Thinking Anew – Mercy and the enduring story of the Prodigal Son

Today’s Gospel is one of those passages that is familiar to most people. The story of the Prodigal Son.

I can still remember our teacher in third class in primary school saying how the prodigal son returned to his father’s place, his own home. Whatever way he told the story, the scene of the young man, exhausted, badly dressed, limping up the road, with his father looking out for him, has stayed with me for over 50 years.

It’s been a topic for painters and writers – Rembrandt and Dürer, Rilke, Kipling and Shakespeare, are inspired to paint and write about it.

In “The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming”, Henri Nouwen interprets Rembrandt’s painting. He shows how in the hands of the father, mercy becomes flesh.

Open arms It’s a tale for everyone. The reckless son who has had enough of life at home, probably bored and wants to see what the great world outside looks like. He wants to get some of the fun. It’s not long before he realises that it has gone “pear-shaped” and decides to eat humble pie and return home. His father never gives up on him and receives him back with open arms. All the time in the shadows is the “faithful” son, who stays at home, works hard and then feels hard done by when he sees how his father reacts to the return of his profligate brother.

And how easy it is to admire the magnanimous love of the father for his son. It’s what good fathers do. And it’s understandable that the other son, who has stayed at home, is greatly peeved with the reaction of his father.

It’s easy to romanticise and see the good aspects of stories far away in time and place. But when it comes to our own backyard it’s different. And not to forget, it’s easy to write and talk about things, but living them out in our own lives is a different story.

How many of us bear grudges, how many of us are slow to forget hurts that have been done to us? We can rattle off litanies of why we should never extend the hand of friendship.

“Why should I be the first to make a move? They were in the wrong and I’m tired of making a fool of myself. It’s about time I looked after myself. No, let them make the first move and then I’ll reconsider. Anyway, they have done terrible wrong to me.”

The story of the Prodigal Son turns that sort of thinking on its head.

It also turns so much of our accepted norms and standards upside down.

The worldly world would tell us that the Prodigal Son does not deserve to be “rewarded”, that the father is being unwise to give him a second chance and that the “sulky” brother has every reason to be annoyed with the “nonsense” and “tomfoolery” that is associated with his brother’s return home.

And anyway, he is only coming home because he has nowhere else to go.

As Christians we believe that our destiny, our goal, is to be in friendship with God. And we believe that this God is all-merciful. There are no limits to that mercy and kindness. There is no limit to the distance God will go to embrace us with that all-consuming love.

If I really believe that, how can I not extend the hand of friendship to my enemy?

And just look at our world. In Europe we are busy building barbed-wire fences. The talk in the US hovers around erecting walls. And all the time guns are blazing somewhere or other in the world.

Imagine, if we all took the story of the Prodigal Son to our hearts.

Nelson Mandela said, “forgiveness liberates the soul”.

MICHAEL COMMANE