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Kerygmania: What if the Older Brother is right? Rethinking the Prodigal Son in light of Addiction

Anglican BratAnglican Brat Shipmate
edited January 2022 in Limbo
A few years ago, a priest of mine preached on a different take on the Prodigal Son, from the lens of addiction. He stated that the older brother has a point, if looking at the parable from the lens of addiction. If the younger son returns, and there is no evidence for repentance or changed behavior, then any "celebration" would be enabling his bad behavior. The father then is seen as irresponsible and indulgent, rewarding the younger son's bad habits.

This interpretation came back to me, last night as I watched the movie "Beautiful Boy" on drug addiction, a modern take on the Prodigal Son IMHO.
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Comments

  • The parable does include the son asking for forgiveness from the father (Luke 15:21), which is usually seen as "evidence of repentance." It is also worth noting that the father tells the older son, "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found." So the younger son squandered his inheritance, which is not being restored. What has been restored is the younger son's relationship with the family. I have a hard time seeing merit in the priest's gloss on this parable. As always, YMMV.
  • RuthRuth Shipmate
    This sounds like repentance to me: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

    That said, I've always identified with the older brother, not the younger. The person who doesn't step way out of line never gets a party.
  • tclune wrote: »
    The parable does include the son asking for forgiveness from the father (Luke 15:21), which is usually seen as "evidence of repentance." It is also worth noting that the father tells the older son, "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found." So the younger son squandered his inheritance, which is not being restored. What has been restored is the younger son's relationship with the family. I have a hard time seeing merit in the priest's gloss on this parable. As always, YMMV.

    Yeah, it almost sounds as if the priest wished the story had been written in a different way(ie. no repentance, and the younger son has the means to continue his debauched life), so he could have an excuse for inveighing against the erroneous values contained therein.

    Not to diss the gentleman, but it really does sound like an odd sermon.

  • It also seems to me that the priest is falling into the old trap of assuming that the story is meant to give us an example of how to live our lives, rather than assuming from the outset that we agree with how the father is behaving, and saying that God does the same thing for us.

    The point is not "Some of you might think that the father should tell his son to get lost, but really, he should forgive him". It's "Just as the father did the right thing in welcoming the son back, so God does the right thing in welcoming back sinners".

  • tclune wrote: »
    The parable does include the son asking for forgiveness from the father (Luke 15:21), which is usually seen as "evidence of repentance."

    I also heard that the Son's asking for forgiveness was manipulative and not genuine, simply saying "I'm sorry" to take advantage of the father's kindness.
  • tclune wrote: »
    The parable does include the son asking for forgiveness from the father (Luke 15:21), which is usually seen as "evidence of repentance."

    I also heard that the Son's asking for forgiveness was manipulative and not genuine, simply saying "I'm sorry" to take advantage of the father's kindness.

    So, what would be the point of Jesus relating a story in which the son behaves that way, and the father is apparently deluded enough to believe him?

    "We're all just a bunch of liars, tricking God into accepting our fake repentance, and he's so dumb he forgives us."



  • Or more to the point, the Father's unconditional love means that He still loves us despite our rotten and manipulative, and generally flawed behaviors and personalities. To the Pharisees, this is precisely how they see Jesus' welcoming of tax collectors and prostitutes, they see him as being deluded and foolish in accepting generally bad people into his company.

    But for Jesus, this "foolishness" is proof of God's unconditional love.
  • I find this clip from the Simpsons to vividly represent what the Pharisees wanted Jesus to do:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-1F8pI7nqU
  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    Or more to the point, the Father's unconditional love means that He still loves us despite our rotten and manipulative, and generally flawed behaviors and personalities. To the Pharisees, this is precisely how they see Jesus' welcoming of tax collectors and prostitutes, they see him as being deluded and foolish in accepting generally bad people into his company.

    But for Jesus, this "foolishness" is proof of God's unconditional love.

    Okay, but then, there's no real need for us to ask for forgiveness, sincerely or otherwise, at all.

