WELCOME TO THE SUMMER SERIES WEDNESDAY!
This year, unlike past years, the Cottage Summer special is open to all subscribers (paid and free) as a gift to nurture your spirit this Pentecost season.
In addition to these Wednesday posts on the parables in A Beautiful Year, paid subscribers have access to weekly live and recorded conversations during Parables & Pentecost.
At the conclusion of this series, pastors, book group or Bible study leaders are welcome to use these posts as the basis for 6-week sermon series or with small groups. All you need to do is give credit to the Cottage and encourage people to read A Beautiful Year.
Today, we explore the story of the Prodigal Son in our summer series on Parables and Pentecost.
I invite you to read and reflect on this well-known parable. How do you feel about this story? Where are you in the story? Does this parable challenge you — and us — at this moment in history?
Today’s excerpt is courtesy of my publisher from the audiobook version of A Beautiful Year, “The Parable Prodigal Son.” If you are reading the book, it is found on pages 233-235; in the e-book, this parable is in the Pentecost section.
(You can order A Beautiful Year as an audiobook, an e-book, or in hardcover. Please click here for ordering and format options.)
Listen, read, and enjoy. Explore the suggestions below for further reflection and understanding — as you choose. This isn’t a homework assignment! This is an invitation and a guide. Think about all three topics or pick one. Leave comments and observations. Read the comments of others and learn from the community. Reply to each other. I’ll jump into the thread a few times during the day.
Ask questions, wonder together.
THE STORY
The parable itself is found only in Luke 15:22-32:
Then Jesus said, ‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.
When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’”
So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
But the father said to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And they began to celebrate.
‘Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.”
Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!”
Then the father said to him, “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.” ’
WHAT IS THIS STORY ABOUT?
How would you explain this story to someone who had never heard it before? What’s the point? Is there more than one point to this parable?
Do you like the story? Do you not like it? Does it puzzle you? Anger you? Make you resentful? What emotions does it stir? Be honest!
Do you think it is better described as a moral parable, an example parable, or a challenge parable? It is tempting to say “all three,” but which of these styles is most prominent?
THE STORY AND YOUR STORY
WHAT DOES THIS STORY MEAN TO YOU NOW?
When did you first hear this story? How many times do you think you’ve heard it? Have you heard it in other forms (film, novel, poetry, art, music) in addition to the biblical story?
Have you ever had an experience of being lost then found? Of returning home or being welcomed?
To which character do you most relate? Who garners your sympathy? Who is the hero of this story? The villain? Who do you like the most?
Where’s the mother? What do you think she was thinking?
How has your understanding of this story changed over the years? What stands out for you differently today than at other times in your life? As you re-read it or listen to my reflections on it, what surprised you? Is there something you’ve never noticed before?
THE STORY AND OUR STORY
During the first week of this series, John Dominic Crossan joined with the paid subscriber community in an online conversation about the parables.
We focused on how the parables challenged empire, how they present an alternative to Christian nationalism, and how they widen our vision toward evolutionary — and revolutionary — possibilities for a sustainable, peaceable future for humankind.
In his book, The Power of Parable, Crossan pointed out that the Prodigal Son is one of three parables in Luke 15 about things that are lost and found. He also suggested that this story is an “example parable” of an episode found in Luke 5:
Levi gave a great banquet for Jesus in his house, and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick: I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:29-32)
If you read Sunday Musings, you surely will recognize this context as being very similar to last weekend’s reading from Matthew! Indeed, “Levi” is another name for “Matthew.”
Like Sunday’s Matthew text about an offensive dinner and two women being healed, the Prodigal Son makes a similar point — that which has been lost will receive mercy and invited to the feast.
The parable isn’t only about one person — or personal repentance. The one stands for many. In my essay, I wrote,
“Perhaps this story is less about personal forgiveness and more about the feast. A precursor of the supper that lies ahead? A foreshadowing of the revolutionary meal Jesus instituted at his last supper? A meal structured on mutuality and equality, based in humble service to one another and unconditional forgiveness? … The Jesus supper overcomes social divides, heals brokenness with reconciliation, and treats everyone at the table with dignity. The Prodigal Son rehearses this theological possibility in story.…”
HOW DOES THIS PARABLE CHALLENGE YOU — AND US — AT THIS SPECIFIC MOMENT IN HISTORY?
