him. If he really loved his father, he would be able to understand his joy at the return of the prodigal, and he would even rejoice with him from the bottom of his heart, without mental reservations or envy. But because he does not really love his father, he is unable to enter into the father's paternal feelings. He sees his brother as a renegade, instead of seeing him as the loved son of his father.
A Christian who professes to love God cannot close his heart to those whom the Father loves. Now the Father loves all his children. Just as "he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good" (Matthew 5:45), he makes his love rise on his children who have stayed at home and on his lost children.
And we cannot love him without at the same time; sharing the feelings of his heart for those who are afar. When our Father tells us, "all I have is yours," he is referring not only to all the things of this world, but also to all persons of this world. All of them whoever they may be, whatever their spiritual or moral state, are his and --- if we are prepared to accept the lesson of this parable in its fullest sense -- ours too.
Fifth Reflection. The elder son remonstrates against his younger brother. He at least has never left home unlike that good-for-nothing young brother of his. He at least stayed permanently at their father's side. Many of us are also inclined to think like that, when we compare ourselves with those we consider as being "lost." We at least have never left the Church, denied our faith, led a wanton life. We have always frequented the Sacraments, given to charities, became personally involved in support of worthy causes, and prayed regularly. For years we have always remained at the side of our Father.
All this is well and good. But that is not the point. The point is rather this: how have we done it, in what spirit do we do it still? If, while remaining a "good Christian," I am eyeing all the time the loose-living and the good-timers, envying their freedom, secretly aspiring to go through similar "experiences" but not daring to do so, then I am not any better than the elder son who dreams only of carousals far from his father. It is possible that I have exteriorly stayed with my Father, but my heart was as far from Him as was that of the elder son. In order to be with God, it is not enough to inhabit His House, one must inhabit His Heart.
Sixth Reflection. Whatever our state of estrangement from God, this can be true only from our side of the picture. If sometimes we are far from God because of our sin, he is never far from us. On his side of the picture, distance does not exist. To each one God can say, as the father said to the elder son: "My child, you're always with me." How indeed could He be far from us, since "in Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts 17:28). Unceasingly He gives us his heart: "All I have is yours." This constant nearness of our Father, this supreme gift of love He gives to us (Romans 8: 37-39), is like a spring of water. It is up to us to drink from it. All the yearnings of our hearts for nearness to God draw us to it.
EDUARDO R. CENIZA, JR
Makati City, Philippines
