But what of his father?

The father knows his son will fail. He waits day after day, staring
down the crowded village street to the road in the distance along
which his son disappeared with arrogance and high hopes. The father
realizes full well how his son will be welcomed in the village when
he returns in failure. Thus, the father also prepares a plan: to
reach the boy before the boy reaches the village. The father knows
that if he is able to achieve reconciliation with his son in
public, no one in the village will treat the Prodigal badly. No one
will dare suggest that the qetsatsah ceremony must be enacted.

Traditional Middle Easterners, wearing long robes, do not run in
public. To do so is deeply humiliating. This father runs.

The father sees him “while he was still far off.” The “great
distance” is more spiritual than it is physical. If the Prodigal
thinks he can earn money and with it solve the problem of their
relationship, he is yet very far away! The language is borrowed
from Isaiah 57:19, where God affirms peace to those who are “far
off” and peace to those who are “near.” This is precisely what the
father sets out to do. Through a great, dramatic action, he will
offer peace to the one who is far off and then concentrate on
creating peace with the one who is near (the older brother).

And so, for the third time, the father breaks the mold of Middle
Eastern patriarchy. He takes the bottom edge of his long robes in
his hand and runs to welcome his pig-herding son. He falls on his
neck and kisses him before hearing his prepared speech! The father
does not demonstrate love in response to his son’s confession.
Rather, out of his own compassion he empties himself, assumes the
form of a servant, and runs to reconcile his estranged son.

Traditional Middle Easterners, wearing long robes, do not run in
public. To do so is deeply humiliating. This father runs. The boy
is totally surprised. Overwhelmed, he can only offer the first part
of his prepared speech, which now takes on a new meaning. He
declares that he has sinned and that he is unworthy to be called a
son. He admits (by omitting the third phrase) that he has no bright
ideas for mending their relationship. He is no longer “working” his
father for additional advantages. The father does not “interrupt”
his younger son. Instead, the Prodigal changes his mind, and in a
moment of genuine repentance, accepts to be found.

9. The father acts like a mother.

In the parable, a traditional oriental patriarch would be expected
to sit in grand isolation in the house to hear what the wayward boy
might have to say for himself. The mother could run down the road
and shower the boy with kisses.

We know God is spirit and thus is neither male nor female. But God
is also personal, and God is one. A 1,000-year-old, finely tuned
sacred tradition is available to Jesus. The prophets called God
“Father” and partially described that father in female terms. This
language affirmed the personhood and the unity of God for all
believers, male and female. In the Old Testament, God is already
presented as a father who also acts with the tender compassion of a
mother (Deut. 32:18; Ps. 131; Isa. 42:14, 66:13).

The Dead Sea Scrolls describe God with the same imagery. More than
200 times Jesus calls God “Father,” and in John’s gospel, we find
that the believer must be “born from above.” In 1 John, the
believer is “born of God.” That is, God “gives birth” in the New
Testament even as he does in the Old (Deut. 32:18). In this
parable, too, the father appears on the road, demonstrating the
tender compassion of a mother.

10. Christology.

As the father comes down and out to reconcile his son, he becomes a
symbol of God in Christ. “Father,” a symbol for God, ever so
quietly evolves into a symbol for Jesus. The same shift occurs in
the story of the Good Shepherd. At three points in the Old
Testament, God is a good shepherd who goes after his lost sheep
(Ps. 23:3; Jer. 23:1-8; Ezek. 34). Jesus retells that classical
story and introduces himself into it as its hero.

The Pharisees complain, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with
them.” Jesus replies with this story, which in effect says,
“Indeed, I do eat with sinners. But it is much worse than you
imagine! I not only eat with them, I run down the road, shower them
with kisses, and drag them in that I might eat with them!” Jesus is
clearly talking about himself. By the end of the story, the father
does what Jesus does.

A famous eleventh-century Syriac scholar in Baghdad, Abdallah Ibn
al-Tayyib, identified the father in his self-giving love on the
road as a symbol for Jesus. The great New Testament scholar Joachim
Jeremias made the same identification this century. I call this
“hermeneutical Christology.” That is, Jesus takes a known symbol
for God and quietly transforms it into a symbol for himself.

11. The meaning of the banquet.

The banquet in the parable has three interpretations. The first is
offered by the father, the second by a little boy in the courtyard
of the home, and the third by the older son. The first two are in
harmony with each other. The third is in sharp contrast to the
first two. Contemporary readers usually only recall the third. All
three interpretations must be examined.

Once reconciliation is assured, the father orders a banquet. He
says, “Let us eat and celebrate; for [now comes his reason] this
son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!”
The father does not say, “He was lost and has come home.” Instead,
we read, “He was lost and is found.” So who found him? The father
did! Where did he find him? At the edge of the village! Thus, in
the father’s perceptions, the Prodigal was still lost and dead at
the edge of the village.

Even as the shepherd was obliged to go forth and pay a high price
to find his sheep, and the good woman sought diligently to find her
coin, even so the father went down and out in a costly
demonstration of unexpected love to find and resurrect his son. The
banquet is a celebration of the success of that finding and that
resurrection.

Now for the little boy’s interpretation. The older son comes in
from the field and on hearing the music calls to a pais. This Greek
word can mean three things. The first is “son,” which does not fit
this text. The second is “servant,” which also does not fit,
because all the servants are busy in the house serving the huge
banquet. The third option is “young boy.” Middle Eastern Syriac and
Arabic versions have always chosen this third alternative.

As the older son approaches his family home in the center of the
village, he naturally meets a crowd of young boys who are not old
enough to recline with the elders at the banquet, but are outside
the house dancing in tune to the music and enjoying the occasion in
their own boisterous manner. The young lad assumes the role of the
chorus in a Greek drama. (We now know that there was a large Greek
theater in Sepphoris, four miles from Nazareth.)

