Lately I’ve been listening to lots of stories about parents and children. You probably all know the variations on the theme: children doing things their parents don’t want them to, adults failing to parent their children adequately, siblings taking very different paths and dividing loyalties. Makes for messy holidays and family reunions, no? But it has always been thus among human since the days of Cain and Abel, if we are to take the witness of Scripture seriously.
The Gospel lesson proclaimed today is popularly known as “the parable of the prodigal son,” but the adjective “prodigal”—which means something like wasteful—could just as well describe the father as the son. Recall that the younger son asked for his inheritance while his father was still living—kind of the equivalent of saying “Dad, I want you dead”—and he squandered it. Then his father makes the arguably wasteful and possibly enabling and choice of welcoming the wayward son back with no questions asked. Which annoys the older brother. And really, who can blame him?
This story is a parable—meaning that we are to understand it as metaphor—but none of these behaviors should be seen as normative. As one commentator wrote, this is not the “go and do likewise” genre of Biblical story. Nevertheless, these dynamics are familiar to all of us who have families. So perhaps we should say that this parable is descriptive of the human condition, if not prescriptive of good behavior.
If you happened to be at the Sunday or Wednesday Lenten program during the last two weeks, you might have heard our deacon Spencer’s story of a parent behaving badly. And in like manner, all of us parents could tell stories of children behaving badly, in small or large ways. And even if we forego the judgmental categories of good or bad, we all know how challenging it is when when a family member makes a choice that is radically different than what we had planned or hoped for them. It hurts. We parents especially wonder if we’ve done something wrong.
Last week I had the unusual privilege of officiating at the wedding of my father, who was widowed three years ago. It was not in any way obvious that I would ever be in the role of priest for him. You see, in my family, I was the child who went awry. I am the oldest daughter of parents who were accomplished academics and also adamant atheists. At 19, I became Christian, and seven years later my new husband and I left the country to serve as missionaries in Latin America. What did my parents think of all that? With the arrogance of a 26 year old, of course I didn’t bother to ask. But as a parent myself I can well imagine. They thought I was squandering my education, my safety, my privilege. I was the prodigal. And one person’s prodigality is another person’s vocation.
With this in mind, I would venture to say that the human dilemma addressed by this parable is not so much about who caused the family relationships to go awry, but rather that family relationships do go awry. All of us here today have been hurt by parents, children, siblings. But in this story, it matters less who was most selfish than who was most generous. The father character is there to teach us something about God’s heart and hospitality, which invites not just the prodigal son but the whole human family to return to our true home.
And it’s no accident that the metaphor for God’s hospitality in this parable was a feast. Food as a sign of God’s providence runs deep in our Biblical narrative. Today’s Old Testament lesson, for example, recalls the peculiar bread called manna that was provided to the Hebrew people during their long desert Exodus from Egypt. Manna was a miracle, but—like all food in God’s Biblical feasts—it was not an end in itself. Rather, the manna was given to teach the Hebrew people practices of gratitude that they could remember when they took possession of the promised land. Because God well knew that when people cultivate wheat and barley with their own labor, there is always the risk that they might would forget what a miracle daily bread is. That’s a risk we run even now.
“I am dying of hunger,” said the prodigal son. Remember that part? Gripped by famine, the young man came to himself. He began the humble homeward journey only when he recognized how hungry he really was. And remembered how generous his father was with food.
So I wonder, what are you hungry for today? For the sixty young people camping out in our parish hall downstairs, it really is a seemingly bottomless need for food. I know, because I cooked dinner for them last night. But perhaps for you it is a hunger to gather in community, or to sing a glad song. Or maybe you’ve come to learn the stories of God’s people, to ground yourself in the creed of an ancient faith, or to pray. Maybe you hunger for the freedom to say you’re sorry and be assured that you are forgiven, or to offer and receive peace in a world of violence. Are you hungry for holiness, and the giving and receiving holy things? Which are not only the bread and wine, but also your very selves? Or is it the wild hope that we’ll all go out from this place with a little more courage and a lot more of God’s generous image stamped upon us?
We don’t always break our down our liturgy like we’re doing today in this instructed Eucharist. But today and every Sunday, this feast is our prodigal homecoming, feeding hungers that we sometimes can’t even name. The Eucharist invites us to come to ourselves: we who are children who disappoint our parents, we who are parents who let our children down, we who are siblings who don’t see eye to eye at all. Let us come anyway: come just as we are, come home to the place where our hunger for acceptance and new life will always be fed. Because God is so endlessly generous that way.
Come to yourselves, come back, just come. Come… for all things are ready.