    If God will accept a sinner who lies about being repentant, why wouldn't he just as easily accept a sinner who doesn't bother with the lie? The latter is really no worse than the former.

    If Jesus had been trying to convey the meaning you suggest, he'd have the son come home with booze on his breath and hookers in his arms, and say "Screw you old man, I'm gonna keep partying 'till the day I die!" And then the father says "That's okay, son, I still love you."

  • Perhaps a more nuanced reading of the son's confession is this:

    He's not completely genuinely sorry, but he has mixed motives. It is almost like a child, when a child says he is sorry, is it because he or she knows they did something wrong, or that they fear the punishment, or is it because they know that saying sorry is a polite thing to do?

    The reading might be that in our confessions, to be honest, there is a little bit of each. Are we repentant because we screwed up, or are we repentant because we fear God's wrath (and some segments of Christianity truly admit that the whole point of hell is to make people fearful to drive them to repentance), or are we repentant because that's duh "christian thing to do?"

    God sees all of this, and loves us anyway.
  • Has anyone read any of Kenneth E Bailey's work on the topic. He makes clear that the prodigal son not only repents and offers to put things right thereby maintaining a sort of self-respect but has to give up even that to receive God's forgiveness. God's forgiveness can only be received as Grace.

    It is also pointed out that this is what the father offers the older son as well. The question is left as to whether the older son goes into the banquet. We do not know if the older son does.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    The text of the story makes it absolutely clear that the younger son doesn’t expect forgiveness and restoration. He’s just hoping that he might be taken on as a hired hand. The narrative voice, ‘But when he came to himself’ indicates a real change in the son - not merely a manipulative decision to get something out of his father.
  • Whether the prodigal son actually repents seems to be a question that arises on the Ship with fair regularity. As I've said before, I think the statement that "he came to himself" is key to understanding his frame of mind when he returned home.

    And I agree with others that recasting this story in terms of addiction on the part of the younger son is recasting it into a different story altogether. It's no longer the story that Jesus told, and it no longer means what Jesus pretty clearly (I think) intended.
  • Jesus' illustration of forgiveness in this parable also stands in contrast to (if I understand it correctly) the traditional Jewish understanding of forgiveness. In the latter case, restitution is required along with apology. But the younger brother is not in a position to offer material restitution; repentance is all he has. And it is sufficient.
  • LeafLeaf Shipmate
    If the younger son returns, and there is no evidence for repentance or changed behavior, then any "celebration" would be enabling his bad behavior. The father then is seen as irresponsible and indulgent, rewarding the younger son's bad habits.

    What a strange interpretation your priest offered. Is having family celebration meant only to be a reward for good behaviour? Must birthday parties be "earned"?

    Both sons were dicks, but in different ways. Neither of them got it right. But the father is patient with both of them and trying to lead each of them out of their own versions of dickishness.

  • stetsonstetson Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    Nick Tamen wrote: »

    And I agree with others that recasting this story in terms of addiction on the part of the younger son is recasting it into a different story altogether.

    I wonder if the priest in question had experience working with addicts, and had heard once too often "Come on Father, sure, this is the fifth time I've blown my entire paycheque on cocaine, but you still gotta help me out. Y'know, prodigal son and all."

    And then the priest tried to dispel the misunderstanding of what the story is about ie. "No, it's actually NOT meant as a rationale for incurable screw-ups to continue sponging off of their benfactors."

    Which, in that situation, would be a valid point to make, as long as you make it clear that the screw-up's interpretation of the story was wrong, and you're rebutting it. Rather than saying it's possible that Jesus meant the son to be read as one of those screw-ups just using forgiveness as a means to pursue his own self-interest.

  • Anglican BratAnglican Brat Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    I think the key is the father's last phrase, "Your brother was dead and now is alive." In the context of the ancient world, if you left your hometown and all your family relations, you were as good as dead, in the sense, that unlike today with cell phones and email communication, your parents had no idea where you are or what mess you found yourself in. The OT story that comes to mind is Joseph, when he was away from his family in Canaan. Even without the BS story that his brothers concocted, once Joseph was away from his tribe, Isaac had no idea what condition his son was in.

