Gospel Notes by Michael Whelan SM
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So he told them this parable.
“There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.
“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’” (Luke 15: 1-3 & 11–32 – NRSV)
Introductory notes
General
Chapter 15 occupies a special place in Luke’s Gospel. The three parables – the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son, “are so distinctive of the Lucan portrait of Jesus that this part of his account has been called ‘the heart of the Third Gospel’ (L. Ramaroson, “Le coeur”) (Joseph A Fitzmyer, The Gospel according to Luke X–XXIV: introduction, translation, and notes (Vol. 28A), New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008, 1071).
The so-called parable of the prodigal son is unique to Luke. It is arguably one of the truly great stories of the Western canon of literature. “Regarded as ‘the greatest of all His [Jesus’] parables’ (J. E. Compton), it has, more than any other Gospel passage, entered into varied discussions and presentations of human conduct. From the earliest patristic commentaries on this parable (e.g. of Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Ambrose, Jerome, and Augustine), it has been the subject of elaborate interpretation and recognized as an authentic commentary of Jesus of Nazareth on an all-too-familiar human situation. It has lent itself as a subject for great painters (Dürer, Beham, Rembrandt, L. Bassano, G. van Honthorst), dramatists (Tudor Dramatists; Gascoigne’s Glasse of Government), choreographers (Balanchine), musicians (Animuccia, Prokofiev, Britten), litterateurs (A. Gide, L’Enfant prodigue), and philosophers (Nietzsche). One has only to look at the elaborate bibliography on this story in W. S. Kissinger, Parables of Jesus, 351–370—scarcely exhaustive—to get an impression of the many ways in which this parable has been reworked. Moreover, parallels to it have been uncovered in Babylonian and Canaanite literature, in the Lotus Sutra, and in Greek papyri. Yet none of the parallels or the retellings can measure up to or compare with the moving force of this story put on the lips of Jesus in this Gospel” (Joseph Fitzmyer SJ, op cit, 1083-84).
The renowned interpreter of the parables, Joachim Jeremias, has called this parable, “the parable of the Father’s Love” (See Joachim Jeremias, The Parables of Jesus, Charles Scribner, 1963, 128).
Specific
the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him: See similar references in Luke 5:30 and 7:29. “In this Gospel they – ie ‘the tax collectors and sinners’ – stand for the outcasts, the irreligious, and the immoral; in this episode they flock to Jesus as they had to John the Baptist in 3:12–13, anxious to hear him.” (Joseph Fitzmyer SJ, op cit, 1075.) There is a strong contrast in Luke between those on the inside, as it were, and those on the outside.
Not only do the people who have been pushed to the margins of society “flock to Jesus”, but Jesus actually chooses to share meals with them. In this society table fellowship is a most significant thing. (Dietary laws and rituals around eating are a complex part of most societies. They become a particular issue in the early Church – see for example Galatians 2:12-13.)
The reference here to Jesus’ association with the outcasts of society suggests an important context for the three parables that are about to follow. At the heart of each of these parables is the theme of the joy of finding what was lost.
the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling: In 7:29-30 Luke tells us that “all the people who heard this, including the tax collectors, acknowledged the justice of God, because they had been baptized with John’s baptism. But by refusing to be baptized by him, the Pharisees and the lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves”. Luke refers to the “grumbling” of the scribes and Pharisees against the disciples (5:30), 6:7 their suspicion of Jesus (6:7) and the grudge they held against him (11:53). All of this recalls the ill feelings expressed towards Moses and Aaron in the desert – see Exodus 15:24, 16:2 & 7–8 and 17:3; Numbers 14:2 & 36 and 16:11; Deuteronomy 1:27; cf. also 1 Cor 10:10). It is profoundly ironic that the “sinners” are hearing Jesus’ message and the religious authorities refuse to hear it.
he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs : According to Torah, pigs are unclean animals – see Lev 11:7; 14:8. This a very powerful way of describing how desperate the young man is.
while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him: This is the hinge of the parable. The father is waiting, on the lookout. The Greek word, here translated as “filled with compassion”, is esplagchnisthē. Our highly rational way of thinking does not have any way of saying what is going on here that conveys the depth of feeling in the father: “Luke uses the same verb (splangnizomai) as was attributed to Jesus in 7:13 and the good Samaritan in 10:33. The initiative is shifted to the father. He sees, feels, runs, embraces and kisses his son. The embrace (literally ‘fell on his neck’) and kiss, recall the recognition scene in Gen 45:14–15, where Joseph embraces and kisses Benjamin as his brother, and Gen 46:29 where he greets Jacob as his father. The same gesture occurs in Acts 20:37” (Luke Timothy Johnson, The Gospel of Luke, The Liturgical Press, 1991, 237).
Another commentator writes: “The suggestion of the parable is clear: all the time that the son has forgotten his father, the father has not forgotten his son, but has looked out daily for his return with longing; hence he sees him ‘when he was yet a great way off’. Unlike the Pharisees, he is waiting with love and compassion to make the first move towards reconciliation” (R Ginns, The Gospel of Jesus Christ according to St Luke, in B. Orchard & E. F. Sutcliffe (Eds.), A Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture, Toronto; New York; Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1953, 958).
his elder son …. became angry and refused to go in: The contrast between the “sinners” and the religious authorities re-emerges – the son who is “faithful” is contrasted with the son who is a “sinner”.
He came to himself
In today’s Gospel – Luke 15:1-3 & 11-32 – we have the story known to us as the parable of “the prodigal son.” It is the third of three parables of loss in this chapter. The other two are “the lost sheep” and “the lost coin.” The parable of “the prodigal son,” is unique to Luke. Along with the parable of “the good Samaritan”, also unique to Luke, it has had a profound influence on the way we think about God, Church and ourselves as disciples of Jesus.
It is customary to read this parable through a moral lens. That is, we focus on the youngest son and his immoral behaviour. Indeed, we find support for this interpretation when the young man says: “I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you’.”
Parables appeal to the imagination. They are always, therefore, subject to multiple interpretations. Can we imagine another way of reading this amazing parable of “the prodigal son”?
It may help to set aside that title: “The prodigal son.” What would happen, for example, if we called it the parable of “a lost son”? Such a simple change to the title, can shift the focus from the individual towards the universal, from one person’s sin towards everyone’s lostness, from forgiveness of the the one towards the redemption of all.
The parable echoes the story of the Fall – see Genesis 3. As an image of lostness, it is hard to beat that archetypal story of Adam and Eve. They put on fig leaves, they hide from God and each other and eventually must walk out of the Garden. They have lost their true place in existence. Concretely, that lostness changes so much – their relationship with God, with themselves, with each other and the natural world.
We feel that existential lostness, in our experience of longing and desire, where our aspirations and sense of what “might be” outstrip our experience of what is. It is present every time we allow ourselves to wonder about meaning and meaninglessness. It haunts our days in the experiences of pathos and nostalgia, melancholy and despondency, hope and despair, success and failure.
It can also prompt an awakening, when we “come to ourselves.”
St Augustine borrows a term from Plato to describe, in The Confessions, his own experience of this lostness and the outcome: “I found myself far from you in the ‘region of dissimilarity’” (Book VII, Ch 10 (16)). This is a trigger for Augustine’s response to the grace of God: “And (I) heard as it were your voice from on high: ‘I am the food of the fully grown; grow and you will feed on me. And you will not change me into you like the food your flesh eats, but you will be changed into me’” (Ibid).
Knowing you are lost is a good place to find yourself.