Reflections on the Parable of the Prodigal Son

(This is an extract from a larger article published in Cistercian Studies Quarterly)

by ARMAND VEILLEIUX, OCSO

We know how a child normally identifies with her father or mother, how a teenager identifies with a sport hero or a movie star, or simply with an adult whom he admires—who could be a teacher. Later on the young man or woman will identify with what he or she does and achieves, or what he or she acquires and owns, or with his or her affective conquests. But when someone really becomes an adult—which is not simply a question of number of years—that person will discover and realize her identity: who she is independently of all the superficial egos and of all the images that she has or others have of her. She is the person who has some talents and does not have other talents, who has things and can lose them, who has successes and failures, and who always remains the same person through all the upheavals of life, while becoming more and more herself.

That process of becoming an adult and an autonomous person, both humanly speaking and spiritually, is very well expressed in a number of parables of the Old Testament as well as of the New Testament.

In the Old Testament, we have the story of Job. Job has everything in which people normally find their psychological, social, and spiritual identity. He is a good man; he has a good reputation in society; he has a wife and many children (seven sons and three daughters), numerous possessions (fields, camels, sheep, oxen), and also male and female ser­vants to take care of all those possessions. He has good health and good friends.

He loses all of this, including the understanding of his wife and of his friends and his health. Then he makes the wonderful discovery that, even after losing everything, he is. He exists. He is the same Job who had all those things and has lost them. The Job who now has nothing is the same person who was a rich, powerful, and influential man. Having nothing to lose any more, he is free. Therefore, he can stand before God and speak very strongly to God. Nobody in the Bible speaks like that to God. This is not arrogance; it is parrhesia—confidence and freedom—the freedom of those who have nothing to lose. At the end he will be able not to recover what he has lost, but to acquire again similar riches (what is lost is lost). That will not change who he is. He is free.

In the New Testament, the same growth process is described in one of Jesus' parables, that of the prodigal son (better called the parable of the prodigal Father). We have here a family whose life seems to be happy and without sorrow. It is a well-to-do family, since there is a fortune to divide among the children. There are fields, flocks, and servants. What the par­able wants to show is the different attitude of three of the characters.

One of the sons has enough of that quiet family life, although it seems to have been harmonious, easy, and pleasant. He wants to live his own life. The life he shares with his father, his brother, and the rest of the fam­ily does not fulfill him any longer. He needs personal achievement. He wants to be somebody and enjoy life. He wants to exist as an independent and isolated individual and not as a member of a whole, a desire we hear in our communities, at times.

What does the father do? He does not express any objection. He must certainly have made his own mistakes during his youth, and he ac­knowledges his son's right to make his own. What is important to him is that his son have a life. The conditions in which he will realize his life are important but secondary. The prodigal son then tastes all the pleasures of life. They are real pleasures, but at the superficial level of existence. Gradually he squanders everything he has, and, as a matter of fact, he experiences the same losing of everything that Job did. The only differ­ence is that he inflicts it upon himself while it was imposed on Job by the Tempter. Then he comes to himself—he has therefore reached his iden­tity in that way—he has found himself in his own way. There was some­one who lived in the past with his father, and who left his father who had a fortune that he has squandered, who has enjoyed the pleasures of life that he cannot afford any more. This person is capable of conversion and of returning to his father. He is free enough to return. He does not fear to be disinherited, since he has already had his inheritance and wasted it. He does not fear to be rejected as a son, since he does not claim the right to be considered a son. He simply wants to be a servant (this word is perhaps the most important of the parable). And when the father sees him coming, he runs to him and embraces him, because his son is alive. The father does not see the ungrateful son, he does not see the fugitive, he does not see the debauched person. He sees his son who is alive, and he wants to celebrate life with his family and servants.

Not everyone is able to celebrate life, especially life in others. The second son is the most pathetic figure of that parable. He is like the good Christian, or the good religious, always faithful to all his obligations, but who has not understood the meaning of life, and especially has not un­derstood anything about love and mercy. He is unable to celebrate. In fact he has nothing to celebrate. When he returns from the fields and he hears the music and the dancing, he asks what the meaning is of that music and of that dancing. That poor man, with all his virtue and his faithful observance, has not made the journey to maturity and adulthood that his brother has made.

Let us now return to the story of the young rich man. He asks Jesus what to do in order to have eternal life. His goal is certainly good—eter­nal life. He is very concerned about the "doing" He asks what he should do, and when Jesus quotes some of the commandments of the Decalogue to him, he says that he has done all of that since his youth. Then Jesus invites him to get rid of everything and come and follow him. In reality Jesus invites him to do voluntarily and freely exactly the same letting go of everything that was imposed on Job by circumstances and that the prodigal son imposed upon himself. He is unable to do it. He is not free. He has not achieved adulthood.

