Progressive reflections on the lectionary #59

Monday 24th March 2025

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32: The prodigal dad

Although the lectionary starts at the beginning of Luke chapter 15 with a set up contextualising Jesus’ series of parables about finding things, it jumps the ‘minor’ stories, and goes straight for the big one, the story variously referred to as ‘the prodigal son’, ‘the lost son’, ‘the forgiving father’ and so on.

In fact this story is stranger than it is generally given out to be, the basic idea that the younger son, clearly an idiot, goes and wastes his inheritance but nevertheless is welcomed home much to his older, grumpier, brother’s chagrin is a Sunday school classic. It works on a plain reading level: “God loves and forgives you no matter how much time you spend doing ‘the wrong thing’.” I am sure that this is a message people need to hear, from time to time - perhaps particularly at the sort of developmental level that sees God as a benign patriarch.

But if we look at the actions of that same benign patriarch in Luke’s story, we find some strangeness which is, perhaps, overlooked a little too often.

In the first place - what on earth was the ‘father’ doing giving the sons their inheritance? What was that about? That would have been extraordinary behaviour for the time. This was a time when the parent, particularly the patriarch, was of much higher rank or value, than the offspring. The social norm was that the property remains held over the child, who in return for their future stake displays suitable filial obligation, up to and including a decent burial.

It is after the death of the pater familias that the property is distributed. A reckless and thankless child may seek to get their ‘inheritance’ early, but there was no normative expectation that this request would be granted, I mean, why would it be? It would leave the father dreadfully exposed.

In this story the first prodigal (reckless spender) is the dad. In defiance of all the norms - in place for good reasons - he hands over a wad of cash to this son. Note, by the way, that both sons receive their inheritance (15: 12), not just one. Precisely what that leaves dear old dad with, is not clear to me.

So the first act of the prodigal dad is to give away his estate, in the second he gives away his dignity. “I may have given away all my estate but at least I have my dign… hold up - here comes the boy back, mind while I tuck my tunic in to my belt and run to greet him.”

The status of a family leader required a certain level of decorum. You have a certain social standing, as a result you are expected to behave accordingly. You should walk, not run, running is a sign of low status and weakness. What you should certainly not do is expose yourself to shame and ridicule. Running like he did would have involved tucking his tunic up into his belt, thereby exposing his ‘nether regions.’ For shame prodigal dad, kindly untuck your toga! The father figure here is apparently blind to humiliation, happy to let it all hang out and lose his social standing.

If the running about with his tackle hanging out wasn’t bad enough, he further lowers his status in the final scene of the story. Here he has killed the fatted calf (presumably part of the elder brother’s inheritance, of course) to celebrate the return of the younger at which point the elder brother hears about it and comes to remonstrate with him. In legal terms his complaints have some justification, of course. This is when prodigal dad does it again, big protocol breach: he leaves the house (where as host he should be looking after the guests and generally lording it up) and goes outside, into the public arena, where his other son publicly upbraids him. This puts him in a very shameful position indeed. What’s worse, the father doesn’t silence this rascal lad (not that he had much hold over him anyway, having already given him his inheritance) but instead weakly pleads with him, attempting to persuade him rather than set him straight.

Prodigal dad is exposed in this parable as being the opposite of what a good first century patriarch should be. He is reckless with his money, he is careless of his dignity, and he is fundamentally too weak to prevent his son from scolding him in public. Bad, bad, prodigal dad, the biggest clown in the whole darn town.

Looking at it from this angle there are a number of ways to develop the theme. An open and relational theologian like me could say: ‘well, here we lean towards a picture of the divine who is actually not able to coerce or constrain us.’ Prodigal dad certainly doesn’t represent the sort of detached, remote, omnipotent sense of divinity that later Christian theology would depend upon so heavily.

A literary critic (ok, again me) might say something like: ‘In Luke’s narration the subject of absurd generosity is variously repeated (cf. The Good Samaritan), given that this document (Luke-Acts)was probably drafted to be used in Paul’s trial, is the evangelist trying to hammer home the idea of generous treatment?’

Other critics might wonder if Luke was really familiar with the conventions of the time and ask whether, perhaps, cultural unfamiliarity might have meant he overlooked the strangeness of the father’s actions in the story. From other elements of the gospel, though, it would appear that he was, indeed, aware of the sort of social obligations on the family members.

Where the lectionary doesn’t help us here is in missing out the preceding parables about similarly absurd behaviour. The shepherd who leave NINETY NINE sheep to fend for themselves while he tries to find ONE? I’m sorry, what? Who on earth thinks that’s a good idea? That shepherd wouldn’t have lasted long in his job.

Or the woman who loses a coin, uses precious oil to help her find it and then throws a lavish party to celebrate. Say what? You are spending a lot of money to celebrate having found ONE coin? I mean, is it me, or are the economics out of whack here?

In each story the actions are absurd, the shepherd, the woman, the prodigal dad, they are wasteful and ridiculous. They overturn not just the conventions of their time, but of our time too. Why would you do any of these things? This, for many, represents the “scandal” of grace. The absurd nature of divine love for temporal beings that goes beyond any sense of what is normative, what is sensible, what is, in any way, practical.

Those who are interested in such things might also like to note the uncanny parallels between the story of the prodigal dad/lad and that found in the fourth chapter of the Lotus Sutra - there are differences, but the similarities are striking.

In the Lotus Sutra we get the story of a wealthy man who has a long estranged son. The son, unaware of his father's wealth and love, lives in miserable poverty, eventually coming home to the father’s house (without realising it) to try and get work as a labourer. When the father saw him he immediately “recognized him and his heart rejoiced greatly.”

He then uses skillful means to gradually help him regain confidence and understand his true inheritance. The Lotus Sutra is younger than Luke’s gospel, perhaps by 100 years, and it portrays the Buddha figure in an unusual way - as someone of high status rather than as a humble man - as a result some feel that this indicates the influence of the Christian story on Buddhism in the second century CE. Certainly Christianity had reached the Indian subcontinent by that time, so everything is possible. At the very least its an interesting parallel to draw, emphasising the importance of compassion and unearned love in both traditions.

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Image: Sidewalk wisdom. Photo by Brandi Alexandra on Unsplash