Today's parable of the prodigal son can easily pass us by. We have heard it so frequently we easily can "tune it out" and say, "Oh, I know the rest of the story." Without a doubt, it is one of the richest parables in the scriptures.
Surely the Prodigal Son is one of Jesus’ greatest parables. Here it is, slightly updated:
There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So the father divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and stuffed it into the pockets of his cargo pants. He then traveled to a distant country where the weight in his pockets kept dragging his pants down, and tripping him up, until finally, he was left in just his underwear, with his money all gone.
After trying unsuccessfully in that condition to earn enough to buy food, he was desperately hungry and felt totally abandoned.
Well, isn’t that typical? Isn’t that like the problems we have and then — grabbing for the gusto, we walk away from anyplace where we’ve been truly loved and which we now want to leave behind? Somehow, it is impossible to leave such a place without the weight of guilt and bad choices filling the pockets of our pants. The farther away we go, the heavier those ill-informed choices become, and the greater the consequences, and soon our drawers droop and drop us before we can make good our escape.
