The love of the father in the parable of the prodigal son has challenged me to my guts. What kind of growth would be required of me to convert myself into the father character? When the father has every right to dismiss the insolent son who squandered his patrimony as untrustworthy, he makes himself vulnerable by trusting him, taking him back to the house. The love of this father is a challenge to stop speaking about one’s hurts and wounds, and love the offender without reserve.
My focus on the character of the father is connected to my age, I believe. In my younger days, I had always imagined myself as the returning younger son, wanting to be back in the embrace of the father. As I grew older, my reflections got centered around the older brother. I developed a feeling that I was smitten by “elder-brotheritis,” a compulsion to grudge the privileges given to the one who previously hurt you, the ones who went astray, the ones who have squandered their rights. I had become a judge of both my younger ones and older ones.
As I grow older, I begin to don the garbs of the father, learning to love despite the hurts, negotiating with those I previously believed did not have the rights to negotiate. In this story, the father’s arbitration skill sometimes captivates my sleeping and waking hours. This parable gives a clue to the principles involved in Christian arbitration. Unfortunately, many arbitration practices in the Church do not always have Christian principles.
The first rule of Christian arbitration is the acceptance of the two sons—two parties. It is not an act of tolerating the other but of reinstating the offender to the dignity of the son. The father had all the choices to reject the returning son just like the elder brother. He had taken his share of the property and cut off his life and lodging with the father and has no right to claim to come back to the house. The lost son was aware of this and had requested only the position of a slave. Yet, the father still accepts that he has two sons.
The Pharisees, the Jewish race as a whole, cannot accommodate the concept of having two sons since they believe that Israel is the only son of God. The rejection of a second son is evident in the many sibling feuds of the Old Testament. One is defeated and rejected, while the other is accepted and promoted. The stories of Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau are examples—stories of sibling rivalry—and the story is continued as if only one of them is chosen by God. Sometimes, the reader finds gut hatred for the one who is chosen. For example, Esau was, by all means, a better character: more loving and caring than Jacob. However, the Bible chooses Jacob as the forefather of the Jewish race for some strange reasons (most probably on racial purity).
In the Old Testament, there is a suspenseful scene in the return of Jacob to meet Esau. Jacob had wronged Esau, and he was coming with trepidation to meet his elder brother. On the contrary, Esau welcomes the younger one without any grudge like a father. While Jacob remains suspicious of the elder brother, Esau leaves the pages of the Old Testament as an epitome of dignity. Look at the difference between the elder brother in the New and Old Testaments.
In the parable of the prodigal son, the existence of the two sons and the father’s choice to retain both sons as heirs is the point of conflict with the elder brother. In the arbitration, the elder brother argues that the younger one had no more right to be in the house and should be rejected without the right to negotiate. He does not accept the existence of the other. The need to overpower with rights and authorities on the minorities is an accepted political and legal process of human nature. Not for God. He begins the arbitration by accepting the younger son back to the household.
The second rule is to accept that there are two parallel stories. Both stories have credence. The elder brother nor the reader is willing to give any credence to the story of the younger one. The father makes a bold decision to accept that story without judgment.
The third principle of this father’s negotiation is on what is achieved in the arbitration. The arbitration he does not end in finding the truth but in finding love. The truth and obedience belong to the elder brother. But the father’s arbitration is based on love as the goal, not on finding the truth. The arbitration does not end in punishment. But the elder brother could not take the challenge offered by the father to love the one who hurt the family.
This is the ultimate test of loyalty. Those who claim to own the truth and rights often fail in the ultimate court of love, the only commandment of the New Testament. The elder brother’s words sting us painfully. He speaks about slaving in the father’s house. He had never loved and felt the freedom of a son. He worshipped the rules of the father but failed to love him.
Love should be the ultimate goal; love should triumph. If love has not triumphed, it is still not the end of the arbitration.