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I agree that is a different way of looking at it. Maybe the story is just too outdated and patriarchal for today's world. Maybe some new Jesus needs to write an updated version that today's people might understand.
Too patriarchal? you do realize that this age is about as patriarchal as it has ever been, right?
The story describes a son who goes out into the world to spend his inheritance, while the obedient son stays with his father. The disobedient son, out of humility from wasting his money, is forced to return home to his father. The father welcomes him with open arms, a gold ring, and a feast celebrating the son's return.
But who wants to live in this patriarchal household where the father has amassed all of this wealth, and who basically has to "buy" love from other people. He is so despised by people (including his own family members) that they only stay around him because he takes care of them and provides them with a comfortable living situation. Maybe it was because my own family was not so patriarchal like this, but this seems like it would be a kind of nightmarish existence. I actually got along with my father.
Picture this same scenario with a wealth mafia patriarch, like Marlon Brando as the Godfather. The same thing occurs in this family.
Is this really a pleasant story? Is this even INTENDED to sound pleasant to the reader? I really don't think it is.
Jesus is just showing the facts of the history of the prodigal nation, the son who stays home is Judah, and Ephraim is known as the prodigal nation who called the Torah a strange thing and died for it, he herded swine and became like a dead man.
Everyone who was ever put next to the people of God have done the same. Christianity comes under the promise of the prodigal son but the prodigal is yet to return.
The story describes a son who goes out into the world to spend his inheritance, while the obedient son stays with his father. The disobedient son, out of humility from wasting his money, is forced to return home to his father. The father welcomes him with open arms, a gold ring, and a feast celebrating the son's return.
But who wants to live in this patriarchal household where the father has amassed all of this wealth, and who basically has to "buy" love from other people. He is so despised by people (including his own family members) that they only stay around him because he takes care of them and provides them with a comfortable living situation. Maybe it was because my own family was not so patriarchal like this, but this seems like it would be a kind of nightmarish existence. I actually got along with my father.
Picture this same scenario with a wealth mafia patriarch, like Marlon Brando as the Godfather. The same thing occurs in this family.
Is this really a pleasant story? Is this even INTENDED to sound pleasant to the reader? I really don't think it is.
I don't see it either. What I do like about the parable though is how the older son reacts seeing his brother get the royal treatment, even after sinning. Kind of like the fundamentalists on this forum, incensed that God eventually is able to save all. Not fair they say.
The story describes a son who goes out into the world to spend his inheritance, while the obedient son stays with his father. The disobedient son, out of humility from wasting his money, is forced to return home to his father. The father welcomes him with open arms, a gold ring, and a feast celebrating the son's return.
But who wants to live in this patriarchal household where the father has amassed all of this wealth, and who basically has to "buy" love from other people. He is so despised by people (including his own family members) that they only stay around him because he takes care of them and provides them with a comfortable living situation. Maybe it was because my own family was not so patriarchal like this, but this seems like it would be a kind of nightmarish existence. I actually got along with my father.
Picture this same scenario with a wealth mafia patriarch, like Marlon Brando as the Godfather. The same thing occurs in this family.
Is this really a pleasant story? Is this even INTENDED to sound pleasant to the reader? I really don't think it is.
Are you a Born Again believer? You appear to lack any spiritual understanding of this parable.
The story describes a son who goes out into the world to spend his inheritance, while the obedient son stays with his father. The disobedient son, out of humility from wasting his money, is forced to return home to his father. The father welcomes him with open arms, a gold ring, and a feast celebrating the son's return.
But who wants to live in this patriarchal household where the father has amassed all of this wealth, and who basically has to "buy" love from other people. He is so despised by people (including his own family members) that they only stay around him because he takes care of them and provides them with a comfortable living situation. Maybe it was because my own family was not so patriarchal like this, but this seems like it would be a kind of nightmarish existence. I actually got along with my father.
Picture this same scenario with a wealth mafia patriarch, like Marlon Brando as the Godfather. The same thing occurs in this family.
Is this really a pleasant story? Is this even INTENDED to sound pleasant to the reader? I really don't think it is.
What in the passage indicates that the father is only loved because of his money?
The story describes a son who goes out into the world to spend his inheritance, while the obedient son stays with his father. The disobedient son, out of humility from wasting his money, is forced to return home to his father. The father welcomes him with open arms, a gold ring, and a feast celebrating the son's return.
But who wants to live in this patriarchal household where the father has amassed all of this wealth, and who basically has to "buy" love from other people. He is so despised by people (including his own family members) that they only stay around him because he takes care of them and provides them with a comfortable living situation. Maybe it was because my own family was not so patriarchal like this, but this seems like it would be a kind of nightmarish existence. I actually got along with my father.
Picture this same scenario with a wealth mafia patriarch, like Marlon Brando as the Godfather. The same thing occurs in this family.
Is this really a pleasant story? Is this even INTENDED to sound pleasant to the reader? I really don't think it is.
I think you utterly misrepresent the point, plus you have injected some anachronistic views in here to boot. The family system described was just the way the world was back then. Applying rote 21st Century pop psychology to describe the dynamics of a farming family in 1st Century Palestine is nothing more than a deliberate and captious misreading. Transparently so.
Second, the parable does not describe the father as overbearing. He is not buying anything. He has just become successful with his estate. What's more, in your attempt to misrepresent the parable, you completely overlook the character of the father, who gives the Prodigal Son his shares of the inheritance at the beginning of the story. So instead of some tight-fisted miser, the father is incredibly generous, even indulgent. Would you give your son half of your estate while you're still alive? I seriously doubt it. Had you been an honest reader of the parable, you would have realized that this alone would dispute your half-baked narrative.
