We have become accustomed to movies having sequels. After The Godfather you get The Godfather, Part II; Fast and Furious One leads to Fast and Furious Fifty-Seven or whatever current number is. In addition, if a movie is really successful, they will at times make not only a sequel but also a prequel, a movie that tells what happened before. For example, Rogue One is a prequel to the Star Wars movies. What would a prequel to the Parable of the Prodigal Son look like? The parable itself is certainly beloved, deserving of an extended treatment. The unconditional love of the father toward his two wayward sons gives us a powerful image of the love that God has for us. What happens, though, if we imagine what preceded the events described in the parable? Would that change the way we interpret the parable? Why did the younger son want to split town? Could it be that his father was a harsh disciplinarian, having expectations that the boy had a hard time living up to. Did he always feel he was being squashed in his personal life? While there is nothing admirable in wasting his inheritance on wine, women and song there might be a reasonable explanation for the boy seeking to escape the stifling atmosphere at home. And the older son might have felt some of the same resentment although he didn’t act out as his brother did. When the younger boy says, “Treat me as one of your hired servants,” is he echoing words that he heard from his brother? Did the older boy feel like he was being treated as a servant and not as a beloved child? Was the relationship between the two strained because the older son resented that his brother managed to get a life on his own terms while he felt stuck by the duties that fell on him as the first born? Was the father, so accepting at the end of the story, at least partially responsible for the situation because he never managed to communicate to his sons the love and care that he had for them? Was he so obsessed with keeping the family farm going that his sons experienced him more as a slave driver than as someone they wanted to wrap in an embrace of love. Was the father’s over the top celebration at the return of the younger boy an attempt to overcompensate for his neglect that he realized contributed to driving his son away? Did the older son think that his father was throwing a lavish party for his brother with money that should have gone to him? The Bible doesn’t provide any information about whatever led up to the events depicted in the parable. But the three characters as Jesus described them are recognizable and relatable so posing questions like these might give us a fresh way of drawing a message from the teaching of Jesus.
One lesson: the spiritual life Jesus invites us to share is a human life. The author of Hebrews reminds us that Jesus did not come to save angels but to save human beings. We, all of us human beings, are flawed, damaged, needy. The gap between the life of compassion that Jesus wants for us and our actual lives can seem a bridge too far. We all too easily imagine that living in God is meant for those who are better than us, those who have their acts together. How can God expect me to be holy when I am such a mess? I’ll just try to be decent. The parable of the Prodigal Son teaches us that, in fact, it is our flawed selves who are called to live the life of love, compassion and forgiveness. As the Vatican Council put it, there is a universal call to holiness — even for the likes of you and me.
Another thought: the parable teaches us that in the end love is what matters … but it’s not easy. We admire the father in the story because he demonstrates the love he has for his wayward sons. Jesus wants us to understand that kind of unconditional love is exactly what God offers to us. Whenever we take one step toward God, God comes running with a divine embrace toward us. God accepts us and forgives us and celebrates us. But as the parable illustrates sharing unconditional love can get complicated. The father in celebrating his younger son inadvertently injured his older son. He tried to communicate that he had the same kind of unconditional love for both his boys but the elder didn’t seem to be buying it. Anyone who grew up in a family knows how complicated love can be. Who did mom really love best? The lesson we should draw from the parable, perhaps, is you’ve got to try, you’ve got to communicate the love you have the best way you know how and we must receive the love offered to us in the spirit in which it was given.
Jesus stops the parable before a “happily ever after” ending. We don’t know if the older son accepted the father’s offer of love, came into the party and was reconciled with his brother. Or did he stay outside and pout, feeling he wasn’t given the respect which was his due. For that matter, we don’t know if the younger son had truly reformed. Did his return to his father signal that he had learned his lesson or was it simply a desperate move by an addict which would quickly dissipate once his belly and purse were full again? And did the father learn to communicate to his sons that the love he had for them mattered more than any successful business deal? We don’t know. Jesus deliberately left the parable open ended so that we would have to complete them in our own lives. No matter the prequel of our lives, it is how we give and receive love today that puts us on the road to wholeness and holiness.
