The Prodigal Son 2 - Luke 15:15-32

Just as the prodigal son’s money runs out, a famine besieges the land, and the poor kid is screwed. He has no other option so “he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.” Pigs are dirty and stinky, but farm work is nothing to look down at, it isn’t necessarily considered today to be the degrading job that the parable implies that it is. If he were simply a farm hand, then he would have no reason to go back to his father because he would be able to take care of himself, though minimally, and would still be able to resent and rebel against his Hebrew heritage and upbringing. This is why sometimes people only come back after they’ve reached “rock bottom,” it’s the distress, the breaking point that allow people to look at all options to end their suffering, and hopefully, one of those options is turning back to Jesus. But there’s a particular reason that Jesus specified the boy feeding swine instead of just saying that he worked on a farm. The IM explains, “Swine, or pigs, were considered ‘unclean’ according to the law of Moses; thus the prodigal’s demeaning employment feeding swine reflects how far he had fallen, and it would have been considered an additional sign of dishonor.”

Eventually, feeding those pigs, he “would fain have filled his belly with the uhsks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And… he came to himself.” What does it mean to “come to yourself? It’s an interesting question. For me personally, I think that it means that there is a moment of clarity, a moment of “I can’t do this anymore,” and “I will do anything to make this stop.” Or maybe one of those times when you stop and look at where you are and think “how did I get here? What am I doing?” I have had several of those moments, several, and you have to stop and think, is what I’m doing in keeping with who I want to be? And if not, then changes need to be made. It’s like a dream you wake up from and don’t recognize your surroundings. The IM continues, “It was in these desperate circumstances that finally ‘he came to himself’- an idiom suggesting that he awoke to a recognition of the awful situation he had fallen into because of his transgression. Elder Neal A. Maxwell observed, ‘Of course, it is better if we are humbled ‘because of the word’ rather than being compelled by circumstances, yet the latter may do! Famine can induce spiritual hunger.’”

We don’t know how long the son reflected on his situation, but then he remembered, “how many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.” Being my father’s servant is better than the life I’m living now. In the most recent general conference talk entitled, “Repentance is always positive,” Stephen W. Owen says, “I’ve often wondered about the son’s long walk home. Were there times when he hesitated and wondered, ‘How will I be receveid by my father/” Perhaps he even took a few steps back toward the swine. Imagine how the story would be different if he had given up. But faith kept him moving, and faith kept his father watching and waiting patiently.”

How is the journey back to God the same and different from the journey this son took back to his father? I guess in the literal sense that God is our spiritual father so going back to him is inevitable for all of us, in one way or another. We know that we will all face God for a final judgment, in that sense, it would be like the son being required to return to his father before he died to account for his actions. The father in the parable made no such requirement, but God does. It would be interesting to know how the son’s actions might have been different if he knew that he would eventually have to go back and face his father. But I feel like God’s warning that we will see him again, isn’t as much a threat as it is a “heads up.” We come to this earth with no remembrance of our life before, which can make it difficult to recognize God in our lives and remember how important we are to him and he is to us. In the parable the son remembers his father’s goodness and patience and willingness to allow him to make his own mistakes, but we don’t remember that part about our Father. Because we can’t recall our relationship to God like the son can recall his relationship with his father, it might not be intuitive for us to go to God when we’ve hit rock bottom.

But this parable isn’t about the son as much as it is about the father. The son is lost, not through distraction or neglect but by outright rejecting everything that the father is and has. He’s rejecting any dreams that the father might have had for him, and he’s rejecting the love that the father has for him, and the love any one in his family might have for him, including his mother. This must be just a glimpse into what it’s like for Heavenly Father when we rebel against him. The son didn’t have an understanding of how the world worked, he was disillusioned with his father’s path and sought out his own. And in the way that the story plays out, with him leaving town, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It’s not wrong to want to make a life of your own, even if your parents want something different for you. But what the son did that was wrong, was break God’s commandments. There are many different ways that you can live your life that are acceptable, many different career paths, many different opinions, but there is only one path to happiness and that is through the gospel. In seeking his father out, the son was trusting that the father would be forgiving.