Third, despite the son living a profligate life, throwing away half of the family fortune on wine and women, he is welcomed back to his father's house. No, he is feted. He is given nothing but love and acceptance. There is one moment in the parable that is touching to me, where the father actually rushes out to the son to embrace him rather than wait for a groveling apology. It is nothing less than absolute, unconditional love on his part, gladness at his son being reclaimed from death and brought back into the life of the family. I think you would have to be a really cynical reader with an agenda to see it as anything but that.
In fact, it's important to understand that this parable was told by Christ in relation with two other metaphors. There is the one of the lost coin where the widow sweeps and cleans her house until she finds it. And rejoices at having found it. And there is the next story about the shepherd who has 99 sheep in his flock, yet rejoices greatly at finding the lost one hundredth.
Here's what is important, the common thread in all those three stories. A coin has no agency, no personality. It is simply lost. A sheep does not think much beyond feeding itself, so it cannot find its way back to the flock. The Prodigal Son is unwise.
The focus of all three stories isn't on what or who is lost, and how they got that way. It is on the nature of the ones doing the finding. The widow rejoices at finding the lost coin. The shepherd rejoices at finding the lost sheep. The father rejoices at finding the Prodigal Son. There is no rebuke. There is no admonition. There is nothing but limitless joy that those who have been lost are now found. These metaphors speak to God's abundant love. He is always seeking us and He rejoices when we have been found.
I don't see it either. What I do like about the parable though is how the older son reacts seeing his brother get the royal treatment, even after sinning. Kind of like the fundamentalists on this forum, incensed that God eventually is able to save all. Not fair they say.
I think you utterly misrepresent the point, plus you have injected some anachronistic views in here to boot. The family system described was just the way the world was back then. Applying rote 21st Century pop psychology to describe the dynamics of a farming family in 1st Century Palestine is nothing more than a deliberate and captious misreading. Transparently so.
Second, the parable does not describe the father as overbearing. He is not buying anything. He has just become successful with his estate. What's more, in your attempt to misrepresent the parable, you completely overlook the character of the father, who gives the Prodigal Son his shares of the inheritance at the beginning of the story. So instead of some tight-fisted miser, the father is incredibly generous, even indulgent. Would you give your son half of your estate while you're still alive? I seriously doubt it. Had you been an honest reader of the parable, you would have realized that this alone would dispute your half-baked narrative.
Third, despite the son living a profligate life, throwing away half of the family fortune on wine and women, he is welcomed back to his father's house. No, he is feted. He is given nothing but love and acceptance. There is one moment in the parable that is touching to me, where the father actually rushes out to the son to embrace him rather than wait for a groveling apology. It is nothing less than absolute, unconditional love on his part, gladness at his son being reclaimed from death and brought back into the life of the family. I think you would have to be a really cynical reader with an agenda to see it as anything but that.
In fact, it's important to understand that this parable was told by Christ in relation with two other metaphors. There is the one of the lost coin where the widow sweeps and cleans her house until she finds it. And rejoices at having found it. And there is the next story about the shepherd who has 99 sheep in his flock, yet rejoices greatly at finding the lost one hundredth.
Here's what is important, the common thread in all those three stories. A coin has no agency, no personality. It is simply lost. A sheep does not think much beyond feeding itself, so it cannot find its way back to the flock. The Prodigal Son is unwise.
The focus of all three stories isn't on what or who is lost, and how they got that way. It is on the nature of the ones doing the finding. The widow rejoices at finding the lost coin. The shepherd rejoices at finding the lost sheep. The father rejoices at finding the Prodigal Son. There is no rebuke. There is no admonition. There is nothing but limitless joy that those who have been lost are now found. These metaphors speak to God's abundant love. He is always seeking us and He rejoices when we have been found.
The story describes a son who goes out into the world to spend his inheritance, while the obedient son stays with his father. The disobedient son, out of humility from wasting his money, is forced to return home to his father. The father welcomes him with open arms, a gold ring, and a feast celebrating the son's return.
But who wants to live in this patriarchal household where the father has amassed all of this wealth, and who basically has to "buy" love from other people. He is so despised by people (including his own family members) that they only stay around him because he takes care of them and provides them with a comfortable living situation. Maybe it was because my own family was not so patriarchal like this, but this seems like it would be a kind of nightmarish existence. I actually got along with my father.
Picture this same scenario with a wealth mafia patriarch, like Marlon Brando as the Godfather. The same thing occurs in this family.
Is this really a pleasant story? Is this even INTENDED to sound pleasant to the reader? I really don't think it is.
I never took that story to imply that the Father was despised or in any way loathsome. How did you arrive at that idea? To me he cam across as a good and decent man, a farmer or some sort of landowner, who worked with his other son running the estate. And of course the moral of the whole parable is that the Father is God, and the Prodigal son who returns is an archetype for all sinners who leave God's Grace, or lose their Faith, and fall to a life of sin, but then finally decide they are lost beyond hope and decide to return to the loving embrace of the Father. Who, BTW, is always happy to see them return to the flock.
Another moral of this fable that many people don't get, is that the "good son" is also a reminder to us, that we should not be Jealous if it seems like more attention is being devoted to somebody who has returned to the Grace of God, to the fold, after sinning for a long time, while we have always been "good." And so it seems that we are not getting our due credit. This is pride on our part. false pride, and we too should always be happy to see a sinner return to God.
So...no. I don't find the story in any way distasteful. In fact, it is one of my favorites from the Bible.
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