Luke 15:1-2, 11-32
Once, in seminary, a professor asked us students to write down the Bible passage each of us believed best expresses the grace of God. After we handed in our answers, the professor added them up to see whether a particular passage stood out, which is exactly what happened. Far and away, the one mentioned most often was the Parable of the Prodigal Son. My class stood in good company with the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Charles Dickens, both of whom called it the best loved story in the world.[i]
At the same time, it’s so well known that, barely starting to read or hear it, we’ve nearly already reached the end. Now there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s always wonderful to experience again the depth of God’s love and forgiveness via the extravagant welcome the father showers on his son come home.
Still, when reaching the end too soon, we tend to miss a few important details or some dynamics going on. For example, a number of scholars suggest we should try imagining what might be going on in the minds of the father and the older son, that is, after the younger one has left, but before he returns.[ii]How might we see things creatively—from a variety of angles? One commentator once even heard someone suggest telling the story from the point of view of the fatted calf![iii]I’m not quite sure how what that would look like, but you have to admit, it does sound interesting.
One way to approach this parable—the Parable of the Lost Sons, as some call it—is by comparing it to another story. I have one in mind—a play that, over the years, has appeared on Broadway, not to mention in many other venues. It was written in the late 1960s—by Arthur Miller, the playwright who twenty years earlier had received the Pulitzer Prize for his work, The Death of a Salesman. The play I’m thinking of for today is entitled, The Price.[iv]As I describe it, please keep in the back of your mind the relationship between the two brothers in the parable.
It all takes place in just one scene—in the attic of an apartment building in Manhattan. The structure is about to be torn down to make way for a brand new project. For many years the attic has served as storage space for a collection of furniture stacked up to the very top of the room:
- A couple of wingback chairs.
- Some chests of drawers.
- A massive but delicately carved bed.
- A long dinner table with matching chairs.
- A library desk.
- And, among yet other things, a Victrola phonograph.
The play revolves around just four characters: two middle-aged brothers; the wife of one of them; and an elderly appraiser interested in buying the furniture. It begins with one of the brothers—his name, Victor— standing in the middle of the attic floor. Wearing the uniform of a police sergeant, he’s surveying all the old, but well preserved belongings. He begins looking through some of the chests, discovering items from his boyhood years:
- A pair of ice skates.
- A sword for fencing, which he had taken lessons in as a youth.
- And some old records, one of which he sets on the turntable of the Victrola and, cranking the machine, begins playing.
They all start bringing to him a flood of memories. Then enters his wife. He shows her around, explaining some of the history of the furniture. She hopes they can sell it all to create a bit of a nest egg—to supplement his pension. A beat cop for twenty-eight years on the force, he’s now eligible for retirement. They don’t have a great deal of money. After high school, he had begun college, but quit to take care of his father, who had never emotionally recovered from the crash of the stock market. The family had been wealthy, but, like countless others, lost virtually everything. In contrast, the other brother, Walter, went off—not only getting through college, but also medical school. Building up a practice as a surgeon, he’s respected and admired by many.
Now he and Victor have not spoken to each other in sixteen years—ever since their father’s death. On the surface, it’s because they have so little in common, and the physician brother is always so busy. They live in two different worlds, although, of course, it goes much deeper than that. In the past week, however, Victor has called his brother’s office—several times—to talk about the furniture. Not having any of his messages returned, he assumes Walter isn’t going to show up for the meeting.
Speaking of the appraiser, I just want to mention that soon after Victor’s wife leaves to run an errand, that’s when that character shows up. He’s a rather amusing fellow. Elderly but not at all diminished in mind or speech, he’s quite the salesman—with the gift of gab and the ability to read others well. So he begins trying to find points of contact with Victor—small talk of one kind or another—to create a temporary, emotional bond. That’s how he hopes to get a good deal from him. Although not easily manipulated, Victor is eventually worn down, agreeing to one price for all the furniture, which is well below their value.
As the appraiser is paying for it with $100 bills, who should walk in but Walter? He and Victor become reacquainted—small talk at first—but after getting the appraiser to go to another room, they start engaging one another in a more meaningful conversation. Victor’s wife returns, and soon Walter’s talking about the fact that they can get much more money from the buyer.
The topic then turns to more personal things. Walter shares about having had a nervous breakdown several years before—and also getting a divorce in the past twelve months. After telling them that he’s much better, he invites Victor to accept a new position being created at
the hospital. But the brother realizes that Walter is offering it—partly at least—out of a sense of guilt. And Victor also knows he’d be unqualified and ill-suited for the job.
They soon get into an argument about Walter having left the family when it needed him the most. In turn, Walter reveals to Victor that the old man had stashed some money away—which could have helped pay Victor’s school expenses—but that the father was too selfish to tell him about it.
