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Dear Parish Faithful,
I will share a few responses to the meditation that I sent out yesterday about the "openness" of the parable of the Prodigal Son. This one is from Spencer Settles:
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Thanks for those thoughts on the parable, Father! The one thought that came to me after I read your email regards a similarity to another biblical account. The younger son, in his moment of repentance, expresses a sentiment much like that of the Syro-Phoenician woman who petitions Jesus to heal her daughter. She says, in response to Jesus’s statement that it is not right to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children’s crumbs.” (Mark 7:28). In Matthew’s telling of that event Jesus praises the woman’s faith. The younger son in Luke’s parable says something that seems very similar to me: that he would gladly become a hired servant in his father’s house, where the servants never go hungry. There’s that same extreme humility expressed: “Never mind privilege, as long as I can BE there. As long as I can eat, I do not need to be honored. I will be a dog. I will be a servant.”
That, I think, is evidence of true faith and true repentance. Of course, we do not know whether the son would have continued in this humility, as you pointed out. But I like to think that a moment of such genuine humility has a powerful effect on the heart of a person. And the reception he got! How it must have bewildered him. The father disregards his rehearsed statement - practically interrupts him - and begins calling for a robe, a ring, a feast! As anyone who has ever received love or praise in a moment of intense awareness of one’s own weakness knows, such a thing is incredibly moving and humbling. What might otherwise “puff up” will, in such a moment, scald and sear in the most powerful way.
Anyway, that was the thought that came to me, so I thought I’d share it.
In Christ,
Spencer Settles