I have to be honest, if this were my child returning to me after making such stupid choices, I would forgive them and take the back, but there would be boundaries, there would be rules and it would be very structured. But the father did act like that, when his son returned, “When he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” The father saw his son returning before he had even made it to the house, meaning that he was always looking, always searching that horizon for the silhouette of his son returning. He never gave up hope, and he was ready for when he did return. The father didn’t make his son grovel and beg forgiveness, he didn’t humiliate him in that way, he valued him as a human being, and respected him enough to try to preserve his dignity, and he didn’t demand an account of what happened to the money.

The son makes his confession saying, “Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son.” All of those things are true, yet the father let’s them go. We are not worthy to be considered God’s children because we have all made mistakes, and yes we do have to mend our ways. The son had to return to his father and act according to his father’s rules, just like we have to give up our behaviors that contradict the laws of God. But once we do, it’s like we never left, we’re welcomed back and celebrated. This is a particularly difficult lesson for the Pharisees to understand because they classify people as “publicans and sinners,” labeling them as unredeemable, but Jesus is trying to tell them that, like Luke Skywalker said, “no one is ever truly lost.”

The father is so happy to have his son returned that he pulls out all the stops, he wants a robe to be put on his son’s shoulders, a ring on his hand, and shoes, and he wants a feast made in his honor. I feel like this is so poignant because it’s like saying, “yes, repentance can be a difficult choice, but there are jewels and celebration and joy awaiting you when you do.” The IM quotes Elder Jeffrey R. Holland as teaching, “The tender image of this boy’s anxious, faithful father running to meet him and showering him with kisses is one of the most moving and compassionate scenes in all of holy writ. It tells every child of God, wayward or otherwise, how much God wants us back in the protection of His arms.” The IM continues, “Like the father in the parable, God will not control us, keep us from straying, or keep us form making selfish, foolish errors. Yet his love never diminishes. He is so anxious to have us return that He will run to us when we are still ‘a great way off.’ He knows us so well that he can recognize our better selves when no one else can. Each of us, male or female, will be able to recognize something of ourselves in each of the sons in the parable.”

Interestingly, this is where the first son comes back into play. He is out working on his father’s farm, like he had been doing the whole time, and “drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing.” He asks what’s going on and is told that this is a feast to celebrate the return of his long lost brother. I never understood his reaction until I was much older. As a child I expected that he should have been happy just like his father was, but he is not happy, he was angry, and would not go in.” The father is clearly aware of the feelings of both of his sons, and so he comes out to find the older boy and asks what’s going on. The son says basically, “I have done everything you’ve asked and never been disobedient, and you’ve never celebrated me in a way like this. But as soon as ‘thy son’ came back from wasting his inheritance, you throw a party for him.” Looking at it from that perspective, I can see where he’s coming from.

The explanation of why the older son acted the way that he did and why he is a part of us as well is best explained in the lengthy, yet insightful, explanation from the IM. It says, “The older son had been sutiful, but in some ways he too was distant from his father. He did not share his father’s compassion or joy. By refusing to join in the feast, he too publicly brought shame and embarrassment to his father, though not to the extent of the younger son. The father left the feast to seek out his elder son rather than waiting for the elder son to come to him, as culture would dictate. The father offered love and grace to both sons, the faithful and the less faithful. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland explained that one of the lessons we can learn form the elder son in the parable os the seld-destructive consequences of jealousy: ‘This son is not so much angry that the other has come home as he is angry that his parents are so happy about it. Feeling unappreciated and perhaps more than a little self-pity, this dutiful son- and he is wonderfully dutiful- forgets for a moment that he has never had to know filth or despair, fear or self-loathing. He forgets for a moment that every calf on the ranch is already his and so are all the robes in the closet and every ring in the drawer. He forgets for a moment that his faithfulness has been and always will be rewarded. No, he who has virtually everything, and who has in his hardworking, wonderful way earned it, lacks the one thing that might make him the complete man of the Lord he nearly is. He has yet to come to the compassion and mercy, the charitable breadth of vision to see that this is not a rival returning. It is his brother… Certainly this younger bother had been a prisoner- a prisoner of sin, stupidity, and a pigsty. But the older brother lives in some confinement, too. He has, as yet, been unable to break out of the prison of himself. He is haunted by the green-eyed monster of jealousy. He feels take for granted by his father and disenfranchised by his brother, when neither is the case. He has fallen victim to a fictional affront… One who has heretofore presumably been very happy with his life and content with his good fortune suddenly feels very unhappy simply because another has had some good fortune as well.’”