The Prodigal Son

The Story/Parable of the Prodigal Son   Luke 15   Psalm34    Joshua 5    II Corinthians 5

LENT  Sunday #4  TEACHING:   Sunday March14/2010

James Krahn

The scriptures for this fourth Sunday of Lent are filled with themes of renewal, returning, restoration, a new way of relating and even reasoning. There are movements out of a cringing, shame and blame based level of existence to rejoicing, delighting, feasting and embrace. From misguided, mis-spent, and oppressed ways of living, comes a new picture of gathering, energized by a love that bears all things, that is freely and unconditionally visited on God’s beloved children.  The good news is there is a new creation and it is sustained by One whose relational connection circuits never turn off, by One whose attachment light (that part of us related to our deepest bonding)  never goes out, by One in whose presence we can continuously look and be radiant.  What a strength, what a beacon, what nourishment, what a relief.

First of all, what a relief that we are loved and awaited by one so interested in removing our reproach, our disgrace and our shame. The Lord wants to sit at table with us, visit with us, actually celebrate us with un-rationed food (the fruit of the land) and un-rationed lovingkindness and attention. Jesus, the parable-teller, was oh so good at unfolding a story in which His hearers could find themselves;  just as significantly, a story in which we, many centuries later, could still find ourselves.  The telling of stories in which we can find ourselves and establish our identities is absolutely critical to our development and maturation, the stages we go through in a healthy-lived life. When children call out for their parents and grandparents to tell them what it was like “when you were growing up,” those stories help children to find themselves, to define their history, and to find their identity in that unfolding history. Jesus’ story helps in this way, and helps to find not only identity, but struggle, dysfunction, mis-placed belief or lie-based thinking, the room, always, for repentance and restoration.

Before the story even begins, note the context of the gospel passage:  “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus.”  Can you feel the not so favourable ones and the not so favourable parts of ourselves saying, “Jesus, I’m glad (Jesus I’m relieved) that you’re happy to be with me. Whew, I can breathe, I can lift my gaze, He’s good to hang out with me and that part of me I get sick and tired of.”     Straight from our recent discussion on Jesus’ table and communing practices comes the grumbling line of the Pharisees, the rule keepers, the religious:  “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  And immediately Jesus moves on and unfolds His story for all to hear. What a story!   My first take on this is how, from such an unconditionally loving father, do you get at least two significantly dysfunctional children. Hmmm   Or are they just normal children  “working things out”    “finding their way”  “undergoing healthy development” (albeit the proverbial ‘hard way’)?  

The younger child is the prototypical ‘scapegoat’ of the family. Is this the first time he has caused trouble and heartache?  I doubt it. He bears the role of carrying the blame for the trouble in the family.  He is nowhere near the developmental task, as yet, of learning to take healthy care of one person, namely himself. But he has a passionate idea of how to get there.  He now approaches his father, probably after many fights and disagreements, tensions and sleepless nights, and says “dad, I want my cut” of the property that will belong to me. Notice that.  The cut that I could anticipate, when you’re dead and gone.  If we were using an expression from the 70’s, this son, after a particularly tense season with his parent would be saying the equivalent of “dad, drop dead.”  “Hand over what’s owing to me.”   “I can’t stand it here!”   And his dad, rather than fighting reality, actually obliges him. Off he goes to have a hell of a time.

    The older child in this family is the prototypical ‘hero’ child.  He is dutiful. He does things right and according to expectation. He’s not feeling a whole lot of passion, never mind feelings of any kind, because there’s a job to be done. In fact, many jobs to be done. He carries the family’s performance role and he doesn’t do much on impulse – sorry, he probably doesn’t do anything, on impulse. He’s at least as unwell as his trouble-making brother, it’s just really hard to tell because he’s helping so many people. In the words of James Wilder, he is “flying upside-down.”  He is in a way cruising through life, keeping his father’s operation successful, but as interesting and initially exhilarating as it is to fly up-side down, as a way of flying through all of life, it takes a lot of energy and you sort of have to be beside yourself, or maybe below yourself. 

