Prodigal Son: Luke 15:11-32
Unfortunately not all families are close-knit. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, one family is nearly torn apart by one son’s reckless behavior. The foolishness of the youngest son and the miserable situation he finds himself in become clearer after studying some history. The prodigal son approaches his father one day and demands his share of the inheritance. In biblical times, sons divided their father’s estate after he died, yet they didn’t share it equally. According to Deuteronomy 21:17, the wealth is distributed among all the surviving sons equally, but with one exception: the oldest son receives a double portion. In the case of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the father has two sons, which means the youngest son will inherit 1/3rd of the estate, and his older brother will get twice that: 2/3rds of the property. But they are supposed to receive these portions after their father dies, not before. To ask for your inheritance while your father is still alive is basically to tell your father to drop dead! Nevertheless, the father gives his son 1/3rd of the estate right on the spot. Now the father has to live without 33% of his wealth, which would have been a hardship for the man and his household. Obviously this was a very generous father. By contrast, the oldest son still stands to inherit 2/3rds of his father’s estate after he dies, yet he shows little gratitude later in the story. He complains about how the 1/3rd has been squandered by his younger brother, and he whines about not receiving a small goat to host a party with his friends even though he has so much more money coming to him in the future!
A brighter future awaits both sons, especially for the younger son who has sunken as low as possible. After he spends all the money his father gave him, a famine hits the land, and he is forced to work on another man’s farm. The man assigns him the task of taking care of his pigs, which would have been despicable for a Jewish man to do. As noted above, pigs are unclean animals among Jews, and they are forbidden to eat pork, so to spend every day among swine would have been disgusting and shameful for him. To make matters worse, the pigs eat better than he does! The prodigal son looks at the pigs with envy since they have enough to eat while he goes hungry, and he starts to fantasize about eating their food. Every day the pigs are fed carob pods, which are long legumes that come from the carob tree. (They are also known as “St. John’s bread” since there’s a tradition that John the Baptist used to eat these pods when he lived in the desert.) Carob pods have a sweet taste similar to chocolate but are rarely eaten by people since their seeds cannot be digested by humans. In biblical times, the pods were used to feed animals, especially for fattening up pigs, and the fact that the prodigal son wants to join them in their feeding proves just how far he has fallen. He’s so hungry he’s willing to stick his nose in a trough and eat pig food.
The prodigal son is willing to fall even farther. Now that he is working on another man’s farm, the young man enjoys that status of an indentured servant. He is not a permanent slave but loosely connected to this man’s family, performing chores for them in return for food and shelter. Once he works long enough for this family, he will no longer be indebted to them but can return to his earlier way of life. This situation is not ideal, but it is better than working as a hired hand, who is forced to find work daily as a day-laborer. If such a person is hired in the morning, he will make a small wage that day to support himself (and his family, if he has one), but he will have to find work again the next day, which might mean going somewhere else. If no one hires a day-laborer in the morning, then he receives nothing that day. The prodigal son is better off than that; he has regular work and a place to say for a while. However, he is still hungry and quickly becomes homesick, deciding that he’d rather be a hired hand on his father’s estate than an indentured servant on this stranger’s farm. In other words, he is willing to go down on the socio-economic ladder just so he can go home, descending from an indentured servant down to a day-laborer who can barely eke out a living.
But his father will have none of it! When the prodigal son returns home, he acknowledges how sinful he has been and says he no longer deserves to be called his father’s son. Before he can offer to work as a day-laborer for him, however, his father interrupts him and summons his servants to bring him the finest robe, a ring for his finger, and sandals for his feet. This last detail is significant, for it was the job of servants to tie and untie their master’s sandals. Not only does the prodigal son avoid stooping down to the lowest level by becoming a day-laborer, but he enjoys an exalted status again in his father’s home by having others wait on him. His selfishness led him to the depths of despair, but his father’s love restored him to new life.
Learn more about practicing this method on your own.