The Lost Sons is based on Luke 15: 11-32
Problems in Retelling
This is one of the ‘big’, well-known parables. It’s also a pretty big parable in length, with three distinct sections: the younger boy goes away, he returns, the father celebrates, the older boy goes away. There is no final ending, it’s left open.
One problem in retelling is that the first two sections (The Prodigal Son) are very well known, to the extent that people frequently think they’re what the parable is about. The return of the younger son has been the subject of a lot of famous paintings; ‘prodigal’ now often means someone who repents and returns.
Another problem in retelling is that because we emphasise the first two parts, we tend to associate this parable with ‘everyone who repents is welcome’. Yes, it is saying that. But not just that.
And the final problem in retelling is that the older son just can’t catch a break. Either his part gets missed out entirely, or he’s cast as some kind of villain-of-the-piece. This is something increasingly noticed in the more modern commentaries; older commentaries tended to make the older son a ‘Pharisee’ allegory and then assume he had no good points whatsoever.
Is the Father God?
If he is, God’s an idiot. To misquote Oscar Wilde, ‘To lose one son may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.’ And the father in the parable has indeed ‘lost’ both sons. Furthermore, he doesn’t even search for the younger son; the lad has to make his own way home. It’s the older boy who the father goes out and looks for.
Because of the unconditional love displayed when the younger son returns, it’s become common to assume the ‘father’ in the parable is God. But it’s far more likely that Jesus was using an inadequate but loving father to demonstrate how much more God will love us. The father in the parable is foolish and, frankly, inadequate. But he wants his family reunited. How much more will God want that?
Boys?
We don’t know how old the sons are. However, both of them act like teenagers rather than grown men. The younger son runs off with Daddy’s money and blows the lot on wild living, returning sadder and hopefully wiser. The older son then has a proper teenage-boy row with Dad. He’s always been your favourite! I work like a slave for you while he just spends your money! You gave him the big party, but I never got one! No, I’m not coming in!
A modern equivalent for the age of the two sons is probably ‘older adolescent’ – the younger running off seems more like a fairly young son who ‘can’t wait to be out of this dump’. The older son acts as an older son should, helping out in the family farm/family business – but there’s no hint he has his own family yet. So, older adolescents.
The Younger Son
Images of the younger son usually concentrate on the reconciliation with his father. That’s because generations of Christians have seen it as an allegory for our reconciliation with God. However, before the great reconciliation, the younger boy is someone who wants out. Out of his small village, out of his family, out of a lifestyle he probably thinks of as boring. Given that his father can afford to split the family money, the modern equivalent is the trust fund kid, the upper middle-class boy, able to do pretty much what he wants. As long as Daddy’s money is backing him.
Even when reality hits, it is possible that he still wants out of family responsibilities and status. His proposed return is as a non-family worker (with no obligations to father or brother), but his plan relies on the knowledge that his father loves him.
Repentance?
Is the ‘hired labourer’ plan genuine repentance (I really don’t deserve anything better) or a last bid to be independent (I still don’t want to be part of the family)? The two parables before were about the lost being found, with the commentary that Heaven rejoices more over the lost-and-found than the never-lost. That suggests the boy has at least the beginnings of genuine repentance. At the very least, he’s heading in the right direction, even if he’s still in the ‘teenage’ mode of planning a dramatic public display of his unworthiness.
What a number of commentators have pointed out, though, is that he ‘comes to his senses’ when he’s starving and in one of the most degrading jobs he could do. His great realisation could easily be that he was better off at home – and that Daddy will take him back. So is he repentant or not?
I don’t think he has to be, just as I don’t think everyone who heard Jesus was planning a full-scale dramatic repentance. The point is that the younger son has started his journey back, even if he hasn’t yet reached a full and genuine repentance. And what’s more likely to lead to that full and genuine repentance? The father agreeing to the son’s ‘deal’? Or the immediate ‘welcome back, son!’ that the boy does get?
