Parables are simple life stories Jesus used to teach about spiritual truths. They raise intense curiosity, promising more for seekers. The interested ones will be inspired and uninterested will walk away uninspired. They are not myths or fables, nor are they doctrines or prophecies. The parable of "the prodigalson" one of the most popular stories ever told. It has been described as "the Gospel within the Gospel" because the gospel is the love story of God to mankind.
A kind father and two sons lived together. The younger son rejected the home and claimed his inheritanace and went to a far away land. There, he wasted all his wealth and became lonely and homeless. Then he remembered about his life in his father's home and decided to return. He repented and returned to the father asking for forgiveness. The kind father took him back as son and arranged great welcome dinner. That should make a great ending to this heartwarming story. But Jesus didn't stop there. He went on: "Now the elder son was in the field." The elder was resentful and and full of righteous indignation and refused to join the celebration.
We notice that older son feels unloved by his father. He is full of resentment because his lost brother has returned. He thought or hoped that his brother would never come back. "What about me?" he wants to know. The elder son imprisons himself behind a wall of loneliness. We can get ourselves imprisoned by righteous indigation and become lonely knowingly or unknowingly. A University of Kentucky psychologist says that much of our self-esteem comes from feeling better about ourselves compared to others. We develop prejudices and biases to compare ourselves with others. Biases are not easy to overcome, even within the family of God.
"So his father went out and pleaded with him." Some translations say, "He begged him to come in." "But he answered his father, `Look! All these years I have been slaving/serving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!" "`My son,’ the father said, “you are always with me, everything I have is yours.”
The father asks him: “son, look at your position and your possessions." You are my son and all I have is yours to inherit. He was not thankful for all the things he had, rather he started complaining about the things he didn’t have. A group of elementary school student were asked to write down the 7 wonders of the world. So they took blank pieces of paper, and started writing down what they thought were the Seven Wonders of the World. After a while, the teacher collected the papers and began looking at their answers, things like the pyramids in Egypt, the Taj Mahal in India, wonders from all over the world. But one little girl was still busily writing. The teacher asked her, "Aren’t you through? I just asked you to write down the Seven Wonders of the World. What are you writing?" The little girl answered, "Well, I don’t know if these are the right ones or not, but I have a whole lot more than seven." The teacher said, "Hand me your paper and let me see what you have written." Then he started reading the little girl’s list of the Seven Wonders of the World. "To be able to see, hear, think, breathe, touch, run, love, laugh." And the list went on.
Jesus ends the story of the “prodigal son” with and open ended narration of the brother. It is left for the readers to finish the story by responding to the challenge. We have been received by grace and that the same grace ought to be extended to others. Heaven rejoices when a sinner is saved. The parable reminds us that it is only in God that we are made whole and to see the worth and dignity in everyone we meet, remembering that we are all God's beloved children.
Blessings
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