Last week I spoke of listening as a metaphor for spirituality. Jesus knew about listening as the way to understand God - his was an oral tradition - he knew the power of the story to transform. Here is perhaps the most important of all Jesus' parables. I thought we might take a leaf out of Ali's book about prayerful ways of reading scripture, rooted in the Ignatian traditon - and ask - who do you relate to in this story?
The dregs of society (“tax collectors and sinners”) coming to Jesus causes the religious leaders (“the Pharisees and the scribes”, v. 2) to wonder whether Jesus sees anyone as beyond God’s mercy. To explain, Jesus tells three parables: the Lost Sheep (vv. 4-7), the Lost Coin (vv. 8-10) and the Lost (or Prodigal) Son (vv. 11-32). In all three, the recovery of what was lost is cause for rejoicing. There are no limits to God’s mercy.
Briefly, the story of the Lost Son is this: the younger son leaves home and squanders his inheritance (vv. 12-16); finding himself a hungry outcast resorting to Gentile ways (feeding “pigs”, v. 15 To feed pigs was the ultimate indignity for a Jew. Pigs symbolised pagan religion and Roman rule), he decides to return to his father (vv. 17-19); his father, who seeks him, welcomes him back (v. 20); the son confesses, and his father celebrates his return (vv. 21-24a); the elder son returns (vv. 24b-25); he learns the reason for the festivities (v. 26-27); he accuses his father of favouritism (vv. 28-30); the father explains the situation to him (vv. 31-32). In the context of first-century Palestine, several things look out of the ordinary:
- for a son to ask his father for his share of the inheritance would be like a death wish;
- no older self-respecting Jew would run (v. 20) to his son;
- a father would demand a full display of repentance, not the truncated one of v. 21.
Clearly Jesus tells a somewhat unrealistic story to make a point. Allegory is at work: each character stands for someone other than himself: the younger son for the “tax collectors and sinners” (v. 1), the elder for the religious authorities, and the father for God. Jesus makes three points:
- the younger son could return home – so all sinners may repent and turn to God;
- the father sought the son (he saw him while “still far off”, v. 20) and offered him reinstatement – so God seeks people out to restore them;
- and the good brother begrudges his father’s joy over his brother’s return – so those who are godly should welcome God’s extension of love to the undeserving.
Who do you relate to in this story? For me it's the parent.
Teenage girls are the most likely group of the population to go missing from home, according to a recent study - The study was funded by the Nuffield Foundation and conducted by the University of York. Researchers were given access to 1,915 files of people reported over a period of 12 months to the National Missing Persons Helpline (NMPH), a charity that maintains a database of missing adults and children. The most common age for going missing was found to be 15.
Research among almost 2,000 files on missing persons found that the most common cases were girls aged between 13 and 17. Among males, the most common cases were in the 24-30 age range.
The findings will heighten concerns about the dangers facing young runaways. Detailed analysis of a smaller sample of 40 cases where the missing person was under 18 found that almost a third had stayed with a stranger and 40% had slept rough.
One in eight of the young runaways reported being hurt physically while away from home and one in nine reported sexual abuse, according to Lost from View, a report of the research. Almost 400 cases were selected for study of the reasons why people go missing. The majority of young people decided to run away because of conflict with parents, or other family members, and difficulties at school. In some cases, however, they had left to escape abuse.
Nina Biehal, one of the report's authors and a senior fellow in the social work research and development unit at York, says there is a great need for family mediation or counselling that can resolve relationship problems and prevent people from disappearing. "Social services are so hard-pressed that this sort of early work with families doesn't get underway unless there is abuse."
Penny Dean, director for children and young people at the Children's Society charity, which has specialised in work with young runaways, says the majority of young people leave home without planning. "When a young person runs away, it's a signal that something has very seriously gone wrong," she says. "It's not a rush away to the bright lights."
The York study found that more than a third of the young runaways reported receiving no help in the form of advice, housing, money or food while they were away. Fewer than half felt that running away had helped them resolve their problems.
Adults also said they felt in danger when they went missing. More than two-thirds of those who had stayed in a hostel, and 80% of those who slept rough, reported having been in danger at some point.
Perhaps the most startling figures are those covering what happened to the 90 per cent of people found alive. Only 20 per cent decided to go back to the household they had left. Almost 40 per cent agreed to make some form of contact with those they had left behind. But another 40 per cent - two-fifths of the sample - refused to renew contact of any kind. For them missingness was not some temporary state. It was a transition to a new life and they had no intention of going back. Whatever their reasons for going in the first place they were severe and complex enough to prove permanent.
As a parent, my imagination is very fired and alarmed by the possibilities of this experience. It may have been part of your experience, or of someone you know. We're familiar with the traumatic scenes of parents of missing children appealing for their return. This scenario is the one Jesus sets up in his story of the prodigal son - whatever the circumstances, whatever the breakdown that caused the son to leave - it's a story about the parent's experience. If we imagine for a moment, the experience of being a parent whose child has gone missing for some days/weeks/months - and further imagine the experience of that parent when the child, who has been given up for dead, suddenly appears. (pause) If you were able to imagine this, then you know something about the love of God for his children, regardless of their waywardness, explicit or subtle. If you can imagine the depths of the parental heartbreak and euphoria, you have seen into the heart of God.