If we are aware of nothing else in this parable right now, we should be aware of this: the father had two sons. Keller therefore renames the story The Parable of the Two Lost Sons. Whether this new title is appropriate or not is a discussion for another time, but it helps to hammer home a crucial point.
The story is split into two acts, the first zeroing in on the younger son and his father, the second concentrating on the elder son and his father. The presence of the father throughout the story leads me to believe that first and foremost it is a story about the father. Just as the previous parable wasn't about coins but about a persistent woman's joy in finding one, so this parable too is about a father's joy in finding his lost son. The two sons act as two different lenses through which we as imaginers of this story can see the father. It is of course the same father, but each son interprets his actions quite differently.
Act 1 chronicles the younger son's journey towards really seeing his father. It begins with the son asking the father for his inheritance. He was entitled to one third of what the father had, but this transaction occurred only after the father had passed away. Therefore, in effect the son was wishing his father dead. He wanted out of the father/son relationship now, desiring instead the material gains the death of this relationship promised.
The father would have had every right to give his son nothing more than a sandal up the backside and proceed to disown him. The son's request was one of the utmost disrespect and contempt. But here in the opening verses of the paragraph we encounter the prodigality of the father, whose response is more shocking than the request. The father simply divides his livelihood (in the Greek the word is bios, meaning life) and gives to his younger son what should only be given after the father's death. The son makes a shocking demand, and the father replies, "As you wish". He tears his life apart for the love of his son, unwilling to retaliate in kind to the son's rejection. This is no eye-for-an-eye, but a turning of the other cheek. Jesus applies here to the father what he described in the Sermon on the Mount: costly love.
The next scene sees the son living it up in "a far country". He takes his father's very life and blows it through wasteful living, content to experience the fleeting pleasures bought with money instead of enjoying the love of the father which money cannot buy. His bank balance dries up eventually, and famine strikes the land. The son is an alien in this country, with no family to lean on for support. He turns to a citizen of the country and winds up feeding pigs to make ends meet. He is a long way from his father's house now, where even the servants go to bed with their stomachs full of food.
There in the pigsty we are told that "he came to himself" or "he came to his senses". Some see this is the moment of repentance or the moment when he finally saw the light. Keller doesn't explicitly address this issue, but I think there is slightly more to the son's return than we initially realise.
The story is split into two acts, the first zeroing in on the younger son and his father, the second concentrating on the elder son and his father. The presence of the father throughout the story leads me to believe that first and foremost it is a story about the father. Just as the previous parable wasn't about coins but about a persistent woman's joy in finding one, so this parable too is about a father's joy in finding his lost son. The two sons act as two different lenses through which we as imaginers of this story can see the father. It is of course the same father, but each son interprets his actions quite differently.
Act 1 chronicles the younger son's journey towards really seeing his father. It begins with the son asking the father for his inheritance. He was entitled to one third of what the father had, but this transaction occurred only after the father had passed away. Therefore, in effect the son was wishing his father dead. He wanted out of the father/son relationship now, desiring instead the material gains the death of this relationship promised.
The father would have had every right to give his son nothing more than a sandal up the backside and proceed to disown him. The son's request was one of the utmost disrespect and contempt. But here in the opening verses of the paragraph we encounter the prodigality of the father, whose response is more shocking than the request. The father simply divides his livelihood (in the Greek the word is bios, meaning life) and gives to his younger son what should only be given after the father's death. The son makes a shocking demand, and the father replies, "As you wish". He tears his life apart for the love of his son, unwilling to retaliate in kind to the son's rejection. This is no eye-for-an-eye, but a turning of the other cheek. Jesus applies here to the father what he described in the Sermon on the Mount: costly love.
The next scene sees the son living it up in "a far country". He takes his father's very life and blows it through wasteful living, content to experience the fleeting pleasures bought with money instead of enjoying the love of the father which money cannot buy. His bank balance dries up eventually, and famine strikes the land. The son is an alien in this country, with no family to lean on for support. He turns to a citizen of the country and winds up feeding pigs to make ends meet. He is a long way from his father's house now, where even the servants go to bed with their stomachs full of food.
There in the pigsty we are told that "he came to himself" or "he came to his senses". Some see this is the moment of repentance or the moment when he finally saw the light. Keller doesn't explicitly address this issue, but I think there is slightly more to the son's return than we initially realise.
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