Parable of the Prodigal Son Implications

The remarkable parable of the prodigal son has instrumental instructional value. As Donahue points out, the Lukan context is the original and most meaningful, as it pivots around the father’s behavior and firmly establishes the older son as being the antagonist. The parable of the prodigal son has multiple layers of meaning, and even establishes new paradigms for the human relationship with God. On a more mundane level, the parable of the prodigal son redefines the nature of family and the father-son relationship, which can be viewed as a metaphor for the God-Man relationship.
The Lukan version of the parable of the prodigal son encapsulates the Christian message. With this parable, Luke shows how the Christian vision of worship and prayer had become qualitatively different from the Jewish version. Indeed, Luke provides us with a distinct theology of Christ. Luke shows how forgiveness, compassion, and mercy would become cornerstones of Christian faith, evident in the father’s actions towards his wayward son. The prodigal son had become a swineherd, thus completely lost spiritually and symbolically cut off from his kin and community. Whereas the older brother would scorn and censure him, the father literally runs towards him, embracing him in an enormous act of forgiveness. The prodigal son is thus restored to his position in the family, and this is how Luke redefines not just family relationships and social norms but also the relationships between petitioners and God.
Donohue also switches the readers’ focus from the son to the father, showing that acts of forgiveness are the new model for ethical action. Likewise, in “Fourth Sunday of Lent,” we learn that the father’s actions were “out of character,” representing the clear break from Jewish custom, law, and tradition (p. 59). The youngest son did commit a social offence by asking his father outright for his inheritance. Yet breaking a social norm should not condemn a person to a lifetime of humiliation or render one an outcast. Pilch focuses on the sociological implications of the parable, noting for example the tremendous disruption such a situation would have caused not just in the family but in the entire community. Therefore, the parable of the prodigal son shows a new Christian message for the meaning of community life. Luke sets a precedent for the ways Christians form parish communities: not on the basis of custom, law, kinship, or anything other than mercy, kindness, and love. The social science criticism likewise shows how the parable offers explicit ethical instructions for social comportment in a Christian community. Jesus celebrates the father for demonstrating compassion, and criticizes the elder brother for acting in rigid and outmoded ways.
The parable of the prodigal son calls us to apply the same compassion to wayward members of the Church, The New Evangelization model applies a distinctly merciful, kind method of calling back those who left without using the type of humiliation or social control that is represented in the parable by the older son. We are warned against being judgmental and rigid, and advised to run with open arms towards those who return willingly to the Church. As for those who have left the Church and do not want to return, our role is to let it be, just as the father would have done. The father had considered the son as being dead, gone, and forgotten and yet never withheld his love or held ill feelings against the son upon his return. Love triumphed. In quite the same way, the members of the community who are no longer practicing or participating in worship cannot be considered as being dead, gone, or forgotten. It becomes our responsibility to recognize alternative means of reconciliation (Malina & Rohrbaugh, 2003, p. 113). Reconciliation and renewal can only take place within a genuinely Christian context, which is epitomized by the prodigal father’s love for his son.



References

Bergant, D. & Fragomeni, R. “Preaching the New Lectionary”
Donahue, J.R. The Gospel in parable.
Malina, B. & Rohrbaugh, R. “Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels”
Pilch, J. The cultural world of Jesus. Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels