The “Prodigal Son” is one of my favorite parables from the Bible. The story was first read to me when I was a child from the “Children’s Illustrated Bible.” Images from this pictorial Bible remain fixed in my memory. Henri Nouwen’s book, The Return of the Prodigal, is a must read for folks like me who struggle to reconcile fractured relationships, especially relationships within their families. Rembrandt’s paiting The Return of the Prodigal Son, with its depiction of the son’s humble homecoming and the father’s welcoming embrace, connects me to the deep reality of God’s amazing grace and all-embracing love. Over the years I have read Jesus’ story of the “Prodigal” hundreds of times, and I have heard dozens of sermons from the text, Luke 15:11–32. And yet, the storyline continues revealing new truths to me, and speaking into my life in meaningful ways.
The characters in the parable present several classic dichotomies: greed and generosity, carelessness and faithfulness, anger and joy. Recently, my spirit is quickened by another contrasting component found in the story—scarcity and abundance.
The story begins with the youngest son making selfish demands of his father, “Give me my share of my inheritance now!” Surprisingly, the father generously responds by dividing his wealth among his two sons. The eldest son stayed on the family farm to care for the land and his father. The younger boy ran off to a faraway country where “he wasted his substance with riotous living….” I will leave it up to your imagination to discern what that means.
While both sons were raised in the same home and afforded the same care and provisions, they related to their father’s wealth and generosity in different ways. No doubt at the beginning of the story the younger son took it all for granted. Yet a deeper awareness awakened in him after he had squandered everything and “came to his senses.” This was his moment of transformation. He realized that his father’s house was a place of blessing and abundance. “How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!” And all he had to do was return home to partake of his father’s abundance.
For the older boy, home was a place of duty. When the fatted calf was killed to celebrate his brother’s return, he complains to his father, “Look! All these years I’ve been
working hard for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat, so I could celebrate with my friends.” To which the father replies, “Son, everything I have is yours.”
The unsettling irony in this story is that the eldest son has been living in a place of blessing and abundance but with a mindset of scarcity. The eldest benefited the most from his father’s continuous care, but he was too tightly bound to his duty to be thankful for it. Everything in the household and on the farm already belonged to him, even the “fatted calf,” but he didn’t give himself permission to enjoy it. Toward the end of the story we see him as a bitter outsider in his own home, unable to join the party in celebration of his father’s joy and his brother’s return.
I realize that “scarcity” and “abundance” language is well-used and sometimes abused in faith circles. Also, I acknowledge unfair economic systems that benefit the rich and create cycles of financial scarcity for the poor. However, the sons in Jesus’ story hint at common ways of responding to God’s generosity and loving kindness. “Scarcity” and “abundance” are spiritual forces that influence our general outlook on life, reflect our theology regarding what we really believe about God, shape the ministry culture of our Meetings and Churches, and determine the kind of gospel we embody and proclaim to the world.
A spirit of scarcity can grip both individuals and societies. This seems to be especially true as global threats are amplified, and cultural and political conflicts polarize communities. A spirit of scarcity is most often manifested in lament, hopelessness, and fear. It can make us doggedly determined to protect what belongs to us and defend our turf against external dangers. Walter Brueggemann writes: “The power of our belief in scarcity can make us mean, greedy, and unneighborly.” Ironically, the gripping spirit and mindset of scarcity is a true spiritual threat even for good people of faith.
The godly character in Jesus’ story confronts the eldest son’s spiritual condition with these piercing words, “Son, everything I have is yours.” The father’s generosity reminds us of the abundance of God that is affirmed in creation and sung about by the Psalmist. According to Jesus, the spirit of abundance is rooted in God’s love, which shatters fear and guards against our hoarding instincts. The birds of the air and the lilies of the field testify to God’s abundant care (Matthew 6). Moreover, the spirit of abundance has the power to transcend the global economy. Again, Brueggemann writes,
Jesus demonstrated that the world is filled with abundance and freighted with generosity. If bread is broken and shared, there is enough for all. Jesus is engaged in the sacramental, subversive reordering of public reality. The closer we stay to Jesus, the more we will bring a new economy of abundance to the world.
The spirit of abundance is recognized in God’s people by their relentless faith, valiant hope, unfettered joy, and selfless generosity.
It is unfortunate that we do not know the rest of the story. I like to think that in the end the eldest son joined the party, took delight in his father’s joy, and was grateful to share his portion with his brother. Perhaps the reason Jesus leaves the story hanging and the brothers unreconciled is because we complete the story by how we respond to God’s generosity and love.
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