Prodigals

He also said: "A man had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the estate I have coming to me.' So he distributed the assets to them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered together all he had and traveled to a distant country, where he squandered his estate in foolish living. ... When he came to his senses [came to himself, KJV], he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have more than enough food, and here I am dying of hunger! I'll get up, go to my father ...'" -- Luke 15:11-18

We are all strangers in a strange land, though many do not recognize it and try to be at home. In a sense we are all prodigal sons. We all need to "come to ourselves".

The pig pen is not a physical situation but a spiritual one. The materialists and the nominally religious may live in nice houses and eat the finest foods, but it is no more than the filth of the sty and the empty, unsatisfying husks to the real life that awaits them. In the end, it is not where you are or what you have that counts, but the relationship with the father. The elder brother was as much a "husk-eater" as the prodigal.

Did you ever look up "prodigal" in the dictionary? Luke 15:11-32 is one of those things that everyone has heard about, whether or not they have actually read the story. It is a powerful and moving tale, beautifully and succinctly told. It has been such an influence on Western civilization that the term used to describe the wandering younger son has taken on a different meaning. We often use the word to mean someone who lives wildly and recklessly. After all, the elder brother accused the returning son of wasting the father's money on -- as we might say -- sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll. Prodigal can refer to be excessively or recklessly wasteful, or a spendthrift. But it also means exceedingly generous, or lavish.

In a way, the father was rather prodigal. The son asked for his share, and the father unhesitatingly handed it over to him. When he had wasted his inheritance and returned, again the father eagerly and enthusiastically showered him with gifts and a renewed status. He drew from his bounty to lavish good things upon his son. The younger boy was much more his father's son than the elder. They shared the desire to express their love through generosity. The son was wrong only in his youthful lack of wisdom.

The elder brothers are so much wiser, so they think. They would never have given the boy a bagful of money to blow senselessly. They certainly would never have been taken in when he came crawling back -- and he would have crawled if the elder brother had been in charge. He might have been given a chance to prove himself worthy of returning; he would never have been trusted again. He would have been the lowest of servants. The elder would have recouped his losses eventually, while bitterly grinding the younger's soul.

Yet it takes little thought to see who would have been the more devoted son thereafter. Would the prodigal have gone a day without somehow expressing his gratitude to his generous father? Would he have been less lavish with his thanks, his praise or his efforts to please than he had been with his money? Would the younger son have missed any opportunity to do his father's will and thus express his love?

Did the elder brother ever "come to himself" and go home?