The Older Son
As I said above, when it comes to commentary, the older son can’t catch a break. It doesn’t help that he’s traditionally associated with the ‘muttering’ Pharisees and lawyers of Luke 15:2. This has led to a lot of commentary on the lines of ‘the older son is completely in the wrong’. He’s representing lawyers and Pharisees; he must be in the wrong!
Bailey, in Poet and Peasant, is a very good example of this line of thought. The older son is in turn blamed for: not being co-host at a party he wasn’t told about; for not being told about the party (it seems his father knew the boy would make a fuss); not refusing his share of the property; not taking the lead in reconciling the younger son to his father; being unnaturally suspicious about a party he wasn’t told about… Then there’s Jeremias, in Parables of Jesus, who calls the boy ‘Joyless, loveless, thankless and self-righteous’.
If a dog had died in this parable, the commentaries would probably have blamed the older son. But what has he really done? Get angry at his brother? Refuse to go to a party he wasn’t told about?
The Older Son – Not So Wrong?
I would suggest that the traditional association of the older son with the lawyers and pharisees is skewing many of the interpretations. Remember, Jesus did have Pharisees as followers (St Paul and Nicodemus are the most famous), and some lawyers were listening as well as testing. Luke has no ‘and they went away sadly’, or ‘sought to kill him’ finish to this parable. That suggests this set of three parables were not perceived as direct attacks (like the Parable of the Tenants), but more as guides to behaviour.
The first two parables in this three-parable block are both about the need to go looking for the lost. The final parable is both about a lost boy returning – and the resulting fury and resentment of the never-lost. Which is a problem: after all, coins and sheep won’t get jealous about a big fuss being made over the returned coin or sheep. But people? Good, well-meaning people who work hard and obey the law do indeed tend to react with fury when they see ‘bad behaviour’ being rewarded. Even if the problem child is trying to turn their life around, what they see is that the well-behaved are ignored and the badly behaved get the party.
The Unfavourite
So, is the older son justified when he explodes in front of his father? Having a furious row with your father in public may be human nature, but in the society of Jesus’ day, it was both disrespectful and dishonouring. But would the people first listening to Jesus’ parable understand why the older son was so angry?
What’s happened is:
- His younger brother behaved very badly by asking for his inheritance now. His father enabled this by agreeing.
- His younger brother then behaved even more badly by selling his part of the property, reducing the total family income.
- Rumours from abroad suggest the boy then just wasted the money.
- When the younger brother returns, the father throws a massive party. He’s never done that for the older boy.
- The older boy wasn’t informed either about his brother’s return or about the party. He was left out of the celebrations. No messenger was sent; he had to find out by asking someone.
- Since the property was divided, the older son is the designated heir. Nonetheless, a huge party is prepared (and the equivalent of a lot of money is spent) without his permission or even his knowledge.
I’d suggest that in those circumstances, anyone listening at the time would think that the older son was justified in his anger. We don’t, because we’ve had two thousand years of interpretations insisting that the older boy is in the wrong. To put it in modern terms, it looks like the father is playing favourites – and the older boy is the ‘unfavourite’. Hence the ‘Am I a son or a slave?’ eruption, which the father responds to by assuring his older son that he is indeed his much-loved son.
Who’s Lost?
Both older and younger sons are ‘lost’ in the course of the parable. The younger son is the more obviously lost; going away, living a dissolute life. The older son, by the end of the parable, has reached the point where he’s both refusing to forgive his brother and refusing to accept his father’s behaviour. Just at the point when his father thinks the family is reunited, it threatens to break apart again. But this time, like the shepherd with his sheep or the woman with her coin, he goes out to find his lost son.
The parable is ambiguous about whether either of the boys repent – we just know that they both end the parable found. Perhaps the way they’re ‘found’ represents the nature of each boy. The younger boy has his party; the older boy is told that he has his father’s love.