So it goes—back and forth. The two brothers hear each other out, seem to be making some headway towards reconciling. Then something else comes up, they argue, but then again reconsider. Here’s the last exchange between them.
VICTOR: Walter, I’ll tell you—there are days when I can’t remember what I’ve got against you….It hangs in me like a rock. And I see myself in a store window, and my hair [thinning out]. I’m walking the streets—and I can’t remember why. And [I] can go crazy trying to figure it out when all the reasons disappear—when [I] can’t even hate any more.
WALTER: Because it’s unreal, Vic, and underneath you know it is.
VICTOR: Then give me something real.
WALTER: What can I give you?
VICTOR: I’m not blaming you now, I’m asking you. I can understand you walking out. I’ve wished a thousand times I’d done the same…But, to come here through all those years knowing what you knew and saying nothing…?
WALTER: And if I said—Victor, if I said that I did have some wish to hold you back? What would that give you now?
VICTOR: Is that what you wanted? Walter, tell me the truth.
WALTER: I wanted the freedom to do my work. Does that mean I stole your life?…You made those choices, Victor! And that’s what you have to face!
VICTOR: But, what do you face? You’re not turning me into a walking fifty-year-old mistake—[the wife and I] have to go home when you leave, we have to look at each other. What do youface?
WALTER: I have offered you everything I know how to!
VICTOR: I would know if you’d come to give me something! I would know that!
WALTER….You don’t want the truth, you want [me to be] a monster!
Page 10
VICTOR: You came for the old handshake, didn’t you!…And you end up with the respect, the career, the money, and the best of all, the thing that nobody else can tell you so you can believe it—that you’re one hell of a guy and never harmed anybody in your life! Well, you won’t get it, not till I get mine!
WALTER: And you? You never had any hatred for me? Never a wish to see me destroyed? To destroy me, to destroy me with saintly self-sacrifice, this mockery of sacrifice? What will you give me, Victor?
VICTOR: I don’t have it to give you. Not anymore. And you don’t have it to give me. And there’s nothing to give—I see that now. I just didn’t want [Dad] to end up [in] the [street]. And he didn’t. That’s all it was, and I don’t need anything more. I couldn’t work with you, Walter, I can’t. I don’t trust you.
WALTER: Vengeance. Down to the end….To prove with your failure what a treacherous son of a bitch I am!—to hang yourself in my doorway!…But your failure does not give you moral authority! Not with me! I workedfor what I made and there are people walking around today who’d have been dead if I hadn’t….You will never, never again make me ashamed!
And with that, Walter storms out of the door and down the steps.[v]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
In this play, it’s obvious that the brothers do not reconcile—as much as they had tried in the short time they had together. The resolution to the story—such as it is—is not a happy one.
In contrast, in the Parable of the Lost Sons, we don’t know how it ends up, do we? It remains open-ended. The father was so forgiving of the younger one who took his inheritance, left, and blew it all on some fair-weather friends. The older one? The father loves him, too, trying to reassure him that all he himself has also belongs to him.
You and I—in some respect—we have the assignment of writing an end to the parable. We do that both with our words and our actions—in places in our own lives and those of others. In relationships that may be in dire need of repairing, of healing. And yet it takes two—at least, two—to make that happen.
It’s like this: Many years ago, a bishop’s assistant told me a valuable thing—regarding divisions in churches. He said that ill will and dissension among Christians cannot always be healed. Yet he held out this hope to me—a hope I have never forgotten. He said: “There can’t always be reconciliation, but there can be redemption.” It bears repeating: “There can’t always be reconciliation, but there can be redemption.”
In this Season of Lent, we especially remember that. We remember that, in his obedience to his heavenly Father, Jesus was willing to give up his life, so that those estranged from God—and from one another—might be redeemed. So in whatever way we may write an end to the Parable of the Lost Sons—or don’t write one at all—God long ago decided how the story of salvation itself turns out.
[i]As cited in David Lose, “Preaching the Prodigal,” in https://workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2462.
[ii]Debie Thomas, “Letters to Prodigals,” in https://www.journeywithjesus.net/essays/856-letters-to-prodigals; Amanda Brobst-Renaud in https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3992; Matt Skinner in https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_od=533; Karoline Lewis, “Perspective Matters,” in https://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=4553;
[iii]Scott Hoezee in https://cep.calvinseminary.edu/sermon-starters/lent-4c/?type=the_lectionary_gospel.
[iv]The idea for employing this play comes from Matt Skinner in his commentary cited in footnote #2.
[v]Arthur Miller, The Price(New York: Penguin Books, 1968): 110-13.