The little boy tells the listener/reader the truth about what is
happening in the story. The older son asks him what the party is
all about and the lad says (as I would translate it), “Your brother
has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because (now
comes the second interpretation) he (the father) received him (the
Prodigal) with peace!”

The word I translate here as “peace” is the Greek word hugaino.
This means “in good health,” and from it we have the English word
hygiene. But in the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint), this same
Greek word appears 14 times, and without exception it translates
the Hebrew word shalom or peace. When a first-century Jew used the
word hugaino, he or she mentally translated the Hebrew word shalom,
which includes “good health” but means so very much more. I am
confident that Jesus used the word shalom in the story.

The point is that the banquet is in celebration of the father’s
successful efforts at creating reconciliation–shalom–and the
community has come to participate in that celebration. Rather than
a qetsatsah ceremony of rejection, they are participating in the
joy of a restoration achieved by the father at great cost. Thus the
young boy confirms the father’s interpretation. For both, the
banquet is a celebration of the success of the father’s efforts at
reconciling his son.

The language of the young boy, “He received him. . . .” (and plans
to eat with him), reminds the listener of the Pharisees’ complaint,
“This fellow [Jesus] welcomes sinners and eats with them.” The
young boy’s speech confirms that the father has clearly evolved
into a symbol for Jesus. Jesus receives sinners and eats with them.
In this parable, the father does the same.

We have yet the older son’s interpretation to consider, which he
offers after the father tries to reconcile this son to himself. He
says, “You killed the fatted calf for him!” This claim is the exact
opposite of what the little boy has just told the older son. It is
also the opposite of the father’s own declared purpose for the
banquet.

Noting that the older son contradicts the two previous
interpretations of the banquet, the listener must choose between
them. Is the banquet in honor of the Prodigal or in honor of the
father? Is it a celebration of the Prodigal’s successful efforts at
reaching home (on his own), or is it rather a celebration of the
success of the father’s costly efforts at creating shalom? Will the
guests congratulate the Prodigal or the father?

It is my 40-year perception that generally modern readers of the
parable do not even discern these contrasts or observe that there
is a choice to be made. The banquet foreshadows Holy Communion.
Surely we know that Jesus is the hero of that sacred banquet and
that sinners are not the center of attention. The older brother’s
self-righteousness becomes a pair of colored glasses through which
he sees the world. All he can understand is that the Prodigal lost
the money and that he has been reconciled to their father without
having first returned the money.

In short, grace has been offered and accepted rather than the
requirements of law demanded and fulfilled by the sinner. The older
son’s interpretation represents the view of many, then and now. But
the father’s view of the banquet (supported by the young boy’s
speech) is the mind of Jesus. For many, grace is not only amazing–
it is also unbelievable! How could it be true? After all, you get
what you pay for, don’t you?

12. The older son’s anger.

If the banquet were a straightforward celebration of the Prodigal’s
safe return, the older son would enter the hall immediately. It
would mean that the Prodigal’s position in the family has not yet
been determined. The older son would be very anxious that his point
of view be represented when the family discusses the matter.

Of course, they are all (publicly) glad the Prodigal is home and in
good health. It would be churlish not to rejoice at his safe
arrival. But the young boy tells the older brother that it’s all
over! Their father has already reconciled the Prodigal son–and has
done so without the Prodigal paying for his sins! This is why the
older son is angry. He is so angry he takes the radical step of
breaking his relationship with his father.

For a son to be present and to refuse participation in such a
banquet is an unspeakable public insult to the father. A cultural
equivalent might be the case of a son in the West who has a heated
public shouting match with his father in the middle of a wedding
banquet after a large family wedding. A shouting match is not
unthinkable–but not in public at such a banquet. The older son’s
rejection of his father’s reconciliation with the Prodigal leads
that same older son to break his relationship with the father who
achieved it.

13. The father’s response.

For a fourth time, the father goes beyond what a traditional
patriarch would do. For the second time in the same day, he is
willing to offer a costly demonstration of unexpected love. Only
this time it is to a lawkeeper rather than a lawbreaker. Amazing
grace holds true for both sons. Culturally, the father is expected
to proceed with the banquet and ignore the public insult. He can
deal with the older son later. But no! In painful public
humiliation, the father goes down and out to find yet one more lost
sheep/coin/son.

14. The older son’s response.

The younger son “accepted” to be found. He was overwhelmed by the
costly love freely offered to him. The older son, in contrast,
seems unimpressed. Instead, he mercilessly attacks both his father
and his brother in public. The father is expected finally to
explode and order a thrashing for the public insults. For a fifth
time, patriarchy is transcended.

This is not a remarkable father. Rather it is a symbol for God. As
Henri Nouwen has written regarding this parable, “This is the
portrayal of God, whose goodness, love, forgiveness, care, joy and
compassion have no limits at all. Jesus presents God’s generosity
by using all the imagery that his culture provides, while
constantly transforming it” (The Return of the Prodigal).

If the older son accepts the love now offered to him, he will be
obliged to treat the Prodigal with the same loving acceptance with
which the father welcomed the pig herder. The older son will need
to be “conformed to the image” of that compassionate father who
comes to both kinds of sinners in the form of a suffering servant,
offering undeserved, costly love. Is he willing? We are not told.
By this point the audience is on the stage and must decide for
itself.

Kenneth E. Bailey is an active lecturer on Middle Eastern New
Testament studies and professor emeritus of New Testament at the
Tantur Ecumenical Institute, Jerusalem. Author of Finding the Lost:
Cultural Keys to Luke 15 (Concordia), he lives in New Wilmington,
Pennsylvania.