Amy- Jill Levine is Professor Emerita at Vanderbilt University. She is a New Testament scholar and professes to love the NT and Jesus, yet she is Jewish. This gives her a unique insight into the stories and events in the gospels, so it was natural for me to consult her when I was asked last Sunday to give a reflection on the scripture readings for the day. The text was from Lk 15 and the story was that of the Prodigal Son. We all know it well – the son who leaves home having asked for his share of his inheritance and only returns when he has squandered it and is in fact starving to be welcomed and embraced by his father.
In her reflections on the story Professor Levine points out that it is the third in a series of stories at the beginning of chapter 15 of Luke’s gospel – the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son which is her way of naming the parable. She also points out the introductory verse which says, “One day when many tax collectors and other outcasts came to listen to Jesus, 2the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law started grumbling, “This man welcomes outcasts and even eats with them!” 3So Jesus told them this parable” Even when the reading focussed only on the third story of the lost son whoever drew up the cycle of Sunday readings included those verses, meaning to put the story of the lost son into a context which suggested a group that supported Jesus and were ready to learn from him and another group which grumbled and complained about him. This Dr Levine suggests is Luke interpreting the parable and influencing how we might interpret it. Unfortunately, there has been and perhaps still is a tendency in Christianity to identify the scribes and pharisees with the older brother and the Jewish people who have remained faithful to the Law but rejected Christ and identify the outcasts and tax collectors with younger brother and Christians who have now been welcomed into the embrace of the father.
This interpretation betrays a supercessionist approach that sees Christianity as having replaced the Jewish people and assumed their role as God's chosen people. Over the centuries this approach has led to an anti-Judaism and antisemitism that has had such terrible consequences for the Jewish people and the world at large. Although supercessionism and any sense of Christians replacing Jews would now be considered wrong in the Catholic Church and many other churches we must beware of and be on the look out for suggestions of an antagonism that does not reflect Jesus position but that of the tension between the early Christian community and the synagogue.
While many commentators reflect on the patient and unconditional love of the father in the story Professor Levine sees it as a story about family dynamics. It begins “There was a man who had 2 sons… For a Jewish audience this would immediately call to mind stories in the Torah of other 2 sons – Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob. In these stories it is the younger brother who unexpectedly receives the blessing of his father. So, she suggests that if Jesus audience were biblically literate and why would they not be they would know to identify with the younger son who in this case turns out not to be righteous or faithful but irresponsible, self-indulgent and possible an indulged and spoiled child. Professor Levine imagines the situation when the younger son asks for his share of the inheritance: what happens in the time before the son leaves, - is the father busy dividing his property, is he heartbroken, does he try to remonstrate with his son? Where is the mother in the story? Did the older son try to mediate and change the mind of his brother – was he angry because according to Deuteronomy he should have got two thirds of his father’s estate?
The father lets his son go. Unlike the good shepherd and the woman with the lost coin the father does not search for his son though we get the impression that he was constantly on the lookout for him, no doubt pained by his younger child’s action. It was because of this patient waiting that he was able to spot him from afar and run to welcome him
And what about the older son? Do we not feel some kind of sympathy with him? No-one ran out to invite him to the feast, he only discovered it by chance – perhaps on his way home. His anger and upset are not unprovoked,
Now Professor Levine tells us the father has a problem. The father has his younger son back but now the elder son is lost – and perhaps always had been in a way that the father didn’t notice until now.
The father now needs to return this lost elder son to the family if he is to make his family complete. Will the father be reconciled with his elder son? Will the brothers be reconciled?
Is this the challenge that Jesus poses in telling this story? This story of the need for reconciliation would have been a challenge to Jesus’ listeners and is surely a challenge to us today. How do we respond? Can we be agents of reconciliation in our own homes but also in the world we inhabit, in our relations with people of other faiths, people who are different from us and so contribute to reconciliation in a world that so easily polarises and divides?
In her reflections on the story Professor Levine points out that it is the third in a series of stories at the beginning of chapter 15 of Luke’s gospel – the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost son which is her way of naming the parable. She also points out the introductory verse which says, “One day when many tax collectors and other outcasts came to listen to Jesus, 2the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law started grumbling, “This man welcomes outcasts and even eats with them!” 3So Jesus told them this parable” Even when the reading focussed only on the third story of the lost son whoever drew up the cycle of Sunday readings included those verses, meaning to put the story of the lost son into a context which suggested a group that supported Jesus and were ready to learn from him and another group which grumbled and complained about him. This Dr Levine suggests is Luke interpreting the parable and influencing how we might interpret it. Unfortunately, there has been and perhaps still is a tendency in Christianity to identify the scribes and pharisees with the older brother and the Jewish people who have remained faithful to the Law but rejected Christ and identify the outcasts and tax collectors with younger brother and Christians who have now been welcomed into the embrace of the father.
This interpretation betrays a supercessionist approach that sees Christianity as having replaced the Jewish people and assumed their role as God's chosen people. Over the centuries this approach has led to an anti-Judaism and antisemitism that has had such terrible consequences for the Jewish people and the world at large. Although supercessionism and any sense of Christians replacing Jews would now be considered wrong in the Catholic Church and many other churches we must beware of and be on the look out for suggestions of an antagonism that does not reflect Jesus position but that of the tension between the early Christian community and the synagogue.
While many commentators reflect on the patient and unconditional love of the father in the story Professor Levine sees it as a story about family dynamics. It begins “There was a man who had 2 sons… For a Jewish audience this would immediately call to mind stories in the Torah of other 2 sons – Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob. In these stories it is the younger brother who unexpectedly receives the blessing of his father. So, she suggests that if Jesus audience were biblically literate and why would they not be they would know to identify with the younger son who in this case turns out not to be righteous or faithful but irresponsible, self-indulgent and possible an indulged and spoiled child. Professor Levine imagines the situation when the younger son asks for his share of the inheritance: what happens in the time before the son leaves, - is the father busy dividing his property, is he heartbroken, does he try to remonstrate with his son? Where is the mother in the story? Did the older son try to mediate and change the mind of his brother – was he angry because according to Deuteronomy he should have got two thirds of his father’s estate?
The father lets his son go. Unlike the good shepherd and the woman with the lost coin the father does not search for his son though we get the impression that he was constantly on the lookout for him, no doubt pained by his younger child’s action. It was because of this patient waiting that he was able to spot him from afar and run to welcome him
And what about the older son? Do we not feel some kind of sympathy with him? No-one ran out to invite him to the feast, he only discovered it by chance – perhaps on his way home. His anger and upset are not unprovoked,
Now Professor Levine tells us the father has a problem. The father has his younger son back but now the elder son is lost – and perhaps always had been in a way that the father didn’t notice until now.
The father now needs to return this lost elder son to the family if he is to make his family complete. Will the father be reconciled with his elder son? Will the brothers be reconciled?
Is this the challenge that Jesus poses in telling this story? This story of the need for reconciliation would have been a challenge to Jesus’ listeners and is surely a challenge to us today. How do we respond? Can we be agents of reconciliation in our own homes but also in the world we inhabit, in our relations with people of other faiths, people who are different from us and so contribute to reconciliation in a world that so easily polarises and divides?
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