  Both children in this family do not seem satisfied. And on a daily basis, it’s important to be satisfied with the food one eats,  with the work one does, and with one’s relationships. For both children in this family, their relational connection circuits have gone off. They don’t have time or energy to consider the others as relational beings with emotions and hearts to be sensitive to.   

Interestingly,  the scapegoat, troublemaking son, comes to his senses first.  He gets spent pretty quickly,  lives disgracefully at a number of levels and is soon in his own Egypt of despair, shame, disgrace and disgust. His pain becomes a great motivator (which pain often is). The gospel passage says “he came to himself.”  There is so much to unpack in that short phrase.  He had been beside himself, beneath himself, outside himself, operating in his false self (whatever) and he came to himself. He did a reality check. I would guess that his relational connection circuits started coming back on, which then allowed him to know his true heart, and also allowed him to check his lie-based thinking and reason clearly once more. Kind of cool and interconnected,  how God has made us that way. 

The hero son, we’re not as sure about.  Yes, he has a reason to be angry; anger up front, is very often a truth based emotion.  Something’s unfair; it’s unjust; it’s not right how things went. Anger’s only a problem, and a lie-based emotion, when it has to be held onto.

Why does it have to be held onto? – well, that’s where the lie lies (where the lie resides).  The hero son has a point.  He needs to honestly make the point and…let it go.   He needs to allow himself the satisfaction of a position earned but not desperately hung onto (in that culture, the automatic position of privilege of the oldest) and yet be generous with his place in the family, and the fruit of his labours. His upside down plane needs to flip over and take on some passengers, some holidaying passengers, and maybe he needs to leave the cockpit for awhile. Many of us, and I mean many of us, hope that the loving, patient, entreating injunctions of his father will find an awakened heart.   (An aside here about Maunday Thursday:  Jesus, knowing that all things had been given to Him, and that He had come from the Father and was returning to the Father, took up the towel, and served…the oldest son, in this story, doesn’t yet know or have this realization.)

And finally, what of the father in Jesus’ story.  Wow!.  Well this is just Jesus and His heavenly father’s way.  Again, His relational connection circuits have never gone off. Yes, no doubt He has grieved.  No doubt He has carried days and nights of sadness -  for his one child as good as dead (but not quite), and for His other child as maybe kind of unreachable (but, …not quite…maybe just not ready to be reached yet).   His relational connection circuits have never gone off because His mother core is soooo strong.  That’s right, His ‘mother core.’ That’s the part of us  that modulates and processes relational connection, that allows us to perceive relational presence.  Maybe that’s why Jesus’ story about a family can stand or hang together, without a mother figure.  Furthermore, the father figure in Jesus’s story is one whose attachment light (that part of us related to our deepest bonding) has never gone off.  Our tender, very young, attachment lights go on when we have a need, when we need relationship, affirmation, nourishing and support.  They go off if we are hurt, if we don’t find kind eyes that say I’m happy to be with you, if we hear harsh or disapproving tones, or if there is simply no response at all, and then that light, protectively, can go off for a very long time indeed.  But this father’s light has never gone off. He being deeply and securely bonded can process the painful departure of the one child and perhaps the distance of the other child and maintain relational connection. He being deeply and securely bonded can remain the same person whether sad or despairing, disgusted or angry.  That is something truly amazing, but what our Creator made us with the capacity and joy strength to be – the same person under all difficult emotional states.  Hallelujah (we’re allowed to say that on the Sundays of Lent).  He has made us to be able to be sad, and remain relational. To be angry, and remain relational.  To be disgusted and remain relational.  To be fearful and remain relational.  To be ashamed, and remain relational.  Even to be despairing, and remain relational.  

We, together with the Pharisees, are left, at the end of Jesus’ parable-story with the unmistakeable, unconditional love of the father, based not on a keeping of accounts or who deserves what; based rather on the dignity, the loveableness of each one. All are in the circle of the father’s love and gaze.  He waits at the window or the doorway, the gate or the far fence and, thankfully, His relational connection circuit never goes off.    THANKS BE TO GOD!