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"Prodigal son" redirects here. For other uses, see The Prodigal Son (disambiguation).

The Return of the Prodigal Son (1773) by Pompeo Batoni

The Prodigal Son, also known as the Lost Son, is one of the best known parables of Jesus. However, it appears in only one of the Canonical gospels of the New Testament. According to the Gospel of Luke (Luke 15:11-32) a younger son is given his inheritance. After wasting his fortune (the word 'prodigal' means 'wastefully extravagant'), the son returns home and repents. It is the third and final member of a trilogy on redemption, following the Parable of the Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin.

In Western Catholic tradition, this parable is usually read on the third Sunday of Lent, while in the Eastern Orthodox Church it is read on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son.

Narrative

The parable begins with a young man, the younger of two sons, who asks his father to give him his share of the estate. The parable continues by describing how the younger son travels to a distant country and wastes all his money in wild living. When a famine strikes, he becomes desperately poor and is forced to take work as a swineherd. When he reaches the point of envying the pigs he is looking after, he finally comes to his senses:

But when he came to himself he said, "How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough to spare, and I'm dying with hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and will tell him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight. I am no more worthy to be called your son. Make me as one of your hired servants.'"

He arose, and came to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

— Luke 15:17-20, World English Bible

The son does not even have time to finish his rehearsed speech, since the father calls for his servants to dress him in a fine robe, a ring, and sandals, and slaughter the "fattened calf" for a celebratory meal. The older son, who was at work in the fields, hears the sound of celebration, and is told about the return of his younger brother. He is not impressed, and becomes angry:

But he answered his father, "Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed a commandment of yours, but you never gave me a goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this, your son, came, who has devoured your living with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him."

— Luke 15:29-30, World English Bible

The parable concludes with the father explaining that because the younger son had returned, in a sense, from the dead, celebration was necessary:

"But it was appropriate to celebrate and be glad, for this, your brother, was dead, and is alive again. He was lost, and is found."

— Luke 15:32, World English Bible

Context and interpretation

Engraving by Hans Sebald Beham, 1538.

This is the last of three parables about loss and redemption, following the parable of the Lost Sheep and the parable of the Lost Coin, that Jesus tells after the Pharisees and religious leaders accuse him of welcoming and eating with "sinners." The father's joy described in the parable reflects divine love, the "boundless mercy of God," and "God's refusal to limit the measure of his grace."

The request of the younger son for his share of the inheritance is "brash, even insolent" and "tantamount to wishing that the father were dead." His actions do not lead to success, and he eventually becomes an indentured servant, with the degrading job (for a Jew) of looking after pigs, and even envying them for the carob pods they eat. On his return, the father treats him with a generosity far more than he has a right to expect.

The older son, in contrast, seems to think in terms of "law, merit, and reward," rather than "love and graciousness." He may represent the Pharisees who were criticizing Jesus.

Many have argued the story is actually about the prodigals' Father who represents God, prodigals' (plural) rather than prodigal's (singular). One son had no love for his father, alienated and fell into deep sin, the other had no love for his father but stayed at home with the proper appearances of obedience without love. As many of the stories in Luke, the less likely person receives mercy and in this parable the most extreme sinner in a parable of Jesus is restored to his father while his more proper brother is not. The story passes through unexpected and jarring turns of events for the listeners. The parable ends with a deliberate unfinished nature. We do not know the final response of the run away's brother after the father's appeal to join the feast and the joy over the son who was dead and is now alive. This parable is one of many uses of feasts by Jesus in the parables.

Commemoration and use

Stained glass window based on the parable, Charleston, South Carolina.

Orthodox

The Eastern Orthodox Church traditionally reads this story on the Sunday of the Prodigal Son, which in their liturgical year is the Sunday before Meatfare Sunday and about two weeks before the beginning of Great Lent. One common kontakion hymn of the occasion reads,

I have recklessly forgotten Your glory, O Father;
And among sinners I have scattered the riches which You gave to me.
And now I cry to You as the Prodigal:
I have sinned before You, O merciful Father;
Receive me as a penitent and make me as one of Your hired servants.

Catholic

In his apostolic exhortation titled Reconciliatio et Paenitentia (Latin for Reconciliation and Penance), Pope John Paul II used this parable to explain the process of conversion and reconciliation. Emphasizing that God the Father is "rich in mercy" and always ready to forgive, he stated that reconciliation is a gift on his part. He stated that for the Church her "mission of reconciliation is the initiative, full of compassionate love and mercy, of that God who is love." He also explored the issues raised by this parable in his second encyclical Dives in Misericordia (Latin for Rich in Mercy) issued in 1980.

In the arts

Rembrandt, Return of the Prodigal Son, 1662, (Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg)

James Tissot - The Return of the Prodigal Son (Le retour de l'enfant prodigue) - Brooklyn Museum

Art

Of the thirty or so parables in the canonical Gospels, it was one of the four that were shown in medieval art almost to the exclusion of the others, but not mixed in with the narrative scenes of the Life of Christ (the others were the Wise and Foolish Virgins, Dives and Lazarus, and the Good Samaritan. The Labourers in the Vineyard also appears in Early Medieval works).

