Mark 14:3-9, Luke 15:11-32, John 3:16

Liz Dumain considers the parable of the Prodigal Son

Liz Dumain

This is one of those parables that is so familiar to many of us, and yet has so much more to teach us every day. We may already know that to ask your father for a share of an inheritance early was outrageous; basically saying 'dad: I wish you were already dead'.

We know the story - although the son gets what he thinks he wants, it all goes wrong and he ends up in a pig field eying up the pig food.

In fact life gets so awful that he decides to go home and face the music. To understand just what he faces it helps to know a bit of Jewish tradition: In first-century Palestine, if a boy wasted his family inheritance and then dared to return home, the village would perform what is called the 'kezazah ceremony'. They would break a large pot in front of the boy, symbolically proclaiming separation between him and the village. This smashing also proclaims the end of the relationship between the boy and his father. Quite a moment! It reminds me of another jar that was smashed for a completely different reason in Mark 14, where a woman that people turned aside from, smashed a jar of oil on Jesus' feet. Whereas people in villages smashed jars in front of wayward boys to symbolize separation - Jesus receives a smashed jar as act of love and offers reconciliation.

Fearing that this ceremony awaits him back home, the prodigal son finally decides to return home and face the humiliation of the kezazah ceremony. He prepares to be dead to his father.

He prepares a speech in which he begs his father to hire him as a servant, knowing that the father-son relationship, at this point should be completely dead. Before, the son acted as though his father were dead, now, the son decides to act as though he himself were dead, intending to ask that his father treat him as just another hired hand and not as a son.

However, the father breaks all the rules and runs towards his son and showers him with kisses! There will be no kezazah ceremony. Instead, there will be a joyous celebration instead. The son does not have time to even finish his prepared speech and so he simply accepts being found. Alive. Not dead - no need to be dead. Alive, alive in his father's presence - alive in a way he could never have expected - alive in a way he could never have earned.

The father sacrificed his social and personal dignity so his child could be alive. The father took the full shame that should have fallen upon his child and clearly shows to the entire community that his child is welcome back home.

Then he gives him a robe and a ring: The best robe in the house would have belonged to the father himself. The ring would probably be a family signet ring. When the father shouts 'My son is alive' maybe it is not so much in wonder, as a statement of how things are. This boy is alive - not dead to me - but alive. There is no need to be dead - we too can be alive.

The older son, off in the field, fails to understand this when he refuses to join the banquet. Not only does he defame his brother, not even acknowledging him as a brother, but referring to him as, 'this son of yours'. By refusing to join the party, the older son publicly insults his father with an offense that is just as bad as the younger son's premature request for the inheritance. Now the father should demand obedience from his older son and order appropriate punishment for his insult, but instead the father, once again, extends grace and offers love and lets him make his choice - ironically the older son creates a situation where he becomes the one who is dead inside, by refusing to be alive to the celebration.

What about us then?

There is no need to be dead to life. The father in the story puts his reputation and place in the community to death so his child can be alive. God made himself shame through his Son, Jesus, who willingly endured the cross on our behalf. Publically shamed as the skin and bones visual aid of mercy so we can be alive. He took our sins' shame so that we would not have to. He died so that we can live - there is no need to be dead inside - we can be alive - alive to God, alive to life, alive to the fact there is so much more to this world than we could ever imagine or think. As a result, we can be forgiven, restored and accepted. We do not have to fear going home to our Father and confessing our sins, no matter what we have done, or how many times we have done it.

But sometimes we don't know we're dead. We don't realise we're dead because we've forgotten what it is to be alive - or maybe we've never known what it is to be alive. Because without Jesus there is no life - why else would he say, 'I have come that you might have life...life in all it's fullness'. Or John 3:16 - God sent his own Son that we might not perish...' Life without the one who caused it to come about is just a pale imitation.

• We can be alive - if we choose to come home
• We can be alive if we choose to put on the robe, ring and sandals and stop behaving as servants