Conditional versus Unconditional Love
Green, in The Gospel of Luke, makes the restoration of the older son conditional. The older boy is only restored to the family if he comes to the party and welcomes the younger boy back. This is subtly different to the older boy demonstrating that he’s forgiven his brother by deciding to come to the party.
It’s true Jesus left the ending of the parable open, but the father never orders his older son to the party. He just explains why he had to hold it. He doesn’t display an unconditional ‘welcome back!’ to his younger son while simultaneously demanding his older son do as he’s told. He displays the same love to the elder as to the younger – ‘you are always with me and everything I have is yours.’
Again, I think the interpretation is being skewed by an association of the older boy with the Pharisees and lawyers. There’s a very common strand in Christian theology of asserting that God’s love was conditional; confusing the Biblical idea of God punishing his people with God withdrawing love. It’s often particularly applied to the Pharisees (and their successors, the rabbis) and tends to project the idea onto them.
The father in the parable has just discovered his family is still broken. His older son was bitterly resentful of the younger, to the extent that he now refuses to call him ‘brother’. That huge party seems to be the final straw: now he doesn’t even call his father ‘Dad’. The father’s response is to call his older boy ‘child’ (‘teknon’, an endearment) and to remind him that his younger brother is his brother.
The Open Ending
Jesus has just done a series of three parables, all pointing out that we naturally celebrate when we find something or someone that was lost. The open ending of this parable is challenging those objecting to the party.
What I would disagree with is the idea that Jesus is telling the Pharisees and lawyers that their behaviour is unjustified. It’s an idea very common in commentaries – but Luke has no ‘and they went away sadly’ or ‘they sought to kill him’ commentary of his own. So I’d go with the commentaries that suggest that the parable actually makes the older brother’s anger seem understandable. That Jesus is saying that it’s understandable (human) to be angry when it looks like the newly-found are favoured over those who always stayed. But, God and the angels celebrate when the lost become found. So, do we give way to our very human anger, or try and imitate God and the angels?
The older boy, in the open ending, has three possible reactions:
- Celebrate his younger brother being back and welcome him as a family member. Go to the party.
- Refuse to accept his younger brother and storm off himself (possibly demanding he now get his share).
- Realise just how angry he is at his younger brother seemingly getting everything he wants, but accept his father does love them both and was right to celebrate.
Human nature being what it is, the first possibility is the least likely. The first possibility is ‘heavenly’ behaviour, the standard we’re expected to try and reach. The third, however, does hold out hope for the restoration of the family. Like the younger boy, the older boy would be taking his first steps home.
Final Comments on Retelling
This parable is difficult to retell simply because one interpretation is so well known. We should be wary of making the younger boy simply a scamp. He isn’t – he’s hurt his father and brother, destroyed at least a third of the family property and all through pure unthinking selfishness. Another modern equivalent might be a drug addict who steals from his family, then comes home offering to go into rehab.
Likewise, we need to be wary of making the father God. He’s not; the decisions he makes would be considered very foolish by the standards of the day. Even today, it’s possible to look at the parable and wonder if the father has a favourite younger son and an ‘unfavourite’ older. Perhaps another possibility for retelling is ‘The Parable of the Spoilt Brat’?
The final thing to consider is whether we’re being harsher on the older son than Jesus ever intended. Was this another condemnation of the Pharisees and lawyers? Or was Jesus saying ‘It’s understandable that some of you are angry, but Heaven does celebrate when the lost come home.’ Rather than rebuking the Pharisees and lawyers, was he explaining and trying to win them over?
The open ending suggests just that. Listeners were not being rebuked as much as they were being challenged. Ideally, they’d start welcoming the sinners themselves. Less ideally, they’d understand why Jesus was doing that.
Maybe next time someone grumbled, one of his listeners would be able to say ‘Oh, yeah, the reason he does that is… Look, let me just tell you one of his parables.’
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