People of the Book – The prodigal Son
In mid-October, the church celebrated the feast of St. Luke, the physician-evangelist. A native of Antioch in Syria, one of the major centers of Mediterranean learning in antiquity, Luke was trained in the sciences, mathematics and anatomy from youth. He studied not only the medical and biological wisdom of the day, but traditionally is thought to have excelled in other branches of study including literature and art. Both the Salus Populi Romani (The Protectoress of the Roman People) icon in the Borghese chapel in Rome’s Santa Maria Maggiore and the Black Madonna of Cz´stochowa are (perhaps legendarily) reputed to have been portraits of the Virgin painted in her presence by Luke himself.
Luke is obviously most famous for his association with the tradition out of which both the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles arose. In these writings, the focus shifts away from the intra-Jewish context in which Jesus’ life was to a great degree immersed, to focus more on the universalizing mission to the gentiles and the wider ramifications of salvation history. Because of this fact, foreigners, women, and the marginalized play a comparatively larger role in Luke’s writings than they do in other New Testament texts. Thus, his iconic symbol is usually the lowly and laboring ox.
One notable feature of Luke’s Gospel is the parable of the prodigal son, a tale that appears nowhere else in the accounts of Jesus’ teachings. It is not only one of my own favorite passages in Scripture, but the narrative that Dostoevsky called the most moving in all of literature and requested to be read to him on his deathbed.
Whether from attending Mass or singing along to Irish drinking songs like “The Wild Rover,” we all know the basic tenets of the narrative: a wasteful (prodigal) son is forgiven by a generous parent for squandering his inheritance in dissolute living, and is rewarded simply for having been lost and then found, physically and morally removed from his family to whom he was in a sense “dead” and subsequently returned to life. It is unquestionably a heartwarming account of penance and redemption, captured brilliantly by Rembrandt in his famous painting of the scene. And yet, as always, the words of Jesus challenge us to probe our consciences to appropriate fully the message he intends us to hear.
The challenge in Luke’s account lies, for me at least, in the character of the older brother. He does not ask for his inheritance early, but rather remains dutifully by his father’s side (or perhaps under his thumb) and without complaint does the right thing for his whole life. How does his frustratingly selfish younger brother get such a warm welcome and a feast thrown for him, after he has defied every familial and social norm, when for the elder son not even a meager goat was given to him to share with his friends?
The same sentiment arises in reading the parable of the workers in the vineyard. Of course, the workers who “bore the brunt of the sun all day” expect to be paid more than those that showed up an hour before quitting time. But they are not given bonuses, all get the same wage. These stories are meant to stir up feelings of righteous indignation within us, and they often powerfully achieve their end. They simply are not fair, and precisely because of this they endure, for life often imitates this artistic reality.
More than a window into our own selfishness, they tell us a great deal about God, for his response is the same in both parables. The father and the vineyard owner represent such an elaborate and gratuitous gift of love, mercy and generosity that is offered to all, without merit or distinction, that it is almost unfathomable to our limited fields of vision. Perhaps the most penetrating question that has ever been penned comes from the latter of these parables: “Are you jealous because I am generous?” Christians who are used to attempting to miserly stockpile grace within our own religious tradition, and who seek to establish litmus tests for entry into eternal life according to human notions of justice and fairness have in such a statement a rather rude awakening. For God dashes to bits the stone tablets of “their” law and quid pro quo legalism. We are fortunate that this is so, for if it were up to us to judge whether our brothers and sisters were to be welcomed through the pearly gates, I fear heaven would be a fairly lonely and incestuous place. Attitudes about immigration in this country prove that point rather clearly to my mind. However, God surpasses human notions of fairness and justice, of this even the ancient philosophers had no doubt. He welcomes the outcast, the broken, the sorrowful, the sinning, the spiteful, the rejected and calls us, like Luke, to give particular focus to this task (the works of mercy, both spiritual and corporal) in our daily lives.
Michael M. Canaris of Collingswood is an administrator at Fairfield University’s Center for Faith and Public Life and is on the faculty for the Department of Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies at Sacred Heart University.
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