Check Out This Chick-Flick

After a funeral this past Tuesday, I ate lunch with one of the many ministers in attendance. This man has served a large, urban congregation for decades. We were talking shop. I asked him if he’s heard more pastors preaching a so-called Gospel of prosperity, over Jesus’ Gospel of the kingdom of God.

As our conversation continued, we became more passionate. We were sure that we preach Jesus, crucified and raised. We congratulated ourselves for keeping a cross in our worship spaces. We applauded each other for keeping national and denominational flags out of them. We consoled each other for feeling inept at reaching out to 20 and 30 something generations.

Just as I began wondering if we were sounding a little too righteous, my companion shared this. He said a local casino sent letters to all the pastors, offering each a free overnight stay, as well as $1,000 in chips. Then he said, “I will never be seen in casino.”

It wasn’t until much later in the day when I asked myself, “Did he mean he’ll never go and gamble, or did he mean he won’t go gamble at a site where someone who knows him might see him?” Was his statement sincere; “I won’t be seen because I’ll never be in one”? Or is he a hypocrite? I’ll never know; neither will you.

Sometimes, when a story’s ending doesn’t satisfy, we become irritated. Other times, a story’s disappointing ending causes us to discard the story all together. Then, there are those story’s whose inadequate end captures our imaginations as we mull over a variety of preferred, or more desirable, endings.

Jesus’ open, seemingly unfinished ending to the parable we call the prodigal son still catches most hearers up short (See Luke 15:1-3; 11b-32). That often results in some over analysis of both the story’s beginning, and / or a solitary focus on the story’s three main movements, the:
• younger son’s awakening
• watching father’s grace-filled, unconditional embrace
• charged language used by the older brother to his father.

Following an insight I’ve borrowed from Sharon H. Ringe, a Professor of New Testament at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D. C., let’s take a different tack. First, though, it should be noted that scholars who are women frequently offer biblical interpretations which are out of the main – if main is taken as the male-dominated historical-critical methodology that grew out of the German Enlightenment. This is a true blessing to the church.

As an aside, here’s a quick primer on the distinction between male and female scholarship. In her pioneering research, Carol Gilligan contrasted the moral development of females with that of males in her work, In a Different Voice. She observed that boys’ games, e.g., sand-lot baseball, purposed around competition and rule-keeping. Girls’ games, on the other hand, e.g., jacks, seemed to purpose around a way to “pass time” as these females focused on broadening and deepening their emotional relationship. (Sure hope I don’t sound like a candidate for the presidency of Harvard, here!)

Dr. Ringe’s insight – that is the only piece with which I’m familiar – is in re-naming this parable The Parable of the Beloved Brothers. My interpretation of Luke’s parable is based, principally, on that title. Errors in interpretation / understanding, then, are solely my own, and ought not to reflect on Dr. Ringe.

Male dominated scholarship frames the parable of the prodigal son within a win / lose dynamic. The plot line’s thrust is competitive. The story’s conclusion lends itself either to victory / surrender, or to a mano a mano standoff.

Hearing the story as the parable of the beloved brothers gives us a chance to redirect our own meaning-making efforts. At one level, nothing changes. The characters are the same. Their actions are constant and consistent. The conclusion is still abrupt, and, to some, less than satisfying.

At another level, Dr. Ringe’s re-naming changes everything. The sudden, nasty request by the younger son that his father “drops dead” and hand over the inheritance alludes to a prior and perhaps long-standing family strain. The boy’s dissolute living may be his effort to “buy” the affiliation and belonging he had at home, rather than a groin-oriented plot to sow his wild oats. His planned confession may be less belly-focused narcissism and more a parley with himself to restore relationship with his family.

The father’s reaction, “filled with compassion” draws us to realize that the Hebrew equivalent of this word is womb. The father re-wombs the younger son and so has no need to hear the confession, which, then, remains unspoken.

In the parable of the beloved brothers, the feast has all the trappings of a wedding feast, an experience wherein the prior stories of distinct families are entwined in the present and fashion momentum toward a new future. It’s only in the parable of the prodigal son that the feast resembles a “victory lap.”

Onto the scene arrives the elder brother. He’s carrying not only the fatigue of today’s burden, but the long-held resentment of days gone by. His distancing language, “this son of yours,” reveals all the angry baggage of someone who’s played by the rules, but lost the game to a cheater.

For his part, the wombing father speaks the same words, using the same endearing tone which brought new life to his “dead” younger son.

The story’s conclusion poses two theological challenges. That is, two opportunities for us to change our minds about who God is and how God works.

First, the parable of the beloved brothers forces us to admit that our understanding of sin, grace, repentance and forgiveness are really quite shallow.
We like to construct a world that says: God likes to forgive. I like to sin. Therefore, borrowing from Louis Armstrong, we sin, what a wonderful world!

We tend to see sin as rule-breaking, law-breaking. In Greek, the word is “missing the mark.” Not hitting the bull’s eye means something else gets hit. The result of sin is deep and broad breaches. The affects of sin are anguish, brokenness, grief and pain – within our self, among our relationships, and amidst the Godhead.

In our equation, grace becomes what an offender is owed, by a gracious God. Repentance, then, is a quick, “I’m sorry.”

Forgiveness is a reward for an apology, usually doled out with no small measure of wariness. Our forgiveness is often cunningly disguised revenge. It’s frequently dispensed with a shrug that sweeps an offense under the rug of political correctness, or tolerance.

The second challenge / opportunity the parable of the beloved brothers poses, besides exposing the cyclical nature of our life under the first challenge, is to say that with this God, in this God’s Christ, the past does not need to prescribe the future.

Sin is no longer about laws, shoulds / shouldn’ts, it’s about our being who God wants us to be, or who we choose to be when we determine to take God’s place.

Grace is about God’s own yearning and yawning when God experiences our absence. Grace is the movement of God to reconnect with us, before we apologize.

Repentance is our coming-around-to, our turning-toward, our changing from “me is god,” to God is God, as a result of God graceful wombing.

Forgiveness, then, is not about no longer remembering. Forgiveness – since it’s offered before apology or repentance - becomes, we’ll (God and us) move into a new future where we re-member, as in reconnect, reattach.

The “unsatisfying” ending we experience is the only plausible ending for the parable of the beloved brothers. It’s the only conclusion that reveals the open-endedness of the Kingdom of God.

This ending is the only accurate representation of the life-giving, freedom-bringing, home-making God (Walter Bureggemann) that accounts for the compassionate / wombing God that Jesus knew. This ending is the only comprehensive portrayal of the costly grace that’s faithful to the breaking-open, pouring-out Jesus’ sacrifice for us.

This ending is the end of my story, your story, and everyone’s story – beyond our wildest dreams. But you already knew that’s how it ends.