Minister's Inter-faith Blog Page 10

Did the Prodigal Son repent?


Your recent suggestion that the prodigal Son was not repentant is interesting, but I wonder whether it is correct?  We read that his decision to return home occurred "when he came to himself," which to me seems to imply a change of thinking.  And what about the speech to his father: "Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son."  We could stretch our imagination and suggest that this was a duplicitous speech the boy had been rehearsing throughout his homewards journey.  But the sense of unworthiness he expresses seems to my simple mind more typical of someone who is genuinely regretting past misdeeds.
 Roy Shephard.

My rather unorthodox reading of the parable rests on what is not said as much as on what is said!!  The motivations of the prodigal are, for the father,  beside the point-- notice that before he has offered his plea to his father, the father has already seen him coming and runs to welcome him back home.  In any case, the reading of this parable that I gave is based in part on the absence of a key word.  That word is "Metanoia,"  often translated by the word "repentance".  The writer of Luke does not use this word, but rather chooses the practical and superficial expression "he came to himself."  It is a phrase that indicates nothing about a changed or repenting soul, but rather simply one that realizes "I would be a lot better off if I was back home."  There is no sense in which this indicates anything more than a recognition of the necessities of self-preservation. 

I also offered this reading because it highlights what I take the extraordinary act (or perhaps just the natural reaction of a loving father?) of forgiveness and generosity by the father, who even before he hears anything the prodigal has said or done accepts him back home.  The words the prodigal has rehearsed are spoken, but they do change the father's response one way or the other.  No matter how we understand the motivation of the prodigal-- self preservation or a fundamental change of heart-- the parable does not operate around the prodigal's words or motivation-- they are at best redundant-- but depend upon the response of the father who makes room for both the prodigal and the "just" son who remained at home.  They are both in the words of the father recognized as his sons. 

For another reading of the Prodigal Parable (!!) see Mahlon Smith of Rutgers University http://virtualreligion.net/forum/prodigal.html. 

Dr Smith sees the parable as exposing something about the historical Jesus as "prodigal" and perhaps about Jesus' brother James.  I am not entirely convinced, but then my own reading is perhaps not convincing either!  In all cases, I think it is the Father's response that are at the heart of the matter.
Daniel. 
or
You raise some fascinating points, particularly the idea that the "missing years" of Jesus' youth may have been mis-spent on the party scene.  But irrespective of how far the Prodigal was repentant, I think it is clear that he had now resolved to work with the father in some capacity, whether as a hired hand or as a member of the family.

Another issue the parable may raise is the nature and timing of our "reward."  The elder son, like a good calvinist, had been beavering away, hoping for later "pie in the sky."  He, also, was looking for  luxury as an ultimate reward.  But the message of the father was twofold- the reward is now, and it is to be found in enhanced inter-personal relationships, not in the material success of the just.
Roy S. 

Over-analyzing what the son may or may not be thinking seems to take the whole thing out of context and puts one in danger of missing the point that Jesus is making in answer to the criticism that he associated with sinners. God's love and acceptance is unconditional, and there is joy in a sinner turning back.
Syd Pudney.

Good to hear your thoughts, Syd.  Actually, my reading of the original texts in this case emphasizes the fact the God's grace is given unconditionally, and is not dependent upon the inner psychology of the Son.  That is why, I think, "metanoi" "change of mind" or repentance is not used in the text, and why the rehearsal of the Prodigal's lines beforehand is emphasized, while the father welcomes him even before a word is spoken.  The parable is less about the prodigal's state of mind than about the response of the father; this would have been disturbing to the hearers of the parable, because it does not insist upon any qualifiers for the reception of the son back into the home.  There would have been an expectation that such behaviour, particularly given the shame attached to the prodigal required some kind of cleansing ritual--in fact, even the idea of dealing with pigs crosses an important boundary between the acceptable and unacceptable, the clean and the unclean which were very important consideration in the religious community of both Luke's day and Jesus' time.  The parable introduces a new way of understanding God and the division drawn between the Holy/Clean and the Unholy/Unclean--a continuing concern for the early church and for the historical Jesus.  This new understanding opened up the community of God to, as Paul has it, Gentile and Jew, Slave and Free, Men and Women, without exception.

One of things that is important for us, as we wrestle with scripture and try and discern what it meant in its own context and time--is respecting its voice rather than merely projecting our own ideas upon the text.  One of my great teachers of Hebrew and Greek scripture asked us to say we too often domesticate these texts rather than experiencing the challenge and call of God in them.  My own wrestling with them involves attending to their original languages, trying to understand the times they were written and spoken in, so that I do not merely read into them my own culture's and language's assumptions.  I am nearly always surprised and am given new understandings of faith, life and our own times by encountering the text as something not from my own culture and times.  Jesus would have challenged so much of what we take for granted, just as he challenged this presupposition in his time.  Finally, a note about our texts.  They are, in the case of New Testament, a translation from Greek originals that contain variants that scholars often must decide between.  In most good translations, you will read footnotes that tell us of the variants or that lack of clarity in the Greek originals.  Jesus taught and spoke Aramaic and did not write down any of his sayings.  So we have to be very careful to recognize that there are layers already of interpretation and translation even in the original texts and manuscripts upon which we base our translations.   For some that realization is an obstacle to faith.  But for me it is another way of being called into that ongoing journey and adventure that is the Way of God with the people.