[...] We want to identify with Christ. It is certainly a noble desire! But perhaps it would be more important to ask ourselves, "With whom does Christ want to iden­tify?" The answer is quite obvious in Matthew 25:31-46. Christ identifies with the little ones, the needy, and the downtrodden. "I was sick, I was hungry, I was in jail, I was persecuted .... What you did to the little ones, you did to me." It is when we belong in one way or another to one of those categories that we can be sure that Christ identifies with us.

Some thoughts on Luther and Anabaptists...

Have you ever heard of the book The Martyrs Mirror?

It is an account of Christian/ Anabaptist/ Mennonite martyrs. I was once presented it (actually, parts of it) as a book "every Christian should read", and indeed I have often heard Martyrs Mirror mentioned by modern-day Baptists when they refer to the Protestant doctrine that the 'true church' has somehow persisted throughout the centuries, in direct opposition to the institutionalised Church (and we all know which one that is...).

The bottom line has always been that Martyrs Mirror is a dedication to all true Christians throughout the ages who have been persecuted, murdered by the Inquisition and finally given their voices by the advance of the Reformation.

The full text of the Mirror can be found here:
http://www.homecomers.org/mirror/

The rhetoric is easily illustrated by the following quotes on account of the rite of baptism:

"We do not find it stated by a single authentic author [...] that during the first two centuries any one departed from the foundation of Christ's true order of baptism, that is, from baptism upon faith, by changing this, the true baptism, into a vain or infant baptism; but it appears that in the third century there were men who not only originated, but also put it in practice and administered the same; yet it was adopted only in a few places."

"Ambrose was baptized in adult years, at Milan, though his parents were Christians. He advanced sound views on baptism, against war, of the sacraments, etc.
Ephrem, Gregory of Nyssa, the Councils of Laodicea and Elibertum, and also Optatus Milevitanus, give correct views on baptism."
(by this the book mostly means that these sources confirm that baptism can be given to an adult person)

"We shall begin the fifth century, concerning baptism, with the fifth chapter of Jacob Mehrn. History of Baptism, [...] "Henceforth we shall not dwell upon quite so many testimonies taken from the ancient fathers and church historians, as had necessarily to be the case in the preceding centuries, in order to prove that during the first four centuries after the birth of Christ, infant baptism had neither in the holy Scriptures nor in the authentic books of the teachers of the church, a firm foundation; that is, that it had been ordained by Christ, or that it was an apostolic institution or tradition." "

So far so good. The Anabaptists' method of supporting their ideas is familiar: the Church Fathers, the Apostolic Tradition, the Counsils (and they seem to have undertood well that the Canon of the Scripture was not yet established in the centuries referred to). Note this last paragraph particularly - the authentic books of the teachers of the church, a firm foundation ... apostolic tradition...

Eventually, of course, the Church becomes institutionalised, and the account of the latter centuries is basically an account of the resistance movement of true believers, abounding with quotations and historical references, some of them quite interesting. The account ends with the 16th century, "the century in whichLuther in Germany, Zwingli in Switzerland, and afterwards Calvin in France, began to reform the Roman church; and to deny, oppose and contend with the authority of God's holy Word against the supposed power of the Roman Pope, and many papal superstitions, however, in order to avoid too great dissatisfaction, as it seems, they remained in the matter of infant baptism, in agreement with the Roman church".

Written by non-violent, Mennonite Anabaptists, the book seems to approve of the Reformers, and only accuse them of compromising the belief that had allegedly been held throughout the centuries - that of adult baptism - for the sake of pleasing people.

Alas, the Reformers were not equally non-violent. When it comes to Luther, the matter is straighforward, as usual. In 1530 he writes:

"If some were to teach doctrines contradicting an article of faith clearly grounded in Scripture and believed throughout the world by all Christendom - for example if anyone were to teach that Christ is not God, but a mere man and like other prophets, as the Turks and the Anabaptists hold - such teachers should not be tolerated, but punished as blasphemers" (Commentary on the 82nd Psalm)

Huh, Turks and Anabaptists? So much for the hidden one true church?
Is Luther exaggerating? As a matter of fact, no. He is speaking of different Anabaptists (there were many). Luther is referring to the Anti-Trinitarian Anabaptists, who may have been influenced by the writings of Servetus (Calvin strongly advocated death penalty for the latter). They held a council in Venice in 1550 and formulated a statement of belief, that declared, among other points, that Jesus Christ is not God, but man, born of Joseph and Mary, but filled with all the powers of God... Ironically, when the persecution started, this group sought refuge in the lands ruled by - yes, the Turks (cf. Latourette, A History of Christianity, v.II p. 792).

