IMAGINATIVE SON

Over the two millennia since, Jesus narrated the story of the so-called Prodigal Son, people including Christians and those others who have heard the story from a secondary source i.e. not from the Bible, have imagined how sinful the young boy was. Bless their imagination.

Innumerable stage plays having been scripted to enact on stage have entertained the audience over two millennia. They all have one central theme of the Sinful Prodigal Son and the drama of the reception given to him by his father. The elder Brother is almost always depicted as the good boy who stayed at home and was legitimately angry at the father who was mindlessly generous. They all serve the purpose of the audience: see how good I am like the elder brother, not a sinner like the prodigal son.

Jesus had better things to teach than to speak of a young lad who ran away from home, his native village and his parents to a city. He was much interested in teaching the concept of God who decided to become man, a god who looked and behaved like a generous and loving dad.

Jesus had a habit of teaching serious lessons by narrating stories. Not merely did he narrate a story, he liked to create another person who reflected the opposite of God who was always his theme.

For him, God was indescribable in human terms. So he cleverly crafted a person who represented exactly what the Heavenly Father was not. Heavenly Father was generous, accepting, loving and waiting. There is a character who was not any of these.

The older boy, who attended to the works of his father, was that person whom Jesus depicted as antonym of God.

He was selfish, thought of himself and his needs first. He never asked for what was his own. He projected a slavish mind. This man who is the opposite of the Father did not accept his brother without reservation: he passed judgment without premises or evidences, he could never be happy and above all he was unable to meet the society and be one among them. Unlike the Father, he was a sinner who professed himself to be a saint, but a hypocrite to the core.

We need to make requests of others in order to enrich our lives. The younger son did request what was legitimately his. He failed however, because he did not behave like a responsible person. He was imprudent with the wealth.

Requesting what is ours is not to demand. We must take full responsibility for our feelings which necessarily are connected to our needs and then make the request in order to enrich our life.

Jesus states: “Ask and you shall receive”. Human persons have a way of presuming that everyone is aware of his or her needs. Some of them are long suffering “Servants of Yahweh”, projecting themselves as icons of suffering for all to admire.

The women of our society are considered mothers. Mothers are supposed to suffer, sacrifice themselves and be silent for all their lives. That is the tag society has given them and they seem to like it.

Envision a family scene. The father of the house and the three teenaged children, a son and two daughters are watching the television; the mother of the house is in the kitchen. She had been working the whole day. She starts saying out loud for all to hear: “I didn’t have a minute to myself, did the week’s laundry of the whole clan, I swept and swabbed the house; I did the grocery shopping. Imagine, today was the only day I was off duty from the office. One would think that I am resting at home”. She perhaps thinks that those who listen to her rosary of woes, would sympathize with her, leave the television and come to help her or she hopes the husband will come over and keep her company or say, “honey, I want you to sit down and have a cup of coffee. Let me do the work”. These are the responses she expects but the actual reaction is silence, a deafening silence. But the crowd was not exactly silent. The second daughter lifts her eyes and makes a sign to her sister which said “Yea, yea, she is at it again”. The elder daughter sniggers. The husband flashes a smirk like that of an airhostess at the door of the aircraft, which disappears as a comet in the sky. The son turned the volume of the television a bit higher.

The elder brother of the Prodigal Son wails like this woman, “For all these years, I have been slaving myself for you. You did not even give me a little lamb to celebrate with my friends”. All the wealth of the father was his too, he knew it. But he preferred someone to serve him. He expected his father to appreciate his slavishness. He was a slave and he behaved like one. No one had ever asked him to be less than a son. But he chose to be a slave. Since his needs were unfulfilled, he was resentful. He was angry or vengeful or both.

He just would not accept his brother who had imperfections; and who was a sinner in his eyes. He could not even say of him “my brother” but he calls him “your son” reminiscent of the event in the Garden of Eden where the Man says to God “the woman YOU gave me as partner, she made me sin”. This elder boy for his protestations of loyalty to the Father accuses the father for siring a sinful son.

A couple of years ago, a group of Catholics who calls itself St. Thomas Christians threatened to attack the parish priest. They are like a pack of hyenas, and the poor priest knew it. (He finally ran away to the US). They did not want the residents of a leper colony to be included in the parish directory. There is more than one irony here: they were assisted by a Cannanite priest now living in the United States whose nephews were among the drunken crowd of St. Thomas Christians. Another irony was the poor Catholics chose to live in the Leper Colony, because of low rental. None of them was suffering from leprosy except one man. He was ironically, a St. Thomas Christian. Mother Teresa’s sisters had a leprosy hospital in the colony. There used to be Sunday services in their hall. The St. Thomas Christians refused to sit on the benches and chairs fearing they might have been used by the lepers.

Like the elder brother these “Christians” refused to accept their less fortunate brothers and sisters.

The Father in the story waited for his truant son to return home. Jesus cleverly places the elder son outside the home when the Prodigal Son returned. He did not wait; he perhaps hoped that his brother would not return home at all. If he came back home, his very presence would defile the home.

The reason why one refuses to accept a low caste or a sinner is the self-inflating imagination that one is pure and undefiled.

The Pharisees always considered themselves to be the purest of the pure. They would not sit to eat without the ritual washing, had they been out in the market. They insisted that the lepers be kept away. The lepers were obliged to shout aloud as they made their way through public streets “Unclean, Unclean!!.”

