It’s impressive how long an ego can outlast an empty stomach. 

I had been an eighth grader with a job and a plan. Everything thrilling was happening somewhere else, so I was going to brave dangerous circumstances by leaving home. 

“Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.” Luke 15:13-14 ESV


Eighteen months later I was reduced to sleeping in the alley behind my boyfriend’s mom’s home.  Not allowed inside, I was hungry, and actually, I was dangerous by then. 

The Gospel of Luke says the Prodigal Son “came to himself” (Luke 15:17 ESV), thinking how delicious those pods looked — the ones the pigs were happily munching upon.  

“And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.” Luke 15:16 ESV


It’s impressive how long an ego can outlast an empty stomach.  But eventually, we all “come to [ourselves]”.

‘I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.”’ Luke 15:18 ESV


As a professor and author, Kenneth E. Bailey lived and taught throughout the Middle East.  Understanding the culture as he did, he interpreted this passage as probably something less than an apology.  Likely it was more transactional: his dad’s support would also protect him from the wrath of the wider community. If he was to arrive back in town at odds with his father, having lost the family inheritance, they would have smashed a crock full of burned corn over his head and driven him out in his red hot shame.  

Like him, I had to go home.  I’d have to make a deal with my parents.  How could I still “be dangerous, brave, and cool”…but still get my old room back?   

“I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’  Luke 15:19 ESV


When the Prodigal Daughter called her dad from a pay phone, her ego was so loud as to make it hard to hear. But before she barely got a word out, there was her dad’s voice. 

“Please come home.  Let’s just have dinner together.”

I didn’t even get a chance to start wheeling and dealing.  My father was already falling on my neck in tears through the phone. 

“And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.” Luke 15:20 KJV


Kenneth E. Bailey speaks about the slow, stately walk of the middle eastern man as a show of his stature in life.  In contrast, children run holding the bottom of their long tunics in their teeth so they don’t trip. Imagine the staring, the snickering, the shock as villagers watched the father run to his son with the exuberance of a child running after a ball – robe in teeth.

Try this week to put your tunic in your teeth. Love someone in the extravagant, irresponsible, open-handed way of the Father.  Go ahead.  Shock the neighbors.  

 

by Carie Grant

 

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