Homecoming, Part 2: Beyond Complaint

In an earlier blog post, I complained about the happy-ending, “fairy-tale” aspects of the parable of the prodigal son. Homecomings, I reflected, are rarely as rosy as all that.
But in the parable’s finale, when the resentful brother complains about the party, we feel right at home. Not only do we sympathize with him, we are him. “No fair!” we grumble over our laptops and spreadsheets while others watch TV. “No fair!” we grouse when another family member gets his favorite meal—again. “No fair!” we seethe in our cubicle as a new hire moves into the corner office. “No fair!” we whisper when a loved one dies and so many, many others do not.

Most often, these personal “No fairs!” are silent and internal. We wouldn’t dare speak them aloud. But when indignation happens on a collective level, we get gutsy. Consider, say, the recent midterm elections. As the results rolled in, whole swaths of the nation’s population cried out, “No fair!” Heartsick workers watched in disbelief as winners partied, enjoyed their favorite meals, moved into corner offices, and appeared fantastically imperishable. Later, after the shock of the inconceivable wore off, the losers raged, emogi-wept, and spent countless hours on social media licking their wounds with likeminded indignant ones.
What we members of the “No fair!” chorus miss—and what we celebrants miss, too—is that the grounds for celebration are themselves faulty (even when the results are flipped). Any such celebration says, “We believe in a scarcity of corner offices. We believe in winners and losers. We believe there are such things as ‘away from home,’ ‘back home,’ ‘out of power,’ and ‘in power.’ We believe that some are locked out, and others are let in.”
Yes, these beliefs are useful. They motivate us to work for justice and defend the defenseless. And yes—to return to the parable at hand—the loving father says as much to the complaining son. “We must celebrate and rejoice,” he says, “because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found” (Luke 15:31). And yes, in many of our congregations, we take these binary pairs—celebration/despair, feast/famine, death/life, lost/found—at face value. We regard them as ultimate realities. We accept, honor, and promote them. Entire theologies and doctrines are built on them. They structure our thinking about the world, our work, our faith, our individual and communal missions and destinies.
What we tend to miss is that, despite his words, such binaries don’t structure the father’s thinking. He is extravagant; he is generous; he is blind to categories, laws, missions, and destinies. He sees different ultimate realities. Because his sons do not, though, and because he loves them well, he responds to them accordingly, in terms they can hear and understand—while also speaking extravagantly and prodding at their soft spots of misunderstanding.
When Son #1 comes home, for example, the father embraces him before the son asks forgiveness. The father’s actions match the son’s expectations, but also subvert them. They are, strictly speaking, “no fair!” They would have happened regardless of the son’s contrition.
And when Son #2 complains, the father senses that pain has driven him closer to the truth, and that in this moment of hypersensitivity he is better poised to receive it. “You are here with me always; everything I have is yours,” he says (Luke 15:32). There is no “home” and “away.” There is no “winner” and “loser.” There is no “favored” and “fallen.” There is only here, always, and everything. No questions asked. No strings attached. Come and feast.
The parable ends with the father’s words. What happens next? Does Son #2 have ears to hear? We will never know—and it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we, the living, breathing, Sons #2 of this world have a chance to complete the story on our own. We have a chance to stop the cycle of complaint, listen deeply, speak to others in generous terms that they can hear, forgive before being asked, join the feast that’s always there, and invite others to do the same inconceivable things.
 
Dr. Claire Colombo is the director of the Center for Writing and Creative Expression at the seminary and has served on the seminary’s adjunct faculty since 2012. As a freelance writer, she develops religion and language arts curricula for Loyola Press of Chicago. She is a regular contributor to their “Finding God” magazine and newsletters.
¹ If you’re not a homegrown Texan and/or have no clue what I’m talking about, go here: http://teachinginthe915.blogspot.com/2010/10/mums-word.html.
² We know from Gospel accounts of Jesus’ exhausting returns to Capernaum that he knew this, too. See, for example, Mark 3:19–27.