A decade ago, I was doing my Clinical Pastoral Counseling Course in an Institute on Staten Island NY. On every Friday evening a woman from the Jewish Community would visit the Institute and conduct their Sabbath prayer service. A ritual meal was part of it. All students and those who were interested attended the service. She would bring all the material needed for the service herself. One day as the service was half way through, she noticed that she had not brought the bread for the service to the hall. I offered to go and fetch it. Her expression was one of disbelief. Her pale American face became ghostly paler. She perhaps said to herself: “A coloured Indian and a Catholic to boot, dares to touch our sacred meal!! Horror of horrors, how could he ever imagine that we could have our sacred Sabbath with defiled food?!” I understood and regretted that I ever offered to help. However, I did help wheel the only Jewish person in the facility to my office to fetch the bread.

To be generous means to be non-judgmental. Observe the way, the Father gives to the son and receives the sinner son back home.

The son who perhaps attained puberty and had his initiation service done was eligible for the inheritance. He asks the Father: “Father, please give me the portion that is legally mine”. The father gives, without questioning. A great lesson is respecting other’s decisions.

When the repentant Son comes home after the miserable life with the pigs, the father runs to welcome him, embraces him and kisses him. The son has something to say, the father listens, but doesn’t respond. He neither approves nor accuses his son. He is just happy and generous.

The Father is generous beyond imagination. He gives him the ring, indicating he has once again restored to his wealth. The son could make a mistake again in life. But trusting in his son is like trusting the creator who created him too. Think of a human father, any father whether he is called “Father” as in the case of a priest or a bishop, just an ordinary father who would trust a son who made a mistake. Such a son is generally condemned for life. The son is labeled and kept at a distance.

The Father gives him back his dignity as son. He wanted only to be a slave. The father puts the gown on him with the family insignia.

He puts sandals on his Son’s feet. He could enter his house like a son not as the slave who would have to be barefooted.

He throws a party for his Son. He is reintroduced into society. The first initiation service was a disaster. But the second initiation by the Father after the repentance of the son is more joyous and mature. The Son had already been tested in fire. It is unlikely that the lessons are not learned. The society except the other son is happy. It is good to remember that Jesus solemnly reinstated Peter after his sin and repentance. He is given the keys and put him in charge of the other brothers and sisters. Who can be Christ like and God like?

It is a narrow mind that passes judgment without trial. Trial involves deliberation, study of all facts, and examination of witnesses etc. True justice is delivered in order to restore the balance of society. Punishment, much less condemnation is not the end of justice.

A judgmental person is one who passes judgment and attributes motives to others. He or she is an imaginative person. As the mouth speaks from the depth the heart, as Jesus once said, they talk from the depth of their heart. If they talk of the sins of their brothers or sisters, be sure, that sin exists first in their own heart. Whether it exists outside or not is a matter for investigation with the purpose restoring balance in society. If such an end doesn’t exist, there should never be a trial.

I know a gentleman in New Delhi. His father was supposed to be a leader of charities. He was a cut throat banker before he chose to thread the path of charity. The son, in order to enhance the holier-than-thou image of his father, decided to become a priest. He became a miserable priest. He would eat and drink without of temperance. Every one except himself knew he had the Battle of the Bulges to fight. He used to be hockey player in his high school days, but he gave up any sort of exercise. But he kept exercising his tongue. Another priest once said of him “I move away, when see this man coming to a party. He has nothing good to say of others.” He knew about others much more than others knew about themselves. Perhaps he made up stories about others. He was Fr. Judgment. Once he told me: “Don’t quote, she is bitching around”. The tinkle in the corner of his eyes said he was revealing a confessional secret. “It is between you and me, keep it as a secret!”

The Elder Son was a judgmental person.

Does any one know how many prostitutes there are in the story of the Prodigal Son? Ask any Catholic what was the sin the prodigal son was guilty of. Pat comes the answer, “he spent all his wealth with prostitutes!” Jesus did not say that neither did he indicate any sexual behaviour in the boy.

It is paradoxical to think that the Lord Jesus who forgave the sin of the woman caught in adultery and the Jesus who said to the Pharisees that the “Prostitutes and Sinners would go before you to heaven” thus making pharisaism a greater sin than sexual immorality or flesh trade for daily bread, would make it a big issue in an important lesson regarding God the Heavenly Father. What generations of Christians have believed to be the sin of the Prodigal Son was what the Elder brother said: “He and the harlots”. Prostitutes did not figure in the story of Jesus. Jesus indicated that the elder brother who never left his home was actually sinning in his imagination sitting at home.

The thought of his younger brother might be having the company of prostitutes in the city had made the elder brother a resentful man. If he were to be out he would certainly have had sex.

A few years ago, a priest left for the United States. Soon all the priests of his diocese went into an overdrive of gossip mongering. Judgments quoting “reliable sources”, checking up with the “women” he seemed to have known (biblical knowledge in their imagination). Till then they had been jealous of him but did not know how to attack him. But now they had a weapon. As cowards do, they spoke with the certainty that he would not be able to respond. When he returned, they again approached their constituency in the guise of pastoral visits and condemned the priest, attributed motives to him. Rest is history. When the good goes bad it stinks. Their mouths emitted foul like the gutters of Delhi’s slums. Corruptio optimae, pessima, the seniors among them who knew Latin would have heard it said so well in the Classical tongue.

When the tongue that is meant to bless accuses, and the hands that are to rise in blessing should rise against the person of a consecrated, the confidence of the people they seem to administer mercy would loose their faith. Imaginative elder brothers, you are called to Sanctity. Lift up your hearts above the ugly and deceitful. Say honestly tomorrow at mass: “We have lifted them unto the Lord”. Amen