    So, when the younger son came back, the father who might have assumed that he was killed in an accident or worst, believed that his son came back from the dead in the sense. What do you do if the child you think has died, turns up alive? Well you then go all out, in celebration.
  • Correction, not Isaac, Jacob.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    The priest was an arse.
  • I think it's helpful to look at how the whole section of Luke comes together. Luke puts the three 'lost parables' together: lost coin, lost sheep, lost son.

    All have logical issues but that's missing the point: the key concept is how the 'searcher' feels about finding that which is lost. The father was looking for him and whilst he was still a long way off...

    The three stories are ALL about God's love.

    I have preached on this a while back in 2 parts. The first focusing on the younger son and the extravagant grace that is lavished on the son who wished his father dead. And don't forget how great a sin patracide would be to the original audience...

    The second part focused on the self-righteous hypocrisy of the older brother with the title 'the truly lost son?' If he was really his father's son as it were, he too would be rejoicing at receiving his brother back from the dead... it reads quite a lot like Jonah 4.

    AFZ
  • KwesiKwesi Deckhand, Styx
    I think the mistake of many interpretations of this parable has been to focus on the sons, whereas it is principally about the father, beginning as it does: “There was a man…….” Also, IMO, thinking about the story has been influenced too much by Rembrandt’s painting, because its patriarchal depiction of a kneeling penitent is not a true representation of the narrative in Luke 15, where the prodigal’s reception is not contingent on his act of contrition: the father reacts as soon as he sees him in distress from afar, and, having embraced him ever before the youth opened his mouth, the but at the start of verse 22 indicates the father gives him the accoutrements of sonship despite his confession.
    Luke 15; 20 (b) “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
    21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
    22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet

    To my mind this is a parable that contrasts the economy of Justice with that of Grace. From the perspective of Justice the relative treatment of the brothers is blatantly unfair, as is the treatment of the labourers in the vineyard, where those who laboured for only an hour received the same as those working all day, and were paid first. Justice is a scarce resource, only available to those who have earned their righteous status, but Grace is infinitely extended to all, and, therefore, counter-intuitive to our notions of fair play. Jesus is suggesting that both the sons are recognised by the father not because of what they have done but because of his nature and what they are to him. No wonder the parable ends with an almighty row in the farmyard between the old man and elder son, whose hard-earned righteousness has been so discounted. A lot of Christians have similar issues with their maker.

    Regarding the initial post, this parable is not about how to treat addiction, anymore than the labourers in the vineyard is about the best way to run a business, or chasing after the lost sheep is the best way to be a shepherd.
  • I've always viewed it as a parable about the Jews and the gentile Christians, with the latter being the prodigal and the Jews whinging about the johnny-come-lately gentile Jews.
  • I think this is a reasonable reading of the parable; the hard partying brother "comes to his senses" and thinks that he'd be better off flinging himself at his father's better nature. He's even practicing to himself what he would say on the way back.

    Which is all very well, but you've already had your inheritance you little shit and you just pissed it up a wall. Where do you get off with this play-acting that you are oh so sorry and come crawling back here for yet another payment. You'll be here just about long enough for your poor family to get you cleaned up, then when you get bored you'll disappear in the middle of the night with the cash from everyone's wallets and anything else that isn't nailed down that you think you can sell for a couple of gs. Away with this bullshit that you can work as a hired-hand. You haven't done a stroke of work in years. Away with this idea that anyone here owes you a damn thing.

    The fact is, chum, that you wandered off with the cream of the profit from this farm and ever since we've been working out arses off to stand still. Farm hand?! What is wrong with you? We can barely pay the ones we have. We are up to our necks in debt, we are down to our last calf, we are working all the hours to keep this thing afloat.

    What's that? You can help? What do you mean, help? Where were you last summer when our animals needed working? Where were you every day of the winter when we had to get up at 5am to feed them? Where were you when they started to die?

