A Tale of Two Sons

The parable of the Prodigal Son has been called the gospel within the gospel, the most beautiful short story ever told. It is found only in Luke (15:11–32), and if it alone was in that Gospel it would be worth the whole book. I believe that at the heart of this story Jesus Christ has described in words—as he described in the deeds of his life, death, and resurrection—what the heart of God the Father is like. The parable speaks of a human father, but Jesus is telling it from close acquaintance with God the Father. It is worthwhile to consider the story line by line.

Now a certain man had two sons (v. 11).

This parable has come home to me recently. I have two sons. One is out of adolescence, and one should be. Like so many oldest children, my older son is the “good one.” (The good one turns out to be bad in this story, so “good” belongs in quotation marks.) Our oldest son has always been the more mature one in doing what he’s told. Our second son is more spunky and rebellious. Parents think of the obedient, mature-acting older sons as somehow better, but it is striking that the “good” older brother is the deep problem in this story. Under consideration now, though, is the younger.

The younger of the two sons came to his father and he said to him, “Father, please give me that part of the inheritance which is mine” (v. 12).

The younger brother came to his father and said, “Father.” I’m pleased that he addresses him that way. The older brother’s speech at the end of the passage is not as respectful.

But the younger brother asks, “Father, please give me that part of the inheritance which belongs to me.” Isn’t this the vocabulary of many sons to their fathers: “Give me”? Sometimes we fathers have the feeling that we’re loved more for what we have than for what we are. It was not at all thoughtful for the younger brother to ask for his inheritance ahead of time.

Our older son recently needed money for graduate school. At one point of desperation he came to us and said, “Would it be all right to ask Grandpa for my inheritance ahead of time?” We said, “Son, that wouldn’t be good for your grandfather. It is, in effect, like asking him to drop dead: ‘I wish you were dead, because I want what you have.’ ” Too many parents have received this loveless expression from their children.

And the father gave to both boys the family inheritance (v. 12).

Three times in this story the father makes loving moves: the first comes here. It happens at a surprising time, after the insensitive expression of the son. But we must notice it, because it is part of the father’s nature. The father agrees to the son’s request. He gave them—both boys—the family inheritance.

The first loving thing that father did was to let his younger boy go. He saw the rebellious gleam in his son’s eye. He knew that his boy’s intentions were not good. He could have given him a moral lecture or denied an early inheritance. But apparently there comes a time in a parent’s life when one lets go. In the first chapter of Romans, Paul calls this the wrath of God. But Luke seems to be describing it as a part of the love of God. The Greek here translated “the family inheritance” could also be translated “the family living.” The word in question is bios, denoting life at its most basic. The English word “biology” is drawn from it. The story, then, presents a perfect doctrine of Creation. God gives us free rein. If we want to go, if we don’t want to stick around the house, he lets us go.

Not many days thereafter the son took absolutely everything he had, turned it into cash, and he took off for a far country. And there he wasted his substance in reckless living (v. 13).

This boy wanted to get as far away as possible, as soon as possible. (Incidentally, is part of the reason for his wanting to leave the elder brother? We learn a lot about the elder brother in his brief speech at the end of the story, and we ought to take it into account.) “Not many days thereafter”—meaning as soon as possible—“he took everything and converted it into cash,” which may have meant selling the third of the farm his father gave him.

He “took off for a far country.” It is interesting Jesus never uses the words “sin” or “grace,” or any marvelous theological terms, in his parable. The story is human, with earthy words. “Far country” is a classic picture of rebellion; it describes the human state.

The son went into the far country and “wasted his substance in reckless living.” Economists define sin as waste, and we say idiomatically, “he got wasted.” We all know of men and women who have great minds and waste them, or bodies that are specimens of health and waste them. Opportunities are wasted. “Waste” is an excellent description of the lost life. This boy wasted his substance, his inheritance, his being—his bios—on reckless living.

Now when he had spent everything, a famine hit that country and the boy began to go under. And he went out and he joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who in turn sent him out to feed his pigs. And the boy was longing to fill his belly with the pods the pigs were eating. And no one gave him a blessed thing (vv. 14–16).