From the Renaissance the numbers shown widened slightly, and the various scenes – the high living, herding the pigs, and the return – of the Prodigal Son became the clear favourite. Albrecht Dürer made a famous engraving of the Prodigal Son amongst the pigs (1496), a popular subject in the Northern Renaissance. Rembrandt depicted several scenes from the parable, especially the final episode, which he etched, drew, or painted on several occasions during his career. At least one of his works, The Prodigal Son in the Tavern, a portrait of himself as the Son, revelling with his wife, is like many artists' depictions, a way of dignifying a genre tavern scene - if the title was indeed the original intention of the artist. His late Return of the Prodigal Son (1662, Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) is one of his most popular works.

Stage

Gerard van Honthorst, 1623, like many works of the period, allows a genre scene with moral content.

In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the theme was a sufficiently popular subject that the Prodigal Son Play can be seen as a sub-genre of the English morality play. Examples include The Rare Triumphs of Love and Fortune, The Disobedient Child, and Acolastus.

Notable adaptations for performance include a 1929 ballet choreographed by George Balanchine to music written by Sergei Prokofiev, a 1957 ballet by Hugo Alfvén, and an 1869 oratorio by Arthur Sullivan. Many of these adaptations considerably added to the Biblical material to lengthen the story; for example, the 1955 film The Prodigal took considerable liberties, such as adding a temptress priestess of Astarte to the tale.

Popular music

The parable is referenced in the last verse of the traditional Irish folk tune "The Wild Rover" ("I'll go home to me parents, confess what I've done / and I'll ask them to pardon their prodigal son").

Oblique adaptations include that by the Reverend Robert Wilkins, who told the story of this parable in the song "Prodigal Son", which is probably best known as a cover version by the Rolling Stones on their 1968 album Beggar's Banquet. The British heavy metal band Iron Maiden recorded a song titled "Prodigal Son", based on the parable of the same name, which appeared on their second release, Killers, in 1981. It could be argued that Kelly Willard's 1982 song, "Make Me A Servant" is based on what the son said to his father when he returned home. The Prodigal Son is the first posthumous release by piano player and gospel singer Keith Green (1983).

Detroit musician, Kid Rock, also recorded a song titled "Prodigal Son" which appeared on his second album The Polyfuze Method, in 1993. Kid Rock later re-recorded the track for his 2000 album The History of Rock. The Christian Rock trio BarlowGirl recorded the song "She Walked Away," influenced by the parable, as part of their 2004 self-titled album. "Indie" rock band Two Gallants covered the parable in the song "The Prodigal Son" on their 2006 album What the Toll Tells. Musician Dustin Kensrue wrote a song about the Prodigal Son entitled "Please Come Home" on the album of the same name released in 2007. Rock band Sevendust has a track titled "Prodigal Son" on their 2008 album, Chapter VII: Hope and Sorrow. The band Bad Religion has a song of the same title on their album New Maps of Hell. The band Extreme recorded a song titled "Who Cares?" which appeared on the album III Sides to Every Story, which is influenced by this parable. Brantley Gilbert released a song called "Modern Day Prodigal Son". British Reggae band Steel Pulse recorded a song titled "Prodigal Son" on their debut album Handsworth Revolution, recreating the Biblical story as a Rastafarian parable.

Literature

The Return of the Prodigal Son (Leonello Spada, Louvre, Paris)

Another literary tribute to this parable is Dutch theologian Henri Nouwen's 1992 book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, A Story of Homecoming, in which he describes his own spiritual journey infused with understanding based on an encounter with Rembrandt's painting of the return of the Prodigal and deals with three personages: the younger, prodigal son; the self-righteous, resentful older son; and the compassionate father – all of whom the author identifies with personally. An earlier work with similarities to the parable is Le retour de l'enfant prodigue (The Return of the Prodigal Son), a short story by André Gide.

Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem giving an interpretation of the younger brother's perspective.

The Parable of the Prodigal Son is also a recurring theme in the works of Rainer Maria Rilke, who interpreted the parable in a different way to the conventional reading. His version of the parable was not so concerned with redemption and the forgiveness of family; the love of the family, and human love in general, was seen as less worthy than unreciprocated love, which is the purest form of love. In loving the family less, the Son can love God more, even if this love is not returned.

Further reading

• David A. Holgate, Prodigality, liberality and meanness in the parable of the prodigal son: a Greco-Roman perspective on Luke 15.11-32, Continuum, 1999, ISBN 1841270253.
• Father Raniero Cantalamessa, Pontifical Household preacher, "Comments on Fourth Sunday of Lent Readings", Zenit News Agency, March 17, 2007.
• Rev. George Dimopoulos, "The Prodigal Son", "Orthodoxy and the world", February 24, 2008.

External links

• Biblical Art on the WWW:
  • Leaving Home
  • In a Foreign Country
  • Returning Home
  • The Brother

Category:Parables of Jesus Category:Eastern Orthodox liturgical days Category:Bible Category:Christianity Category:Jesus Christ