The Prodigal God

I dare you to think of all the ways that God is prodigal as we explore the stories of the Christ event – God revealed. We all have an implied definition of the word prodigal, which is based on how we understand the story in Luke 15, sometimes titled the “prodigal son.” Because the son makes a plan to enter back into the grace of his father by confessing sin, we equate the word prodigal with sinful, but this isn’t really accurate.  Here is one definition adj. - spending money or resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant. (i.e. “prodigal habits die hard") Here is a second, having or giving something on a lavish scale. (i.e. "the dessert was crunchy with brown sugar and prodigal with whipped cream"). So, if our image of the word prodigal were not hardened by our judgments of the son in Luke’s story, would we be able to see the prodigal in God?

To review the story, Pharisees and scribes were grumbling, like only the righteous authorities can do. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So Jesus goes into story mode. As if it were a foregone conclusion; Jesus posits, “Who among you wouldn’t leave your 99 sheep in search of just one that was lost?” We, from the culture of “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,” might be forced to admit that we wouldn’t do this. Why risk all that you have for the “nonessential, the inconsequential, the insignificant? Then he goes on, lost a coin? “who among you would not spend significant time and effort in searching and take even more time in celebrating?” Again, we from the culture of “Time is Money” might be tempted to make very pragmatic decisions. So let’s get prodigal.

The son is scandalous. He has the good fortune of being part of a family with wealth and position. He would have a duty to serve his family and then the honor of receiving a share of the family’s’ assets. But he breaks with tradition. He seems to under value the cultural norms. He takes the inheritance of the father to another country. He squanders all that is his, all to which he is entitled, he is charged with dissolute living. His brother complains that he devoured the father’s property with prostitutes. He enters into a time of famine. He feels starved and abandoned. He aches for the comfort of home, even a comfort that was a fraction of what he has had in the past. His loss is real and profound – the squandering is complete. This reminds me of a description of Jesus.

                Phil 2:5-11

⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, ⁶who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, ⁷but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, ⁸he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. ⁹Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, ¹⁰so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, ¹¹and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The father has actions and emotions that force us to re-imagine the meaning of fatherhood; challenge the relationship between authority and love. When the son is still far off the father’s heart was filled with compassion and he sets out in a full run; an embarrassing display of affection that would be far beneath the authority of his position in the culture. But he doesn’t stop here, he takes the son completely back, robing the son, and giving the son back his place at the table. He celebrates raucously; for example, “… with all the people on earth and all the company in heaven and joining an unending hymn.” When the father is challenged by the righteous family member, this is his response, “We have to celebrate and rejoice…your brother was dead and now he is alive.” How many fathers have these words to say? How many fathers have been redefined by their loving response to a squandering son?

“Love is recklessness, not reason.

Reason seeks profit,

Love comes on strong. Consuming herself,

Unabashed”

(From a poem By Mathnawi Rumi)

The brother appears with familiar identifying markers as well. He is the part of the family that has attempted to obey every cultural expectation. He is the one casting aspersions on the squandering son, “He devoured your property on prostitutes” on sinners. He expects reward for his behavior and is jealous that the father is handing out gifts that are unearned. Finally he is taught by the father not to question the father’s love for him and to draw the circle of acceptance wider – the squanderer is restored.

This is the story that was told in response to the grumbling of the Pharisees and the scribes. Do you see a prodigal God in this story?

Jesus has often referred to himself as a son of God, “I am in my father’s house”. Jesus has often referred to God as father; saying this is how you pray “’abba’, who art in heaven…” Can we see the possibility that Jesus was telling the Pharisees and scribes the whole story? My squandering is intentional. I have a great inheritance, but I will give it all away. I will squander it on sinners and prostitutes. I will let go of all that I have and all that I am. I will be famished. I will feel forsaken. I will long for home and feel so set apart from it. But the father will demonstrate an unimaginable compassion. The father will be redefined by love rather than authority and the son will be restored. What is more, there is neither exclusion nor exclusiveness in store for the righteous, the culturally obedient. 

It is God’s choice and God’s right to be prodigal and it has made all the difference. God revealed is a God that lets go of everything; power, identity, honor, even body. The prodigal God has demonstrated the power to fill the empty hand, the empty life, the empty. It is a distribution of God’s resources that would seem to anyone watching to be free, reckless, and wastefully extravagant. It is a distribution of grace that could only be described as lavish in scale. “The squandering son –restored” is our hope and our guide. In what ways can we let go? Can we have faith that an empty hand is but a fresh vessel for the abundance that waits? What is our relationship to the resources we have been given? What have we done to make room for the resources that are yet to come our way? Can it be that the squandering son is a good steward?