Prodigals All

         Once a year in the Catholic Church calendar the gospel is about the Prodigal Son. As a kid, I did not get this parable. Year after year, the message I was hearing was that the good son was being scoffed at for feeling slighted while the wandering son got rewarded for having returned to the farm – so why not be the prodigal child? I could not get past that. Why was the son who followed all the rules the one who was in the wrong? Why is it being suggested that we run off and squander our inheritance and then come back and expect more? There was something wrong here.

          So when Sarah and Amanda and I started on the chapter in The Parables of Jesus that was going to discuss the Prodigal Son, I said to the girls, “I'm anxious to hear what this author has to say, because really, I have not gotten this parable up to now, and it would be nice to understand it once and for all.”

          And the ultimate understanding, it turns out, is truly very very simple.

          The gist of the Parable of the Prodigal Son is this – we ain't none of us the good son!

          We aren't any one of us the one that follows all the rules – we are each and every one of us the prodigal – the sinner, the one that drifts away, the one who squanders her gifts, the one who drifts back and asks for forgiveness, and not only receives forgiveness but more gifts; and sometimes those who are following the rules at the time will be resentful – but they are in the wrong because they are prodigals also.

          Kind of takes all the air out of the Sunday school class discussion of which of the two sons are you? doesn't it?

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