just enough light

Today across the country, many ministers are preaching about the parable we call the Prodigal Son. This is perhaps the best known and best loved of Jesus’ parables. This story in the Gospel of Luke is the suggested text in the lectionary, the guide followed by many denominations for suggested worship themes for each Sunday of the year.

I grew up thinking the parable was about a rebellious young man who finally came to regret his rebellion, repented, and came back home a humbled and wiser man. As a child, I assumed the lesson was, “don’t rebel, don’t turn your back on God or your parents or you’ll end up in worse shape than you started.” It was a great story for keeping children in line for as long as possible.

There is so much more than that. This young adult was caught in a system that he saw as futile. As you the younger son, Jewish law dictated that he would inherit only 1/3 of his family estate, no matter what he did, good or bad. His older brother would get 2/3 no matter what he did, good or bad.

It was unheard of for the younger son to demand his portion while his father was still alive. It would have been a sign of disrespect and callousness, like saying, “I wish you were dead.”

The younger son may have been brash and callous and immature. He may have also been too creative, too much of a free spirit to fully blossom in the confines of the family system. We don’t know.

It does seem likely that he spent lots of time and energy saying to himself, “It should not be this way.” As I have said in previous articles, this is one source of our needless suffering, assuming that life is conspiring against us somehow and should be different.

Like all teenagers and young adults, he did not see his life clearly. None of us did. Instead, he heard only the chatter in his head that said, “This is going nowhere, this will never turn out well, my only hope is getting away.” Predicting the outcome rather than paying attention to the present.

So he left, but he continued to listen to the chatter in his head. The chatter changed from “I gotta get out of here” to “What can I do next.” He chased after his constantly changing whims. Jesus tells of the young man eventually squandered his fortune and ending up destitute. It was not until he was at the bottom (feeding pigs) that he “woke up.” One Bible translation uses the words, “He came to himself.” I like that.

He clearly saw himself and his situation. As long as he was saying, “This sucks,” he was not able to hear beneath the chatter. He had said, “this sucks” about his family situation. He said, “this sucks” when the money ran out. But finally he is able to say, “Hmm, would you look at this. Look where I am. Look at what I am doing. Look at what my choices have gotten me. Is this where I want to stay?”

This was his awakening.

There’s a lot in this parable that pertains to the Lenten process of paying attention. I will spend a couple more days going further into this story.