The Martyrs Mirror advocates a completely opposite view of Christ, that smacks of Monophysitism:
"and also another ..., who was censured because he held that the body of Christ was not of the substance of Mary" (an account of the martyrs of the second century-emphasis mine)

"They also asked me whether I did not believe that Christ had received flesh and blood from Mary. I said that Christ came by His divine power out of heaven, was conceived in Mary through the Holy Ghost, and born of her, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and became like unto us in all things, except sin, so that He was not born of the blood, nor of the will of the flesh, and did not receive flesh or blood from Mary"

"We also spake with the Jesuits, and with others, about the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, in which we did not agree, for they said that He had flesh and blood from Mary. And I said that He is the Son of God, who was born of the virgin Mary, since she had known no man [...]That which she received (mark well) did not come from her; else it would be of the earth, as was Mary, and as are all the children of Adam."

"who, among other things, believed and confessed with Menno Simons and all true believers, that the Son of God became man for our sakes, and that He did not receive His humanity from Mary or any other source, but that the eternal Word or Son, became Himself flesh or man."

So much for Mary.

I have read somewhere that in the ancient world it was widely believed that women only carried children in their wombs and gave birth to them, while it was solely a man's semen that actually produced a child. I can only speculate in regard to the origin of the doctrine of these particular Anabaptists, but this is certainly not the belief of the Church, ancient or not ancient. The Fourth Ecumenical Counsil of Chalcedon states in the year 451: "Following the holy fathers we all, with one voice, define that there is to be confessed one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ [...], of the same substance with the Father according to the Godhead, and of the same substance with us according to the manhood, [...] begotten of the Father before all time according to the Godhead, [...] born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God according to the manhood..." The parallelism of these lines is self-explanatory.

So when Martin Luther rages against the heretical doctrines of Anabaptists he does it with full authority and conviction of someone who is backed by Church history and the Word of God, as he understands it. That the same Word of God is understood differently is another matter, but here is what Luther writes:

"That seditious articles of doctrine should be punished by the sword needed no further proof. For the rest, the Anabaptists hold tenets relating to infant baptism, original sin, and inspiration, which have no connection with the Word of God, and are indeed opposed to it. . . Secular authorities are also bound to restrain and punish avowedly false doctrine . . ."

Just to clarify the matters - these were not mere words. Inquisition was not the only force behind executions (nor was Inquisition merely a Catholic invention - I am referring to the Orthodox equivalent, which is, however, beside the point here). According to Dave Armstrong, Mennonite historian John D. Roth estimated about 4000 Anabaptist martyrdoms in Europe, between 1525 and 1574: a little less than half of them were committed by Protestants, and about one-quarter of those (roughly 500) in Luther’s province of Saxony.

God bless those poor brave souls who gave their lives for what they believed in, and perhaps every Christian should read the Martyrs Mirror, but I would rather every Christian study history, and study it well...

All that I can give

And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the multitude putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came, and put in two copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him, and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living." (Mk. 12:41-44)

Today's reading is one of those places in the Scripture that keeps expanding its meaning as you go in your walk with the Lord. Perhaps this is because few of us can easily grasp the nature of giving to the Lord, what pleases Him as opposed to what pleases me, what He needs as opposed to what I need. I often heard it and often said it - how we need to make Jesus the Lord of our life, to take up the cross daily... And I often thought I understood and yet that same understanding would evade me whenever I tried to keep things for myself - be it my sins or my posessions.
I often felt like the poor widow when I came to the Lord to pray. More often than not all I could bring were my own wandering thoughts (ranging from today's shopping list to what transport should I take from the airport six months from now) and my tiredness. Or else I would want to impress the Lord with the beautiful words I'd say and the good things I've done... His presence makes it difficult to hold on to these things, but in tiredness and doubt it is somehow easier to realise that I am indeed poor. All I have is myself and my time to give to the Lord. Everything else - all the good things - comes from Him. All the bad that I've ever done comes from myself.
Today, re-reading this Scripture, I thought whether I had preferred to contribute out of my abundance rather than out of my poverty. It was so easy to give from the things I was good at, to help with translations, to discuss the Scriptures, to give money when I had it, to say a kind word when I was in a good mood... The widow had nothing to give but a last penny, and yet Jesus was impressed because He saw to the heart. God is not impressed by the rich sacrifices, by gifts given to Him who is the giver of all gifts, but something else impressed Him - trust. And the total surrender of everything, even the embarassing, the insignificant, the poor. It seems that holiness is not about becoming perfect, but about refusing to have a will of one's own.
When I contributed out of my abundance, and might have slowly started cherishing the idea that the Lord would be impressed, did I bother to give the Lord my poverty? The poverty of my faults and sins and addictions?
Today, the contribution of poverty for me means giving up, offering up what I thought I could do myself. Giving up my right to be angry, my right to be offended, my right to retaliate, my right to run the show, my right to indulge in the drug of my choice - be it chocolate, nicotine, lust or gym - even in my sleep, giving up the right to be the lord of my life.
For I can, of course, choose to be that lord and hold on to little things and try to maintain control even by doing the kindest and seemingly most selfless of acts. But I think in today's reading Jesus says He is not the least bit impressed. He would never be able to grant the freedom to those who hold on to their selves, - He wants the last penny. All of it. To let go - and let God.
Thy will, not mine, be done.