The Prodigal Son

The story of the Prodigal Son is completely impossible and can only be considered a work of fiction mixed with a little fantasy.   We know this story so well and yet we rarely consider its credibility.   When you read the New Testament you must first consider the place and time in which the stories are set.   It is totally wrong to simply make a quick comparison with life today and then proceed to expound on the stories that Jesus told.   I have to say, of course, that what all agree on is that it is a story about God’s grace.   This is the first thing we have to bear in mind.   But the setting is 2,000 years ago in a country with very different traditions than we have when and where we live.

The idea of a son going to his father and asking for his inheritance in advance is completely unthinkable.   There was a missionary working in the rural Middle East for many years.   Wherever he went he asked the same question: “Do you know of any case where a son sought his inheritance before his father died?”   The answer was always, “No.”   The question put related to recent times, and still there was no case to consider.   Nothing had changed in 2,000 years.   It just would not happen, and that was that.   We can, therefore, consider it only as a work of fiction.   Yet it is a story with an amazing message – nothing less than the grace of God.

It is a story full of the most unlikely scenarios.   That a son would approach his father and make such a request is to suggest he was saying that he wished his father was dead.   No son would ever do that.   The next unlikely thing is that his father complied with this request.   It would have been totally unthinkable.   If it had been true the father would have been distraught to say the least.   To have his son speak like this would have cut him to the quick.   He would have looked back at the years he had spent showing love to the boy, showing him how to do everything his own father had taught him.   He would have been incredibly sorrowful to have it all come to this.

For the son to have spent the money in a short time would also have been unthinkable.   He had been brought up on a farm in an environment where, regardless of the wealth of his father, every penny would have had to count in the way the father and his two sons ran the farm.   That was the way everyone worked.   He would have been carefully brought up to appreciate the value of everything.   He was not the son of someone like an oligarch where he could have led a completely safe and sheltered life with costly gifts on a regular basis.   Life on a farm was labour intensive and the hours were long – sunrise to sunset, day in day out.

Many years ago I bought a book called Hedingham harvest.   It was an account of the Victorian period of a particular family in Lincolnshire.   Grandfather was the farming head of the family, and he ruled with a rod of iron.   When it came to harvest time he hired in a steam engine and threshing machine.   Everyone in the family was out in the fields getting in the crop to be threshed.   Time was money and grandfather, although a successful farmer, would carefully time the breaks the workers took during the day.   As soon as he thought everyone had time to eat and drink he would whip them into line.   “Come on now, back to work, we’re breaking, we’re breaking!” he would cry.   He was paying for every minute that threshing machine was on his land and he insisted that no time was lost unnecessarily.

This is a parallel with the scene in the parable.   Every minute was made to count.   The very idea of a son carefully raised to appreciate the value of money going out and spending it recklessly was unthinkable.   Yet Jesus put it in his parable.   He knew what he was doing and why this story had to be told.   It had to be a story with an amazing message – nothing less than the grace of God.

The next part is equally difficult for a Middle East rural community 2,000 years ago to believe.   The young man, having spent everything, went to get work as a swineherd.   Just imagine – a Jew herding swine!   Jesus really adds plenty of graphic illustration to this story.   It really yells at his listeners, steeped in Judaism and all its tradition.   You can almost hear the scoffing of the people – a Jew herding swine?   Do me a favour!

Yet, the outcast by his own actions comes to his senses.   He can’t return the inheritance but he can go home and become a servant in his father’s household.   At least he would get food and drink and shelter.   So he pulls himself together and sets off for home to see if his father will employ him.   Despite his despicable actions he still believes his father will take him in as a servant.   Here is a measure of faith I find interesting.

To illustrate why I say this, I too must tell a story.   This story is true.   In the days of the Labrador fishing community there was a doctor who committed his life to working among them whilst they were out at sea.   Should any man suffer an injury or fall ill he would be called in to help.   One day a fishing boat crew called him in to help a young woman who was sailing with them as ship’s cook.   Although the crew did not realise it, she was pregnant and had developed a complication.   The doctor, Wilfred Grenfell, took her to the mainland and took care of her at a Moravian mission station.   He was able to deal with her condition but she had her own ideas.   “I can never go home, doctor.” She said.   “I just want to die.”   The shame of her pregnancy overcame everything and she did, indeed, die.   Grenfell buried her on the headland with this inscription, “and Jesus said, ‘Neither do I condemn thee.”

I feel sure that the shame attached to what he had done during that time he was away would have weighed heavily with that young man.   How could he go home after what he had done?   So desperate was he that he decided to throw himself at his father’s feet and beg for a job as a servant.   Anything was better than the life he had just then.   He would carry the shame for the rest of his days.   Nothing could change that.   But he was prepared to swallow his pride and beg for a job.    Despite all that had happened he believed his father would take him in.   So here is a measure of faith on his part.

Once more we have an incredible activity.   His father saw him coming and ran to greet him.   Older people never ran anywhere at any time.   It was completely undignified and it was a hot country too.   But run to meet him he did and flung his arms around him and kissed him.   Now that is a true welcome!   The son grovelled but the father ordered a celebration to be organised in honour of the son’s return.   The son would never have expected that!  

The older brother then returns from work and grumbles at the big welcome and the celebration.   After all, he has never once stepped out of line and never even had a kid to share with his friends in celebration.   His brother comes home after wasting all his money and the fatted calf,no less, is shared round!   It was an amazing story about nothing less than the grace of God.

Although it would be unbelievable to the people present, they were Jews whose history included the rescuing of the Children of Israel from Egypt.   There was a real echo of this going on here.   Later on in the history of Israel there was the return from exile of many Israelites.   Back home there were people none too pleased to see these people brought home again.   They had cared for the Promised Land whilst the others were in exile and now they had to share it with them again.   Not happy bunnies at all!   In the story of the prodigal they compare with the elder son who stayed home.   These people were who remained were the nucleus of the people we later hear called the Samaritans.   Those to whom Jesus spoke would most likely see this tale in a historical context too.

The whole point of this unbelievable story was that Jesus was demonstrating the true extent of God’s great love for them.    This amazing story was unbelievable and was so to give them an idea of what limitless love meant.   Jesus was speaking of God the Father whose joy and happiness were boundless at the coming home of just one sinner.   This is the great inheritance that is ours.   Remember what Paul wrote in Romans 8: “I am convinced that there is nothing in death or life, in the realms of spirits or superhuman powers, in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, in the forces of the universe, in heights or depths – nothing in all creation that can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

To his servants the father said, “For this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found.”   Here we hear something we can probably understand as Christians.   There is no doubt that this story is about nothing less than the grace of God.   So we recognise God as the father in the parable.   Later he was to lose his son in death and receive him back again.   In the short space of time between death and resurrection Jesus was lost but then found in the amazing account of the Resurrection.

Looking at this parable today tells us much more than it meant when it was first told.   We have the reminder of how far the amazing grace of God was prepared to go.   If the fictional story of the Prodigal Son was unbelievable, how much more is the real story of God’s grace unbelievable?   Because it is unbelievable in the worldly sense it adds so much to our personal experience as we commit ourselves to God who gave everything that we might have life everlasting.   This gospel passage is about nothing less than the boundless grace of God.