When it rains it pours. He has spent everything, and now the environment gives out. I have to be careful in stating this, but if it had gone well in the far country and if God’s providence had not allowed a famine there, maybe the son would not have eventually gone back home. Can we sometimes interpret our own catastrophes and our own famines through the love of God, not his wrath? Do the catastrophes sometimes bring us home?

When the son began to go under, “he went out and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country.” I admire this boy in that he at least looked for work. He didn’t wire home for money. He had a little initiative: he got a job feeding pigs. This, of course, is a mark of degradation for the Orthodox Jew.

And it was so bad that he was longing to fill his belly with the pods the pigs were eating. A lot of the longings of people in the “far countries” are about this high and about this noble. Our hearts go out to them, for that for which they long is not really substantial. It is way beneath their human dignity, what they actually should have in the sight of God.

The last thing to give out on the boy was other people. His own substance gave out and his environment gave out. His last illusion might have been that people are basically good. Proverbs 14:20 reads: “The poor man is an offense even to his neighbors, but the rich man has many friends.” When the boy had money, he had plenty of friends. But when he was not doing so well it was hard to find those friends. Nobody gave him a thing. The human race is not God and the human race finally does not come through in the clutch.

Now, when the boy came to himself he said, “How many hired hands of my father are swimming in bread and I’m here starving. I’m dying. I know what I’ll do. I’ll get up and I’ll go back to my father and I’ll say, ‘Father, I sinned against heaven and against you. I don’t deserve to be called your son anymore. Make me like one of your hired hands’ ” (vv. 17–19).

At this point comes the line that begins to depict the turnabout: “when the boy came to himself.” On the whole, the self does not get a good press in the New Testament. We are told to deny ourselves; the person who seeks his self will lose it, the person who loses his self will find it. But this is one of those few texts indicating that, when we consult our self, we are only one step from God.

Tertullian said the anima naturaliter Christianus, the human soul is naturally a Christian. It is a dangerous sentence. We don’t believe, like Unitarians, that there is a divine spark within, and all one needs is to gently fan the spark. But there is a sense in which the self is God’s creature, and when we really consult our very best personal interest we begin to think of the Father.

“When the boy came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands are swimming in bread.’ ” Pelagius and Augustine debated furiously on this text. Pelagius said it is the human person—not God—who must take the initiative, and until the son came back the father did nothing. Since the father here represents God, the human will comes first in conversion.

But notice what the son is thinking of: “How many of my father’s hired hands.…” It is the memory of a good father that beckons him back. If that father had not been just to his employees, if that father had not given decent food to those who worked for him, the son would never have gone back. The father had implanted the good memory of his own character in his son’s conscience, and it was the father, through that memory, beckoning the son. Augustine wins: God’s grace comes first and then our response. Without that grace we do not have the will, we do not have the power, we do not have even the desire to go after the Father.

The boy says he is starving. He is dying. When a person can say, “I’m dying,” he is not far from the Father. “I’m dying. I am not at all where I am supposed to be: I am a son, I am a daughter of God the Father, and yet I am dying. I know what I will do. I will get up, I will go back to my Father.…”

I admire the son for being absolutely straight. He invents no excuses. He is not blaming the weather or the famine, or saying that his friends didn’t come through. He is going to tell his father he sinned. And somehow that has its own power. When we come clean, when we confess our sins, “he is faithful, he is just, he will forgive us our sins, cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9).

Notice Jesus’ realism at this point. The boy is not portrayed as having noble motives for his return. He is not going back because he broke his father’s heart. He is going back because he is not eating well and he wants a better meal. Jesus knows human beings. Our motives in coming to Christ are not always as high as they ought to be. But God will take us no matter how we come. He will use every secular, material, physical motive. Jesus does not describe the motive of the younger son as a bit more noble than wanting to have a good meal.

So the boy got up and he started back (v. 20).

This text was a deep help to my wife and me after ten years as missionaries in the Philippines. We were emotionally, physically, and spiritually exhausted. The ten years had not been happy or productive. I had not been a good missionary. And I did not want to have ten more years of not being good at whatever I was to be. But I didn’t have the physical or spiritual energy to fulfill whatever conditions were necessary for God to bless and help make my ministry better. This text helped me. It said, “Just start back. The Father does all the rest.” That is clear from the very next line.

