The father ran. In Jesus’s most famous parable, that is the scandal

In the story Jesus told, an old man ran down the road to meet a son who had disgraced him. In that culture, respectable older men did not run.

The parable of the prodigal son, in Luke 15:11 to 32, is probably the best-known story Jesus told. A younger son asks for his share of his father’s property, leaves home, spends it all and ends up feeding pigs. The scandal is not what the son did. It is what the father does when he comes back.

A shocking request

The younger son asks for his inheritance while his father is still alive. In effect, he is treating his father as if he were already dead. The father divides his property anyway. The son travels to a far country and “wasted his substance with riotous living”.

When famine comes, he takes a job feeding pigs, an especially degrading position for a Jewish young man, and he is hungry enough to envy the pigs’ food.

Coming to himself

“And when he came to himself,” the text says, he remembers that his father’s hired servants have more than enough bread. He prepares a speech: “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.”

He expects to earn his way back as a worker. He does not expect to be a son again.

The father runs

“But 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 must have been watching the road. He does not wait for an apology. He interrupts the prepared speech, calls for the best robe, a ring and shoes, and orders a feast. “For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.”

The robe, ring and shoes restore the son’s status publicly. He is not a servant. He is home.

The elder brother

The story does not end there. The elder son, who stayed home and worked, hears the music and refuses to come in. He is angry: he has served for years and never been given a party. The father goes out to him too and pleads with him: “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.”

The parable ends with the elder brother still outside. Jesus told it to religious leaders who complained that he welcomed sinners (Luke 15:2). The elder brother is their picture.

For this week

Ask which son you are most like today: the one who ran away, or the one who stayed and grew resentful. The father goes out to both.

A prayer

Father, thank you for watching the road for me. Where I have wandered, bring me home. Where I have grown proud and bitter, soften my heart to rejoice when others are welcomed. Amen.

The younger son rehearsed a speech about being a servant. The father never let him finish it.