There was a man
with two sons. The younger son said to
his father, “I wish you were dead. Give
me my portion of the inheritance and let me be free from the constraints of
this family, this town, and this life. I
don’t want anything to do with any of you anymore. I want to be me.
Writing about leaving home on
the Feast of St. Nicholas feels almost blasphemous. The patron saint of children, the one who in
our culture becomes Santa Claus, evokes in almost everyone warm thoughts of
happiness, love, generosity, and family gatherings. Even if one’s birth family was not idyllic,
“Leave it to Beaver”-esque in its living, we all have longings for that version
of home and hearth. The younger son’s
leaving violates all of the conventions of familial respect and responsibility.
The paraphrase I have offered is
stark and jarring to hear, but this is, in essence, what the younger son is
saying to his father. Father Nouwen
cites work by Kenneth Bailey in which folk from different cultures, “from
Morocco to India and from Turkey to the Sudan” reject the younger son’s request
of his father for his portion of the inheritance. (The Return of the Prodigal Son, p.35) Jesus’ original hearers might have been so
stunned by the younger son’s demand that it is possible that they heard nothing
further. The request is equivalent to wishing
his father dead and rejecting the home and family. Nouwen continues, “More than disrespect, it
is a betrayal of the treasured values of family and community. The ‘distant country’ is the world in which
everything considered holy at home is disregarded.” (p.36)
As a high school graduate, I
wanted to get away from some of my family problems and begin to test my wings,
which is part of the reason I chose to attend Sewanee for college. The University of the South was far from
Chickasha, Oklahoma, a totally different setting and culture, and filled with a
freedom which I did not think I had at home.
In reflection, I, the older son, left while my younger brother stayed
home when he journeyed through his college years. Perhaps for the first time in my life, upon
reflection, I am beginning to understand the younger son’s leaving and the
impact of my leaving on my family.
Jesus’ parables are so deep and
rich that I do not believe it is possible to plumb the depths or completely
enjoy the wealth of meaning for any of us in a single reading or hearing. I have encouraged you to re-read the parable
each day; if you have not done so yet today, go back and listen to how God may
be calling you to new insights as you read again the parable of the man with
two sons. Read it aloud, slowly, and
hear, perhaps for the first time, the Holy Spirit speaking to you today about
your life.
I remember my mother scandalously taking up for the elder brother. It no longer seems so strange; in fact, it now strikes me that in his eyes, the father acted foolishly and unfairly in two ways. First, he gave the share to the undeserving younger brother, who was bound to waste it--and did. Then he not only accepted the wastrel back, but continued to share his substance with him. In the long view, it wasn't simply the father's goods that were being shared (again), but the elder brother's--for they was what remained of the inheritance.
ReplyDeleteWe humans just think in these categories—me and mine and you and yours, worthiness and irresponsibility, fairness and abuse. But apparently God doesn't think that way; in fact, God seems to call us to a way of thinking about the world that is deeply rooted in another way of relating.
As I was working in my garden the other day, I couldn't help but reflect on how different the nonhuman world is from the world we make. Nature takes all it needs and gives all that it is. Without that, energy wouldn't flow from sun to shoot to bee to blossom—and ultimately through the entirely of life. I wonder if the parable calls us not just to "love" like the father (which we can interpret in some insipid, safe way), but to a radically openhanded, literal, and physical incarnation of that love.