The “Prodigal” Father

Photo credit: Jorge Elias (Creative Commons).

Most of us call Jesus’ story about a man and his two sons the parable of the prodigal son, but Jesus does not begin that way at all. He does not start with “There once was a prodigal son who had a father and an elder brother” but instead “There was a man who had two sons.” This might be viewed as a story about a “prodigal” Father in the sense that he yields love abundantly. And it is less about one needy son than about two needy sons whom the Father wants to reconcile and rejoice in each other’s company.

We find clues to these applications in Luke 15:1–2, which states “Then drew near unto [Jesus] all the publicans and sinners for to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.” In response to the Pharisees and scribes, Jesus does not scold or create a guilt trip. Gently, He tells three stories to inspire more open thinking about those who are “lost”: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. He warmly encourages them to rejoice over the lost who return, using seven references to rejoicing, having joy, or being merry and feasting. Barbara Taylor writes that when the prodigal returns,

The father does not wait for a confession or a promise of better behavior in the future. Instead, he rushes out to embrace his son and kisses and forgives him before the son can even get a word out of his mouth. There are no extra steps between the younger son’s return and his welcome-home party, no heart-to-heart with the old man, no extra chores, no go-to-your-room-for-a-week-and-think-about-what-you-have-done, just a clean robe for his back and a fine ring for his hand and a pair of new sandals for his feet. The father does not even wait for his elder son to get home from work before beginning the festivities, “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!”

She then comments on the older brother’s reaction:

Older siblings frequently get the raw end of the deal, as the elder brother apparently does in this parable. My guess is that he was not incensed by his younger brother’s return or even by his father’s forgiveness, but by the celebration. Let the penitent come home, by all means, but let him come home to penance, not a party. Where is the moral instruction in that kind of welcome? What about facing consequences? What kind of world would this be if we all made a practice of rewarding sinners while the God-fearing folk are still out in the fields?

We might resent that the Church spends so much time and effort to recover the prodigal, and we wonder if those who are “holding their own” are getting enough attention. We might ask, “What do you have to do to get a party around here? Do you have to go off and squander your inheritance before you can come home to be embraced and kissed and assured that you belong?”

“Listen!” the elder son protests. “For all these years I have been working like a servant for you, and I have never disobeyed your command, yet you have never given me so much as a skinny goat so I can celebrate with my friends. But this wayward son of yours comes back who has devoured your property, and you kill the fatted calf for him!”

God help the elder son! God help him, and God help all of us who understand his rage, who have felt so excluded and whose hurt has run so deep that we have cut ourselves off from the very ones whose love and acceptance we so desperately need.

“This son of yours,” the elder brother says, excluding himself from the family—this son of yours who is no kin to me, nor am I kin to you if you are going to choose him over me. But here is where the loving father earns his title. He does not take a swing at his firstborn, as some of us might have been tempted to do, nor even remind him to honor his father. He knows that he has lost both his sons. He has lost the younger one to a life of recklessness, but he has lost the older one to a more serious fate, to a life of angry self-righteousness that takes him so far away from his father that he might as well be feeding pigs in a far country. He wants his father to love him as he deserves to be loved, because he has stayed put and followed orders and done the right thing. He wants his father to love him for all of that, and his father does love him, but not for any of that, any more than he loves the younger brother for what he has done. He does not love either of his sons according to what they deserve. He just loves them, more because of who he is than because of who they are, and the elder brother cannot stand it. He cannot stand a love that transcends right and wrong, a love that throws homecoming parties for prodigal sinners and expects the hardworking righteous to rejoice. He cannot stand it, and so he stands outside—outside his father’s house and outside his father’s love—refusing his invitation to come inside.

But his father turns out to be prodigal too, at least as far as his love is concerned. He never seems to tire of giving it away. “Son,” he says, reclaiming the boy, “you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” His love for one child does not preclude love for the other. The younger one’s recklessness cannot deflect it any more than the elder one’s righteousness. They are a family; they belong to one another, and a party for one is a party for all.

“We had to celebrate and rejoice,” the loving father says to his elder son, “because this brother of yours”—not my son, but your brother—“was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” It is the elder brother’s invitation back into relationship not only with the loving father, but also with the wayward brother. It is an invitation to recognize his own lostness and foundness; but the parable does not tell us how it all turned out. The story ends with the elder brother standing outside the house in the yard with his father, listening to the party going on inside. Jesus leaves it that way, I think, because it is up to each one of us to finish the story. It is up to each one of us to decide whether we will stand outside all alone being right, or give up our rights and go inside to take our place at a table full of reckless and righteous saints and scoundrels, brothers and sisters united only by our relationship to a loving father, who does not give us the love we deserve but does give us the love we need.[i]

In this context, it is clear that the older son represents the “less-obvious” sinners, who are invited to lovingly accept their wayward siblings. When we point a finger at others, we often forget that we have three fingers pointing back at ourselves, “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Some of us are just better at sinning obviously! President Dieter F. Uchtdorf recalls seeing a driver who was a bit rough-looking that had a bumper sticker on his car: “Don’t judge me because I sin differently than you.” President Uchtdorf asks, “Haven’t we all, at one time or another, meekly approached the mercy seat and pleaded for grace? Haven’t we wished with all the energy of our souls for mercy —to be forgiven for the mistakes we have made and the sins we have committed?”[ii]

May God bless us to rejoice in the return of the prodigal, whom the Father will bless with a robe, a ring, and a fatted calf. Consider this moving poem by Mary Henrie, “To Any Who Have Watched for a Son’s Returning”:

He watched his son gather all the goods 
that were his lot, 
anxious to be gone from tending flocks, 
the dullness of the fields.

He stood by the olive tree gate long 
after the caravan disappeared 
where the road climbs the hills 
on the far side of the valley, 
into infinity.

Through changing seasons he spent the light 
in a great chair, facing the far country, 
and that speck of road on the horizon.

Mocking friends: “He will not come.” 
Whispering servants: “The old man has lost his senses.” 
A chiding son: “You should not have let him go.” 
A grieving wife: “You need rest and sleep.”

She covered his drooping shoulders, 
his callused knees, when east winds blew chill, until that day . . . 
A form familiar, even at infinity, 
in shreds, alone, stumbling over pebbles.

“When he was a great way off, 
His father saw him, 
and had compassion, and ran, 
and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20) 
(Ensign, March 1983, p. 63)[iii]

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[i] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Older Brother Had a Point,” Christianity Today, October 26, 1998.

[ii] Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “The Merciful Obtain Mercy,” https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2012/04/the-merciful-obtain-mercy?lang=eng.

[iii] Cited in Jeffrey R. Holland, “A Ring, a Robe, and a Fatted Calf,” BYU devotional, January 31, 1984.