    Because there is damn-all you can do here. There is nothing left to give you even if we wanted to. We don't have time for lazy snivelling druggies. Go back to your crack-house. You back to whichever hole you crawled out of.

    --

    The parable is using a terrible example to make a point - and the point is about the celebration at finding the lost. That's how parables work - the stories are ridiculous. Who would leave 99 sheep to the mercy of wolves and the weather to find 1 lost sheep? Nobody.

    Who would praise an employee who is marking down the debts of creditors without discussing it with the owner? Who would praise incredibly risky business ventures over safely putting money in a savings account? Who would send their own son to a vineyard when other employees have been beaten up? Who would pay to put up someone in a hotel that they'd just found beaten up on a road - not only risking oneself but also risking that the guy just ups and leaves without a word? Why would you do that for someone who if he wasn't beaten up would probably spit at you?

    None of these are meant to be models to follow. They are supposed to shock.
  • Kwesi wrote: »
    Regarding the initial post, this parable is not about how to treat addiction, anymore than the labourers in the vineyard is about the best way to run a business, or chasing after the lost sheep is the best way to be a shepherd.

    This.

    I mean, I agree with all you said but especially this.

    AFZ
  • Cheesy:

    The difficulty with your somewhat kierkegaardian reading of the Lost Son is that the father's actions aren't entirely as shocking as all that. The story DOES make it clear that the older son is getting the entirety of the estate, thus indicating that the old man still retains a strong sense of rational justice: the older son did all the work, so he's getting all the land.

    And I think you take a few liberties in your(admitedly enjoyable) alternative monologue eg. there doesn't seem to be anything in the original narrative to indicate that the farm has fallen on hard times, and in fact, "all that is mine is yours" would be a pretty laughable promise if the business was swimming in debt.

    I know things were different back in the 1st Century AD, but I'm gonna speculate that, for the average person, seeing a vanished child for the first time in years would be about the same sort of experience then as it is now, and prompt pretty much the same sort of reaction, ie. joy. I think we're meant to view this as an understandable response. and then extrapolate from that to an understanding of how God regards repentant sinners.
  • mr cheesymr cheesy Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    Well the thing is that there is something about how this thing is heard in the present.

    We are told that God is good. We are told that we should want to be like God.

    So what is God like - cue the parable.

    And here is a family struggling with their son's addition. He regularly steals. He regularly lies. He regularly breaks down in tears and is a master at putting on an emotional scene.

    What is God like? He is so forgiving that he opens his arms to the person who asks forgiveness.

    It isn't a stretch that this family feels pressure to do likewise.

    We've lost the shock value of parables. It would be so much better if we started them like this -

    There was once an IS guerilla walking through an Syrian town when he saw a man lying in the street. The body was so obviously booby-trapped that even the religious people shrank to the side of the road for fear of their lives..

    The way we often talk makes it sound like the "other brother" is being unreasonable and the "priest and scribes" are being too ultra-spiritual to help the man in the road to Jericho.

    But I don't believe that is the point of the stories at all. And yet this is the message that is often projected.
  • KwesiKwesi Deckhand, Styx
    tcluene: I've always viewed it as a parable about the Jews and the gentile Christians, with the latter being the prodigal and the Jews whinging about the johnny-come-lately gentile Jews.

    I don't think that's right because it was addressed to a Jewish audience in the context of 'lost and found' parables, and should be seen in terms of Christ's stated mission, in Luke, 'to seek and save the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' Unlike a gentile, the prodigal is (or has been) part of the family.
    mr cheesy The parable is using a terrible example to make a point - and the point is about the celebration at finding the lost. That's how parables work - the stories are ridiculous. Who would leave 99 sheep to the mercy of wolves and the weather to find 1 lost sheep? Nobody.

    Yup! They are deliberately counter-intuitive because, I would argue, that the gospel of Grace is offensive to a religion based on Justice. As I understand it, Christians believe that they are saved by the righteousness of Christ and not their own goodness. Sympathy for the elder brother indicates how difficult it is to believe that. After all, virtue deserves to be reward and vice punished.
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Purgatory Host
    The prodigal son name is not given in the text. I have long called it the parable of the disgruntled brother.

