Walking with one another
I do not understand this child
Though we have lived together now
In the same house for years. I know
Nothing of him, so try to build
Up a relationship from how
He was when small. Yet have I killed
The seed I spent or sown it where
The land is his and none of mine?
We speak like strangers, there's no sign
Of understanding in the air.
This child is built to my design
Yet what he loves I cannot share.
Silence surrounds us. I would have
Him prodigal, returning to
His father's house, the home he knew,
Rather than see him make and move
His world. I would forgive him too,
Shaping from sorrow a new love.
Father and son, we both must live
On the same globe and the same land.
He speaks: I cannot understand
Myself, why anger grows from grief.
We each put out an empty hand,
Longing for something to forgive.
~ Father to Son, Elizabeth Jennings
Many of the stories that Jesus and the early church used as teaching aids, as parables, are based on events that occurred as part of everyday life. Some find a teachable moment in a farming practice, others in employment practices, in the relationship between landlords and tenants, or in cultural practices such as weddings. The familiar settings helped the hearers to both engage with and remember the story and its meaning.
As I read and reread these stories I find myself being drawn evermore deeply into their detail. I also find myself exploring details that are not declared in the biblical rendition of the story but would likely become part of the scene should we choose to do an acting workshop with the parable as the basis.
Sunday’s gospel story, known as the Parable of the Prodigal Son or The Parable of the Forgiving Father (Luke 15.11-32), is a case in point. The story features a breakdown in the relationship between a father and his son. The breakdown sees the son leave the family. Eventually for mercenary reasons the son seeks to return. The father demonstrates an amazing capacity for forgiveness and welcomes his son home. In the process the father upsets his other son, the elder of the two, who feels that his fidelity and loyalty have been taken for granted. We never discover if the break between the father and his elder son is healed. Nor do we hear about what happens between the sons as life unfolds.
The missing detail in this story has me reflecting on the complexity of family life. There is often a calculus of competition at work in families that makes it difficult to negotiate the territory life delivers. Caring for one member can be seen as favouritism by others. Misunderstandings can give birth to fully fledged hostility.
The fact that Sunday’s story is left hanging also prevents one from assuming that this story of joyful restoration will end with ‘happily ever after’. It may be that one relationship is restored while others are lost. Our faith does not guarantee that life will be a bed of roses; that it will all work out ok. Rather it invites us to walk with one another into and through the complexities that life throws up. And then to discover through the gift of our solidarity God’s presence in the turmoil. The story of Jesus is about God being with us.
Peace,
Peter+