Article March 15, 1982 Issue

Father and sons

EVELYN M. S. DUCKETT

Who deserved the party? Was it the younger son who had just got back from squandering his inheritance? Or was it his elder brother who had stayed at home all the time?

This wasn't really the question Christ Jesus was answering in the parable of the prodigal son and his brother.^{See Luke 15:11-32 .} Among other things, he was pointing to the character of the father—strong, consistent, loving, patient, gracious, generous, just—regardless of what vagaries of human nature confronted him. Jesus' theme wasn't all the different ways the sons went wrong, and the degree of wrongness, but the father's great capacity to love impartially and continuously.

One can't help feeling that however many sons that father might have had, he would have been quite equal to coping with each one as was necessary. He ran to meet the son who was returning home, and went out to entreat the other to come in. Jesus gave to mankind this deeper insight into the nature of God. The concept of God as Father, approachable, dependable, infinitely resourceful, transcends even the highest human sense of parenthood. In reality, the Father doesn't need to run to meet any of His sons. Divine Love is always already everywhere, tenderly embracing its entire creation all the time.

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