    I see it as directed to members of the church and the attitudes to new members they should avoid, (and also I like tcluene's take on it). The elder brother's attitude is in direct contrast to the rejoicing of the shepherd, the coin owner, and the father.

    These days I would recontextualise it to disgruntlement over LGBTIQ people being accepted as members and ministers in the Church. (I understand that others would disagree with this.)

    Interesting that the Lukan lost sheep parable and the Matthean strayed sheep parable have similarities, but are used for completely different purposes.

    The priest in the OP may have a valid point to make, but IMHO it cannot be drawn from the parable as used by the Lukan author/redactor.
  • I was thinking a bit more about what @alienfromzog said about reading this parable alongside the first 2 "lost" parables in Luke 15. There seems to be a deliberate upping of the ante in this third parable: in the first 2, while there are some odd (to say the least) details - would a shepherd really leave all his other sheep to find one? - you can imagine people sort of going along with it. "Yeah, sheep will be sheep - can't really blame them for getting lost. Might make sense to look for it, if the others are safe"; "I dropped a coin last week, took me ages to find it! Don't blame her for looking high and low for it". There's no blame, no one's really at fault for having got lost.

    But then Jesus takes it a stage further in the third: what if it wasn't a sheep wandering off because it didn't know any better, or an inanimate object like a coin? What if it's a person? What if what's lost is someone who's decided deliberately to wander off, to consider his father as good as dead by asking for his inheritance now, and has gone off to lead a terrible life, wasting all his money on wild living? Would God receive back someone like that - what do you think?

    I don't know if this fits with the situation in the OP, but I do think there's a sense of asking the people he's with almost to think the unthinkable in terms of God's grace, by asking them to imagine God welcoming back someone who, it seems, has deliberately gone off the rails - just like the people Jesus is eating and drinking with.
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Purgatory Host
    edited November 2018
    Mr Smiff
    I do think there's a sense of asking the people he's with almost to think the unthinkable in terms of God's grace, by asking them to imagine God welcoming back someone who, it seems, has deliberately gone off the rails
    When you put it this way it demonstrates a similarity with the strayed sheep parable of Matt 18. In Matt 18 there is more rejoicing over the recovered strayed sheep than the rest, who might be like the elder brother. In Matthew the church is told to forgive 77 (unlimited) times.
  • MooMoo Kerygmania Host
    Parables are meant to make you think. There is not one neat interpretation; you look at the story from many angles and understand something from each angle.
  • Kwesi wrote: »
    tcluene: I've always viewed it as a parable about the Jews and the gentile Christians, with the latter being the prodigal and the Jews whinging about the johnny-come-lately gentile Jews.

    I don't think that's right because it was addressed to a Jewish audience in the context of 'lost and found' parables, and should be seen in terms of Christ's stated mission, in Luke, 'to seek and save the lost sheep of the house of Israel.' Unlike a gentile, the prodigal is (or has been) part of the family.
    Pardon my ignorance, but I am unaware of Luke identifying the mission of Christ as "seeking and finding the lost sheep of Israel." Indeed, everything I know about Luke speaks to this NOT being the mission. Rather, it was to extend the grace of God to all people. AIUI, Luke was a follower of Paul and shared his mission as the Apostle to the Gentiles. It was Matthew who saw the (thwarted) mission of Christ as first being to the children of Israel. But I am quite capable of being thoroughly confused. Please enlighten.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host
    edited November 2018
    I agree about Luke’s emphasis, but disagree that this parable is primarily about Jews/Gentiles (though it is that by extension, and the reference to keeping pigs may be intended to point in that direction). The primary framing of the story is Luke 15.2
    And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
    It is the context for all three of these lost and found parables. The emphasis is on the joy in heaven over the lost being found, and by extension that what the Pharisees are complaining about is precisely what they ought to expect God’s anointed to be doing.
  • KwesiKwesi Deckhand, Styx
    tclune: Pardon my ignorance, but I am unaware of Luke identifying the mission of Christ as "seeking and finding the lost sheep of Israel."