Now when he was still a long ways off his father saw him and his heart went out to him and he ran and threw himself around his son. And he embraced him and kissed him much (v. 20).

This text says to all persons who are weary and not close to God, not renewed as we want to be: Just face the Father, he will do the rest. This second move is the greatest move of all the father’s three actions of love. “Now while he was still a long ways off …,” it reads. The Greek for “long ways off” is the same word used earlier in the text for “far” country. It conveys the idea that the father, every night after work, stood on the brow of the hill. He stood and looked out over the valley and hills, searching the distant far country for that dot.

And one day he could tell that one particular dot was his son, so “while the boy was still a long ways off the father saw his son and his heart went out to him. And he ran.…” Picture the father running down the valleys and up the hills, running to his son. And finally, he fell on the boy and “embraced him and kissed him much.”

The major theological criticism made of this parable is that there is no Cross in it, that it tends to be sentimental. It is said to depict a God who is so much a God of love that there is no justice, no holiness. The father’s run and unconditional forgiveness are thought to say to all the wayward, in effect, “You can run away and there won’t be any price, there won’t be any probation. Simply come back and we will wink at everything you have done.”

That is the criticism. But I submit that in the father’s run there is the intimation of Jesus Christ coming to the cross. The father’s run is that terrible sprint from heaven to the wood. There is holiness, there is justice. Someone had to pay a price, and the Father paid it. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself.

So the father ran to his son. And his next action was amazing. He did not wait for his son’s apology or confession. All he wanted was the son. He was thrilled that his son was there, and he threw himself around the boy before he could get more than a few words out. He embraced his son before the son completed a confession of sin.

The boy said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and you, and I don’t deserve to be called your son.” The father interrupted him. He said to his servants, “Quick, get the best robe and put it on him. Put the ring on his finger, put sandals on his feet. And go, get the fatted calf, kill it, and let’s have a party because this my son was dead—he’s come back to life. He was lost and he’s been found” (vv. 21–24).

As if to suggest he is not interested in the confession, the father interrupts and tells the servants to get the boy a robe, ring, and sandals. Interestingly, the father never speaks verbally and directly to the younger son in this entire parable. He speaks, as it were, physically and sacramentally. The sacraments are God’s hugs—they are God physically approaching and touching us.

The main thing a father gives to his son, and the best way he communicates with his son, is by acting and touching. This father is saying many things about God the Father by what he does. The “best robe” he gives, for example, is a marvelous picture of absolute justification. As the Heidelberg Catechism puts it, God imputes and grants to us the perfect righteousness, satisfaction, and holiness of Jesus Christ, as if we had never ever sinned or committed any sin. But the robe of righteousness is not all.

The ring symbolized power. It was used as a kind of signature: with it the son had power to sign and validate official documents. This is an excellent symbol of the power and the gift of the Holy Spirit, who is given to us. We have power to act in God’s name. We are sanctified.

Lastly, the boy is given sandals. It is reminiscent of the slave spiritual, “I’ve got shoes, you’ve got shoes, / All of God’s children got shoes.” Slaves were not able to wear shoes, but shoes are given to the boy. He is treated as a son. The returned prodigal is indeed rich. He has the robe of righteousness, the ring of power, and the shoes of adoption.

We, too, are rich, though we sometimes fail to recognize it. We in the Reformed tradition neglect God’s hugs—the sacraments that are him touching and loving us. We need a deeper appreciation of baptism, for we receive many gifts in baptism. How much we should appreciate that open heaven, that dove Spirit, the voice saying “My son.” Jesus inaugurated baptism in his own person, and with it we were given the three gifts of justification, sanctification, and adoption.

Baptism is one great sacrament. The second one is the Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper. I hope I am not overinterpreting the parable when I find in it that meal symbolizing fellowship and joy. The Eu in Eucharist means “good,” and charis is the root of our word “caress.” The Lord’s Supper is the good caress. In that sacrament God comes spiritually and physically and touches us, and he says, “I love you.”