What do you think about Crossan’s suggestion that the Prodigal Son is an “example parable” of the dinner with “tax collectors and sinners”? Does its example of “lost and found” resonate with my reflection? With your experience?
I hadn’t read Crossan’s interpretation of the Prodigal Son when I wrote my essay about all the food in the parable. Do you see the similarities between his framing and mine? I primarily saw the Prodigal Son feast as prefiguring the Last Supper, but Dom drew on a different dinner example. How are these feasts all related?
The parable is more of an “example parable” than was the Good Samaritan. Yet it held a challenge for the older brother! And it does challenge us as well. What is most challenging for you? For our communities? What’s the challenge for NOW?
What does this parable say to the global rise of authoritarianism and Christian nationalism?
An example parable may be good, a challenge parable is a far more importantly subversive operation. Why? Because challenge parables humble our prejudicial absolutes, but without proposing counter-absolutes in their place. They are tiny pins dangerously close to big balloons. They push or pull us into pondering whatever is taken totally for granted in our world.
— John Dominic Crossan
INSPIRATION
TWO OF TODAY’S THREE POEMS about the Prodigal Son were written by women. One is a classic nineteenth century piece; the other is from 2002. The third (1992), by Charles Simic, imagines the prodigal watching his estranged mother. All three — whether subversively or overtly — introduce a female voice into the story of the Prodigal.
It is interesting to compare the perspectives of Funk (from the mother’s POV) and Simic (from the prodigal’s angle) on this story.
Does that lamp still burn in my Father’s house,Which he kindled the night I went away?I turned once beneath the cedar boughs,And marked it gleam with a golden ray;Did he think to light me home some day?Hungry here with the crunching swine,Hungry harvest have I to reapIn a dream I count my Father’s kine,I hear the tinkling bells of his sheep,I watch his lambs that browse and leap.There is plenty of bread at home,His servants have bread enough and to spare;The purple wine-fat froths with foam,Oil and spices make sweet the air,While I perish hungry and bare.Rich and blessed those servants, ratherThan I who see not my Father’s face!I will arise and go to my Father:—“Fallen from sonship, beggared of grace,Grant me, Father, a servant’s place.”— Christina Georgina Rossetti, “A Prodigal Son” (1896, published posthumously)
When he returned a second time,the straps of his sandals broken,his robe stained with wine,
it was not as easy to forgive.
By then his fatherwas long gone himself,
leaving me with my other son, the sullen onewhose anger is the instrument he tunesfrom good morning on.
I know.
There’s no room for a manin the womb.
But when I saw my youngest coming from far off,so small he seemed, a kidunsteady on its legs.
She-goatwhat will you do? I thought,remembering when he learned to walk.
Shape shifter! It’s like looking through water—the heat bends, it blurs everything: brush, precipice.
A shambles between us.— Allison Funk, “The Prodigal’s Mother Speaks to God”
Dark morning rainMeant to fallOn a prison and a schoolyard,Falling meanwhileOn my mother and her old dog.How slow she shuffles nowIn my father’s Sunday shoes.The dog by her sideTrembling with each stepAs he tries to keep up.I am on another corner waitingWith my head shaved.My mind hops like a sparrowIn the rain.I’m always watching and worrying about her.Everything is a magic ritual,A secret cinema,The way she appears in a window hours laterTo set the empty bowlAnd spoon on the table,And then exitsSo that the day may pass,And the night may fallInto the empty bowl,Empty room, empty house,While the rain keepsKnocking at the front door.— Charles Simic, “The Prodigal” (from The New Yorker, 1992)
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PARABLES AND PENTECOSTOnline for Paid Subscribers
On Friday, June 12, I’ll email a recorded conversation on the parables and storytelling to paid subscribers.
(We’re unable to do live conversations at the moment due to the security breach we had with Zoom last week. But this recorded conversation will be quite wonderful - I promise!)
The conversation is with my friend, Gareth Higgins. Gareth is from Belfast, Northern Ireland and is a storyteller and film critic. He is one of the founders of the Wild Goose Festival, a co-founder of the Porch community, and the co-host of Ireland Retreats.
Last year, I traveled with Gareth to Ireland. And, in July, I’ll return to Ireland to work with him again. We enjoy one another’s company and I know you’ll love listening in as we talk about the magic of storytelling and Jesus as a great storyteller!
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dianabutlerbass.substack.com/subscribe