    Many unreserved apologies, tclune, I should have checked the reference, which, of course, is a from Matthew 10 and 15. I also agree with your comments on the universal thrust of Luke. The confusion is all mine!

    I do, nevertheless, stand by the view that the prodigal should not be regarded as a gentile, given the structure of the parable.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    I reckon the parable isn't 'about' something else. I think the narrative actually is the message. That that is why Jesus told parables rather than expounded doctrine, ethics, philosophy, theology or more Torah. If there is more than one thing it can say to us, then we should accept that gratefully. Unless we're absolutely sure that interpretation X or Y is ex post facto and too alien to the culture of C1 Judea to have been in the text, I don't think we can really say 'it's all about the father' or 'all about the older brother' or 'all about the younger brother', and that 'if you say otherwise, you're missing the point'. We have the narrative. That's all we have. Let it speak for itself.

    Having said that, though, I am going to stick my neck out and apparently contradict my own words, though I don't think I am doing. @LatchKeyKid you say,
    "These days I would recontextualise it to disgruntlement over LGBTIQ people being accepted as members and ministers in the Church. (I understand that others would disagree with this.)"
    and then go on to say of the drug addict version,
    "The priest in the OP may have a valid point to make, but IMHO it cannot be drawn from the parable as used by the Lukan author/redactor."
    .As neither interpretation fits either C1 Judea or the sitzimleben of the gospel of Luke, I'd have though that either both you and this unknown priest are recontextualising or neither is.


    I also think, though, that the contemporaries might well have picked up 'older brother' = good, observant Jews, Pharisees etc'; 'younger brother = bad Jews, publicans, sinners etc, and once the gospel had started to leap the fire wall between Jews and Gentiles (remember Luke actually set this down at least a generation later) = Gentiles as well'.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    Aye, the older brother evokes Judaism as it definitely does in the water jars at Cana, the fig tree.
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Purgatory Host
    Enoch wrote: »
    We have the narrative. That's all we have. Let it speak for itself.

    I think saying the narrative can speak for itself overlooks how the reader or listener contributes substantially to the interpretation of the text. I think the intended audience brought its own culture and experience etc to the text and we are very distant culturally from them. If the narrative could simply speak for itself we would not need commentaries or all the resources of scholarship, and we would not take different meanings from the text. We metaphorically have a conversation with the text to find a meaning or meanings, and the heart or essence of what the text is conveying may be applied in new ways to our own situation.

    So I am certainly recontextualising (some of) the message(s) of the narrative to my own situation, in the knowledge that the application of what I perceive to be the motivation for the text in Luke's intended audience is different from how I can apply it to my community as an audience. The Word that we may hear from the narrative today differs in its instantiation from the way it was instantiated to its intended audience.

    So we must make a judgment of whether we are being true to the narrative or doing violence to it.
  • EnochEnoch Shipmate
    edited November 2018
    @LatchKeyKid I accept that we each bring our own world view to the text, and so did Jesus's original audience and the generation that heard read the first scroll that Luke wrote. But I've done quite a lot of history in my time, and to me, there's a big difference between the 'out there' and 'in here', what is historically legitimate, and what isn't. The original audience and first generation hearers are part of the original in a way we aren't. So what they brought to the occasion is part of what's really there in a way that we are not.

    Also, both the LGBTIQ recontextualisation that you've mentioned and the recidivist drug addict one in the OP involve bringing quite a big extra that's not in the original narrative. They all right if one is honest with one's audience that this is a recontextualisation which they are free to be persuaded by or not, 'what this might be saying to us now ... ' or 'a possible relevant interpretation for us here today might be ... '. They're not if one just says 'this is what it means for us'.
  • We can't say what was in the original narrative. That's the problem - we only have written records, so we are all forced to try to contextualise what we have.

