by James Martin
In my work as a spiritual director, I have found few other passages that can so help people facing difficulties in their relationship with God. Often we can be trapped by our own preconceived notions of how God judges, how God reacts, and how God relates to us. Some of these come from the unhealthy ways that other authority figures, like parents or teachers, may have related to us, rather than from the ways that God actually relates to people. We end up withdrawing farther from a God of our own making, rather than drawing closer to the God who made us.
A young man once told me that he couldn’t bring himself to pray because he kept imagining God judging him for not only everything he did, but also for everything he thought. Distractions in prayer, angry thoughts about a coworker, and frequent sexual fantasies were all reasons that he was sure God judged him. I invited him to think about the Parable of the Prodigal Son. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, his face became wreathed in a smile.
“I love that parable,” he said. “But what does that have to do with God?”
“Everything!” I said. “Here’s an image of God not from your own mind, but from Jesus’s mind. Why not pray with his image of God?” A look of relief washed over the young man’s tired features.
The story, though, may offer us an image not simply of God the Father, but of Jesus himself. For the Parable of the Prodigal Son comes in the fifteenth chapter of Luke. And how does that chapter begin? With the “Pharisees and the scribes” grumbling about Jesus. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them,” they say.34 Thus the parable may be Jesus’s response to that critique. Those who complain about eating with the sinful are compared, unfavorably, to the soon-to-be resentful elder son. Like most of the parables, the Prodigal Son can operate on many levels, highlighting Jesus’s acceptance of sinners, the acceptance or nonacceptance of Jesus by the Pharisees and scribes, and God’s acceptance of all.
But there’s more to this story than even acceptance. Everyone now starts to celebrate. The father’s joy is magnified in those around him. Some of Jesus’s first listeners may have thought, Well, they’re celebrating now, but wait until that son gets his comeuppance!
Those hard-hearted sentiments are now expressed by the older son, who has so far remained on the story’s sidelines. The dutiful one is working in the fields when he hears music and dancing at the house. At this point, I always wonder if Jesus is not telling a parable, but recounting a tale based in real life; that small detail of hearing the music and the jealousy it sparks lends it the ring of truth. What’s that? you can imagine the elder son thinking. A party? Why wasn’t I invited?
The elder son discovers that his brother has returned. To add insult to injury, he learns the news from one of the slaves. He is so angered that he refuses to enter the house.
There is also some pathos evident. The father had time to have food prepared, and yet no one thinks to “search for” the elder brother. His deep emotions are understandable. So the father comes out and begins to “plead” with him. (The Greek parekalei could also mean “comfort.”) The loving father who can forgive his wayward son would surely have understood the elder son’s dark emotions, and he invites him to rejoin the family. Notice the parallels: the elder son’s anger is expressed by his unwillingness to enter the house; the father’s compassion is expressed by his going out of the house.35 Now it is the elder son who is about to cut himself off from the family.
Then the elder son explodes. “Listen!” he says. “For all these years I have been working like a slave (douleuō) for you.” What’s more, “I have never disobeyed your command.” Unlike, he implies, that other son. Then the coup de grâce: “Yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!”
In one explosive sentence, the son vents the feelings of all those who have ever felt ignored or underappreciated for their hard work. In my experience, most Christians are trying to lead good lives and therefore are more like the dutiful elder son than the wastrel younger one. We are more likely to feel the older son’s emotions: resentment over not being appreciated, jealousy over the success of someone who does not “deserve” it, anger at what we deem as favoritism, and sadness at feeling excluded.
Notice how powerful emotions lead the son to exaggerate his grievances, as they often do in our lives. He speaks of the brother’s consorting with prostitutes, though that has not been explicitly mentioned by either the son or the father. Hurt feelings lead him to falsely accuse his brother. His words betray his rage; when speaking to his father he calls his brother, contemptuously, huios sou houtos, “this son of yours.” Even devout Christians fall into the elder son’s trap: we do our work but secretly harbor resentment that we are not rewarded the way we should be treated.
