In our national discourse we are often hearing complaints about fairness. There is so much grumbling about how certain people are being treated unfairly.
There are three stories in this week's narrative lectionary - The Parable of the Lost Sheep, The Parable of the Lost Coin and The Parable of the Prodigal Son.
Jesus is responding to the Pharisees and the scribes grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
There is commonality in these stories. Something or someone is lost and found again after extraordinary circumstances take place.
In each there is an invitation to an extravagant celebration after the finding. As Pastor Emillie noted with the The Parable of the Lost Coin in her sermon the rejoicing may even be more costly than the worth of the coin. The joy of the good that came about seems to be the point.
The commonalities and the framing completely upend my previous readings of the parable. Together with the father twice proclaiming that his son who was dead is now alive again. I now see the prodigal son is a Christlike figure in the parable. The observation and judgement that the wealth was squandered is misleading, essentially an equivalent to the Pharisees grumbling about sinners. They take no joy in someone or something that was lost but is now found.
This echoes what is found in other parables about the kingdom of heaven. These Pharisees would have complained that the sower acted too extravagantly in his spreading of the seed or that, in the Parable of the Vineyard Laborers, they would have grumbled that everyone getting paid the same wage wasn't fair.
Yet the son is alive. The father, who was judged dead by the son when he asked for his inheritance, is also alive again as a father to his son. And the older brother grumbles about fairness over his father's grace. He accuses his prodigal brother of devouring assets with prostitutes when there is no way the eldest brother could have known that. Maybe we can empathize with the feelings of this brother given what happens but this is not a reflection of the kingdom of heaven.
So much of the parable snaps into place without the judgement. And why describe the severe famine if the younger brother's wealth had already been squandered in "dissolute living"?
Pastor Emillie identified with the older brother. It is easy for us to do. This reflects the world that we live in.
And finally, like the barren fig tree parable, here is another parable ending with no satisfying resolution if we accept the "dissolute" determination. We are left with a grumbling son, who was not even invited to the homecoming celebration of his brother. Will he take what his father tells him to heart? Will he then join in the communal rejoicing or not? Or is this older brother now someone who is lost and must now be found?
The context of the narrative lectionary provides during this Lenten season continues to astound me.
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