In all cases, the bible is always an opening to an experience of Grace that no one of us can ever fully understand, an experience that transcends all texts.  God is beyond all our attempts--even our best attempts--always calling us to a life of Surprising and Amazing Grace.

I hope we can meet face to face, and not just "in a glass darkly." as Paul puts it.
Daniel. 

The early writers of Scripture were recording the events that surrounded the life of Jesus as they looked through the lenses of the period 60-100 CE; their interpretation included the community's experience of the risen Christ as they interacted with their world over a period of 30-70 years.  It is certainly an interesting academic exercise to try to reframe the lenses used in that epoch.  But is it not more important now to allow the truths of the gospel narratives to speak to us, as we also interact with a sometimes hostile world?
Roy Shephard.   

What I am suggesting is that the "academic" exercise is precisely about trying to understand the way that is the truth to which the early community witnessed.  In other words, the academic exercise is an essential part of seeing those truths which disturb us from the patterns of our culture.  I am confessing that for me the academic exercise of seeing the texts more clearly brings me more deeply into faith.  Sometimes, I think we mistake a truth of the faith for a habit of mind and a pattern of thinking that scripture when grasped in all its multi-layered beauty can speak a truth to.  There is nothing academic about the exercise in my experience.  It has been and continues to be a way of opening myself up to the challenge of Jesus to live in the way of God's Shalom and not the Ceasar's and Empires of our own making.  Academic study has always being about liberating and opening me to the reality of God in the present.  Now, I am starting to pull together Holy week, where we meet God crucified by Imperial force, and are surprised by a risen Christ, raised up as our hope and a challenge to live the gospel as the way of non-violent justice-making and reconciliation for all creation.

I hope I didn't turn Syd off by an even more convoluted reply to his comment.  I guess my reply to all this is that the more I work at the texts using scholarship (poor scholar that I am),  the more I am actually engaged with their depths and subtelty, and the deeper my faith goes.  I do not think of the "Bible" as an artifact or dead letter, but rather as an ongoing conversation with many partners, living and dead.  But then I remember a long time ago having a debate with a fundamentalist friend who felt any questioning of the text and the particular interpretation he deemed as true was Satanic.  Again, in my experience such journeys in scholarship are an experience of revelation.  This is not to say that it gives me comfort that I have arrived at the closed and perfected interpretation.  Rather the opposite, it gives me trust in a God who is ever calling us forward into territory we have not traversed before.  What was it Einstein said?  "Either we see everything as miraculous, or nothing."?  The biblical journey is miraculous, because it never ceases to amaze with new insight in texts we have taken for granted.
Daniel.  

No, Daniel, you didn't turn me off. In fact I liked your last paragraph very much in which you likened the delving into scriptural writings to conversations with partners, living and dead. I confess that long before Gretta Vosper came onto the scene I had come to much the same conclusion as she, in that I realized that the biblical writings were really an expression of how fellow human beings had experienced God. That realization allows one to look deeper, and far from losing value, not being "The Word Of God" any longer, the texts open up a huge new area to be searched and explored. As has been said so often "It is the searching that is most important."
Syd

Quite a few people today are so turned off Christianity that they feel uncomfortable in church.  I wonder how we can move the institutional church from unilinear pronouncements into conversation?   Perhaps I am a bad one to talk, since as a preacher I am trying to convince my hearers of a particular point view, albeit one that has conversation, relationality and openness at its heart.  The text tomorrow encourages a rethinking of old stories in a new context--'Look see the new thing I am doing".  Can the old stories provide us with a code or a key to seeing and being open toward the new insight, the new way of being??

If I ever answer "No" than it will be time to leave the church.  The church must change, or simply become irrelevant.  Sadly, many of those who hold to a more rigid point of view appear to prosper.  There are a few progressive churches that are doing well, and we could learn by their patterns.  Oddly, it isn't their theology, but rather a sense of belonging and "entertainment value" that often marks the churches that are doing well.  I don't mind thinking of ways to be more engaging, but adopting a theology that is closed, non-relational and coercive is something I just cannot do.  When I taught in the University I was struck by the need to rethink theology on a daily basis.  Now I am in a parish, the tension is the opposite.  How do I satisfy both those who need to hear the old message and those who are hungry for the new?  It can be an exhausting dance, particularly if you care for all of your people as I do!!  So I am a prodigal wondering if there is room for me anymore back home.
Daniel.

It is certainly a problem, Daniel.  One of Murphy's laws says that "If you try to please everyone, someone won't like it." So you do indeed have to walk a tight rope there in Squamish, where I know there are both conservatives and liberal thinkers.

We usually think that older people especially tend to cling tightly to the traditional dogma, and the old time religion, because they find it comforting as they approach the end of their allotted time. But that isn't necessarily so.  I will be 80 this June, and I have swung from being a devoted traditionalist in my younger days to what they now call "progressive". I often wish the church would not be so concerned about getting one into the next world, when so much remains to be done in this one.
Several years ago I conducted a service there in Squamish when the minister (Chris Burnett) was away. I gave my interpretation of the Christmas story, which put a completely different slant on the "virgin birth."  Everyone seemed to appreciate it, even if I had not fully convinced them, but the two oldest people present, both very elderly ladies, (they were not together) kissed me as they left and thanked me for explaining something that they had fretted about for years, because they had never believed it, and felt guilty for not doing so. I mention this only to show that you might be surprised by the willingness of people to stretch their minds a bit.
Syd.


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