This point is expertly drawn out in Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son, a book-length meditation on this parable. Nouwen, a twentieth-century Dutch Catholic priest, often drew on his own experiences to illustrate a complex Gospel passage or other Christian themes. In his chapter on the elder son comes this frank confession:
Often I catch myself complaining about little rejections, little impolitenesses, little negligences. Time and again I discover within me that murmuring, whining, grumbling, lamenting, and griping that go on and on even against my will. The more I dwell on the matters in question, the worse my state becomes. The more I analyze it, the more reason I see for complaint. And the more deeply I enter it, the more complicated it gets. There is an enormous, dark drawing power to this inner complaint. Condemnation of others and self-condemnation, self-righteousness and self-rejection keep reinforcing each other in an ever more vicious way.36
When I first read those lines I thought, Me too. During my early Jesuit training, I lived with someone who seemed to be admired by everyone in our house. Everyone laughed at his jokes; everyone delighted when he entered a room; everyone looked forward to his presence. Or at least it seemed that way to me. Though we were friends, I grew jealous—so much so that when he was sure to be at a gathering, I felt tempted to exclude myself from the community. I felt like the older brother, trapped by envy.
The son also seems angry at the father’s joy. I felt the same upon seeing others joyfully interacting with my brother Jesuit. Not only does the father forgive the younger son, he does it joyfully—running out, kissing him on the neck, preparing a feast. You can feel the older brother boil with rage while everyone else celebrates. It’s a common response. How often do we become resentful over the good fortune of others?
The older son’s anger flows not only from his jealousy, but also from his inability to forgive his brother and to forgive his father for ignoring him all those years. He seems imprisoned by his resentment. Most of us know the feeling that the wrongs done to us are unforgivable, inexcusable. But in this parable Jesus points out not simply the cost of sin to the sinner, but the cost to the wronged one of not forgiving.
Stepping out of the prison of resentment is essential for our freedom—and for everyone else’s freedom. Jesus doesn’t tell us if the elder brother ever reconciled with his younger brother, but if he did not, the father’s joy would be incomplete and the younger son would never feel truly welcomed.
Sometimes our inability to accept another’s good fortune comes from denigrating our own lives. We focus not on what we already have, but on what another person seemingly has. And usually our perceptions of another’s good fortune are dangerously skewed: we tend to magnify another’s blessings while minimizing our own, and we ignore someone else’s struggles while exaggerating ours. Thus, as in the case of the elder son, we cannot see clearly. Envy masks ingratitude.
The father reminds the older son of just that at the end of the story. Addressing him as “my son,” he says, “You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lo
st and has been found.”
Like the father’s forgiveness, God’s love is prodigal, foolish to those who look upon life in worldly terms. But the father doesn’t care if he looks foolish as he races to embrace his son. He cares only about his son. His joy leaps off the page—it is necessary to “celebrate” and “rejoice,” he says, as if one word couldn’t possibly describe his joy.
God’s mercy is relentless, like the woman who sweeps all day looking for a single coin. It is ridiculous, like the shepherd who leaves the other ninety-nine sheep for just one. Most of all, God’s mercy is joyful, like the father rejoicing in love and compassion. During those times when it seems that it’s hard to forgive or that others will mock us for forgiveness, it helps to remember how lavish God is with his forgiveness of us. Remembering this may make it easier for us to be prodigal with our own mercy. And rather than finding ourselves afraid to look foolish or weak, we may forget ourselves and find ourselves running headlong to embrace the other.
We may act like the wayward younger brother and feel like the hardworking elder brother, but in the end we are called to be like the merciful father.
THE DEEP JOY THAT I felt at the Bay of Parables that day came from recognizing—as if for the first time—not only the utter reality of Jesus’s human life on earth (standing in a particular spot in Galilee, in front of a particular group of people, on a particular day in the first century), but also his compassionate use of the parable. It was not beneath him to use the things beneath him to explain things above. The parable was an act of love.
