Prodigal Theosis

The return to divinity

Older brothers tend not to fare so well in Scripture. Whether it is Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Joseph and his brothers, Eliab and David, or Absalom and Solomon, the younger brother finds the greater favour with God. Not without suffering: Abel is killed, Isaac is nearly sacrificed, Jacob wrestles with God, Joseph is enslaved, David fights Goliath, Solomon the Wise falls into lechery and folly. Yet it is these younger brothers who receive their father’s inheritance, against the natural claim of their elders.

Our Lord’s story about the lost son follows a similar trajectory. Both brothers receive a share of their father’s property while he is still alive (not, presumably, for tax purposes). The younger brother squanders his inheritance on wine and women. He is left with nothing, to the extent that he has to sell himself for labour, but there is such a famine that he envies even the chance to dine with the pigs he tends. And this, remember, is a Jewish tale, in which pigs are not generally remembered with great fondness. It means that he is willing to defile himself to any extent to earn his crust.

Nobody gives him anything. There is nothing for it but to swallow his pride and his shame and go back to Daddy on his knees. He expects the worse, and composes a little speech for when he gets home:

“I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as a hired servant!”

But when at length they meet, he never gets to the end of that speech. His father sees him coming and rushes out to meet him. He cuts short his son’s journey, then his son’s words. Before the lad can make the offer to be a servant, the father calls his own servants and bids them serve his son. He bids them make ready the best robe, a precious ring, shoes, the best calf to eat. The father holds nothing back from his wayward son.

One can understand why the older brother gets angry. The younger son squanders everything, and then receives more than his fair share of the inheritance. “You never gave me a young goat, and yet you are giving him the best calf,” the older brother complains. His envy contrasts sharply with the father’s forgiveness: “Of course we are celebrating! Your brother was lost. Now he is found. Crack open the Moët!”

Given whom Jesus is addressing, it is obvious who the older and younger brothers are meant to represent: the Pharisees who were grumbling at him for dining with sinners are the envious older brothers. And one could build on this, as St Paul does, to extend that older brotherhood to the Jews as a whole, so that the younger brother represents the gentiles. But we should be wary of any finger-pointing.

First, because in the brother motif which recurs throughout the Old Testament, although the younger brother takes the inheritance due to the older, the older still receives mercy. Cain is left to roam free under God’s protection; Ishmael and Esau become fathers of great nations; Joseph’s older brothers are forgiven and become the tribes of Israel; David weeps over Absolom. Opportunities for repentance and reconciliation are offered, even if not always taken. So, Our Lord tells the Pharisees this parable not to condemn them, but to offer them the chance to join Him in celebrating for the return of the lost sinners, just as the Good Shepherd rejoices at the return of one lost sheep, or the poor woman over one lost penny.

Moreover, the sense of the story is quite the opposite of finger-pointing. The father does not condemn the older brother: “Son,” he says, “you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”

This should show us that the parable is not a cautionary moral tale. It should certainly not be taken as a blanket condemnation of Jews. But more generally, I am not convinced that Jesus ever really descends to mere moralising. To hear His parables as little moral lectures deprives them of their force. There is, rather, a spiritual lesson to be learnt here, and one especially apposite to Lent. It shows what is required to receive the full inheritance of the Father.

We can be the older brother, if we like. We can serve the Father faithfully and obey His every command. This is enough for us to receive some portion of His inheritance. Being baptised, confessing our sins and turning up to make our weekly Communion is enough to repair the image of God which Adam broke at the Fall. These are all that is generally needed for salvation.

But we are made not only in God’s image. We are made also in His likeness. And once the image is restored, to grow in that likeness takes more than the minimal requirements of the faith. It takes the humility of the younger son. That is, if we want the fullest reconciliation with the Father, if we want to have everything that is His, to wear His robe and ring, we must be willing to fall on our knees before Him in the fullest possible repentance. We have to learn, the hard way, our complete inability to feed ourselves or save ourselves, and our total reliance on the Father. We have to admit how far we have defiled ourselves for the sake of our own devices and desires, and we have to will to turn all that we are and all that we have to His service. That is true repentance, true conversion, true turning of the whole self to God.

Such is the purpose of our Lenten austerities. God does not need our fasting or our alms. We do not earn or buy salvation. It is we who need to fast and give alms, to train ourselves off reliance upon anything but God and lead us to ever deeper conversion and repentance. It is through God’s compassion alone, His coming out to us in Bethlehem and Calvary that we are saved. But it is by our co-operation with His self-giving love that we grow in His likeness and come closer to oneness with Him; or, to say the same thing in Greek terms, it is by synergy with God’s grace that we approach theosis.

“Son,” says the Father, “you are always with me, and all that I have is yours.” Through Christ, He says this to us, too. For did not Jesus Himself say, “All things that the Father hath are mine: therefore said I, that he shall take of mine, and shall shew it unto you” (John 16:15)? It is in the Incarnation of Christ, Emmanuel, icon of the Father, that God is always with us. It is in the Crucifixion of Christ that we see the extent to which the Father gives us all that He has, even His only-begotten Son. And it is in the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ that we see what that inheritance looks like: a son who was dead and now lives, surrounded forever by the singing and dancing of the angels, enjoying the eternal feast.

The singing of the choir in church, the beauty of the architecture, the scent of the incense, the words of Scripture, are all echoes of that great feast and dance which we, like the older son, hear dimly from outside the heavenly hall. God is always inviting us inside. He does not just sit there in heaven, but comes to us through His Son, rushing out to meet us and fall upon our necks with compassion. For unlike the God of the philosophers, who is only the object of our love, the God revealed in Jesus Christ is the God who loves us — who is Love. This is why today, and at every celebration of the Eucharist, He comes out to meet us again, through bread and wine offering everything that He has, and everything that He is: God offering Himself to us completely, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit, through Jesus Christ Our Lord, we may become completely one with Him.