I am the Prodigal Son

This is a new parable of the prodigal son with the implied audience being the Western Evangelical Church. In many ways I am the story of the older son.


This father has two sons which he loved.

The oldest of the two longed to be like his father. He wanted to know everything about him. He studied for years to learn everything he could. When he was of the proper age he ask for his inheritance. Upon receiving his wealth he set out on a journey to tell the people of distant lands all that he had learned. He spent much time explaining and defining in great detail the nature of father in the hope that others could to learn of the goodness of his father.

The youngest son preferred not to wonder about the ways of his father. When he reached the age of reason, instead going out to tell others of his father's good work he chose not to move out of the father’s house. He had no such ambition. He invited both atheists and theists, liberals and conservatives, democrats and republicans, gays and straights, Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists to live with him in his father’s house. These were all his friends. He claimed no take on who is father was. Neither did his group of friends claim their identity in the father, but none the less they were allowed to take part the the pleasures of his household.

Years later the oldest son returned home to his father tired and weary from doing the work of his father. The son replied, ”Father I have been faithful to tell others all I know of you.”

The father replied, “You of little faith, Why did you desert me and leave my presence for your own gain? Leave behind all you have learned of me, forget who you think that I am and come dine with me and your brothers. We have been eating the fattened calf without you. Come join.”



*This is not a reference to my take of the biblical version of this parable, but a reference to the implications of my recent learning in my own life.