    We don't know what was in the gaps, so we fill them in with whatever we have - that's basically the non-conformist preaching tradition after all. Nobody gave a half hour sermon on a single verse without doing their own filling in.

    There is no "plain reading" or "un-contextualised" or maybe even "true" reading. I'm not even sure that the way that material was recorded was supposed to be read as having a single meaning.

    As far as I understand it, Jewish rabbinical tradition was to think through all possible meanings and argue about the relevance.

    That seems to me to be a perfectly acceptable way to use the text.


  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    There are simple, timeless qualities to the story about how God responds to those who turn to and on Him, those who think they have no rights upon Him and those that think they do.
  • I agree that parables are meant to make us think. I have always been troubled by this parable about a dysfunctional family. The father is presumably responsible for the dysfunction, having raised one or both sons ineptly (and looking like a fool). If the father represents God, we are therefore confused. Instead, perhaps the younger son represents Israel, so often straying away from God, and the older son represents the prophets, always true to God, berating his brother. If no one here represents God or Israel or whatever, then this is an anecdote about human behavior and we wonder why it is included in the teaching. It is quite possible that we are over-analyzing this and that the only meaning intended is the superficial reading.

    Is there an entirely functional family anywhere in Scripture? There can't be many.
  • HarryCH wrote: »
    I agree that parables are meant to make us think. I have always been troubled by this parable about a dysfunctional family. The father is presumably responsible for the dysfunction, having raised one or both sons ineptly (and looking like a fool). If the father represents God, we are therefore confused.
    I’ve never seen this family as particularly disfunctional; they seem relatively average to me. Nor do I see any reason to blame the father for the sons’s shortcomings.
    Is there an entirely functional family anywhere in Scripture? There can't be many.
    Is there an entirely functional family anywhere in reality? There can’t be many.

  • KwesiKwesi Deckhand, Styx
    HarryCH: The father is presumably responsible for the dysfunction

    You may be right, but that is not, one is pretty certain, an intended presumption by the narrator.
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    You mean it's a true story?
  • KwesiKwesi Deckhand, Styx
    .........errr, no. So what?
  • Martin54Martin54 Deckhand, Styx
    Well if it's made up how come we're speculating about the child rearing?
  • Martin54 wrote: »
    Well if it's made up how come we're speculating about the child rearing?

    Well I suppose because different people hear different things and take away different thoughts.
  • KwesiKwesi Deckhand, Styx
    Martin54: Well if it's made up how come we're speculating about the child rearing?

    I agree.

    Incidentally, Martin54, I thought your earlier comment, to which nobody responded, gets to the core of the issue.
    Martin54: There are simple, timeless qualities to the story about how God responds to those who turn to and on Him, those who think they have no rights upon Him and those that think they do.
  • LatchKeyKidLatchKeyKid Purgatory Host
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Incidentally, Martin54, I thought your earlier comment, to which nobody responded, gets to the core of the issue.
    Martin54: There are simple, timeless qualities to the story about how God responds to those who turn to and on Him, those who think they have no rights upon Him and those that think they do.
    I did not respond because, although the idea seems nice, those qualities are not clearly expressed to me. Perhaps you instinctively know the qualities that Martin54 is referring to, but it seems quite likely that you both think differently. But stating those qualities leads us into the danger (IMHO) of trying to turn narrative theology into propositional theology.
  • Kwesi wrote: »
    Incidentally, Martin54, I thought your earlier comment, to which nobody responded, gets to the core of the issue.
    Martin54: There are simple, timeless qualities to the story about how God responds to those who turn to and on Him, those who think they have no rights upon Him and those that think they do.
    I did not respond because, although the idea seems nice, those qualities are not clearly expressed to me. Perhaps you instinctively know the qualities that Martin54 is referring to, but it seems quite likely that you both think differently. But stating those qualities leads us into the danger (IMHO) of trying to turn narrative theology into propositional theology.

    Also how does that fit within the context of the "finding of lost things" parables?
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