Catholics call our Protestant church services “dry masses.” They say we get halfway there and then stop. We minister the Word but we don’t touch. It will be a good day if we again observe the sacrament every Sunday, as Luther and Calvin intended it. Then our words, our reading of Scripture and preaching, will be supplemented by the actual embrace—the good caress.

Now the elder brother was back in the field and as he came in toward the househe heard the music and the dancing and he summoned one of the servants. He said, “What’s going on in there?” The servant said, “Your brother is back and your father’s killed the fatted calf because he’s received him in one piece.”

The brother was furious. He would not go in, so the father came out and pled with him (vv. 25–28).

The older brother was back in the field. The Greek word for older here, believe it or not, is presbuterous. He is the “Presbyterian” son. The Presbyterian, naturally, was out in the field, dutifully working. He was doing what he ought to be doing, and as he approached the house he heard the sound of music and dancing. This is always suspicious to Puritan types. Remember H. L. Mencken’s definition of a Puritan: a person with a haunting fear that someone, somewhere is happy. So to the Presbyterian son it did not look good.

He summoned his servant and asked what was going on. The servant told him his brother was home and his father had killed the fatted calf to celebrate. The older brother, infuriated, won’t go into the house. And here it is actually easier to love the prodigal, who at least headed home. Not so the self-righteous elder brother.

Then comes the third and last great, loving move of the father in the parable. “The father came out and pled with him.” That little line means many things, but it means at least this: God also loves Christians. It is good news. I know he loves the sinner; the whole Scripture is filled with that message. But does he love self-righteous Presbyterians and other Christians? This text says much more than that but nothing less. He also loves us—“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saves a self-righteous prig like me.”

But the boy said, “Look, I have slaved for you all these years. I’ve never broken one of your commandments. And yet what doI get for it? You’ve never even killed a shriveled-up old goat so that I could have a party for my friends. But when this, this son of yours comes back who has blown the family inheritance on whores, you kill a fatted calf for him” (vv. 28–30).

The father pled with the boy, and then the older boy gave a speech. But his opening words are not as respectful as those of the younger brother at the beginning of the story. Instead, he speaks as if his father can’t see, is in fact blind and stupid. “Look,” he says, and continues, “I have slaved for you all these years.” Slavery is how he conceives of his work with his father. “I have never broken your commandment,” he says (what about the commandment of love?).

“Yet,” the elder brother complains, “you’ve never even killed a shriveled-up old goat for me so that I could have a party with my friends. But when this son of yours.…” Notice that it is not “this brother of mine.” The same thing happens in our home. I say, “Kathy, do you know what your son did?” There is a shift in language, as if my son’s misdeeds are my wife’s responsibility or fault.

The angry son finishes, “When this son of yours comes back who has blown the family inheritance on whores, you killed a fatted calf for him.” The eldest is saying, in effect, “I don’t get you. I think you are weak.” Many husbands say this to their wives. I do. In a sense, then, the father in this story depicts a mother’s love more than a typical father’s love. I don’t intend to be sexist, but I think that a mother’s love is more unconditional than that of most fathers. It has been said that mothers understand home as a nest and fathers understand it as a boot camp. The fathers’ questions are usually, “Did you get a job? Do you have summer work?” The mother asks, “Are you happy? Are you loved?” So there is something unusual about the love of the father in this parable. But the oldest boy thinks his father lacks character and backbone. He thinks he lacks justice and is hurting the community.

The father said to his son, “My child, you are constantly with me. Absolutely everything I have is yours. But it was right for us to have this party because this your brother was dead. He’s alive. He was lost but he’s been found” (vv. 31–32).

The father replied gently, “My child.” There are two Greek words he could have used here, teknon or huios. He used teknon, the more tender of the two. “My child,” he said, “you are constantly with me.” Notice the present tense verbs: “You are constantly with me,” “everything I have is yours.” The angry speech the son has just given has made no difference in the father’s benevolence. “You are constantly with me. Absolutely everything I have is yours. But it was right for us to have this party because this your brother was dead. He’s alive. He was lost but he’s been found.”

This is the message of the story. To all prodigals and younger siblings, chronologically or spiritually: Come home, the father is good. And to all elder brothers and sisters, chronologically or spiritually: Come into the house, enjoy the feast—the father is good.

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