There was also the joy that came from finding something I thought I’d never see and something others said probably didn’t exist. My search for the Bay of Parables seemed a kind of parable about faith. It took me almost twenty-five years to find it, but once I did, I would never forget it. I’m not sure if Jesus spoke the parables from the precise spot where I stood, but it seemed reasonable to conclude that he did—given the landscape, its proximity to Capernaum, and how, as I learned a few summers before, a human voice can travel over water.
Later in the day, at the gift shop at the Mount of Beatitudes, I bought a copy of Bargil Pixner’s guidebook With Jesus Through Galilee. Flipping through the pages I came across a photo with the caption “Bay of Parables.” I laughed when I saw it.
At dinner I showed the photo to Sister Télesfora, and she laughed too. “There it is,” she said. “I have never seen that!”
The delight of that day remains with me. Rather than trying to re-create it, let me share what I wrote in my journal that night in its unedited joy:
There is almost too much to write down today. George has been great about letting me pick and choose what I wanted to do, since he has been here before. So today I said that I really wanted to find the Bay of Parables, where J preached from the boat—Pixner mentions it as well. We asked a nice OSB monk @ Tabgha who gave us a handy map. (Btw it’s been broiling hot the whole time.) We parked at the side of the road and found a path marked by a purple and white set of signposts and soon we found it! Indeed, you could see the natural bowl shape of the place—a real amphitheater, and it was easy to imagine the crowds sitting down. And to think that the parables were first heard here. I could barely contain my joy! And to turn around and see the rocks and thorns and birds and realize that these were what he was talking about: these birds, these plants, these thorns. Overwhelming.
* * *
THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER
Mark 4:1–9
(See also Matthew 13:1–9; Luke 8:4–8)
* * *
Again he began to teach beside the lake. Such a very large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the lake and sat there, while the whole crowd was beside the lake on the land. He began to teach them many things in parables, and in his teaching he said to them: “Listen! A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground, where it did not have much soil, and it sprang up quickly, since it had no depth of soil. And when the sun rose, it was scorched; and since it had no root, it withered away. Other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it, and it yielded no grain. Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” And he said, “Let anyone with ears to hear listen!”
* * *
THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON
Luke 15:11–32
* * *
Then Jesus said, “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 he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.
“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called on one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours comes back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then his father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”
* * *
CHAPTER 13
Storms
“Teacher, do you not care?”
ONE AFTERNOON, IN THE middle of our stay at the Franciscan hostel and after a full day of visiting sites on the Sea of Galilee, George and I found ourselves with a few free hours before dinner. Scouting around for a place to pray, I walked onto the veranda of the chapel that serves as the centerpiece of the complex. Overlooking the lake from an impressive height, the Church of the Beatitudes was designed in 1938 by the Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi. Its construction was funded by—of all people—Benito Mussolini, who took great interest in the Holy Land.1
The stone chapel, capped by a dark gray dome, is octagonal-shaped, with each of its eight sides commemorating one of the Beatitudes. I wasn’t a fan of the chapel’s chilly marble interior, and the Mussolini connection also made it more difficult for me to meditate. I pictured Il Duce poring over the architectural plans and pounding his fist on the table in disagreement. On the other hand, Barluzzi surrounded his chapel with a magnificent colonnaded portico, a spot that is, according to Murphy-O’Connor’s guidebook, “the best place from which
to contemplate the spiritual dimension of the lake; one can see virtually all the places in which Jesus lived and worked.”2
Alone on the shaded porch, I had a commanding view of Jesus’s life in Galilee. To my left I could easily see the ruins of Capernaum, just a mile or so from where I stood. Past that was Bethsaida, where Peter and Andrew lived. In front of me, across the sea, were the pinkish-gray hills of the land of the Gerasenes, where Jesus healed a demoniac. On the road beneath me was the traditional site where Jesus healed the woman with the hemorrhage. To my right were the traditional venues for the Call of the First Disciples, the Feeding of the Five Thousand, and the Breakfast by the Sea. And I was standing on (or near) the spot where Jesus had preached the Sermon on the Mount. I felt drunk with the spiritual history of the place.
I sat down, my back against the cold stone wall. The cloudless sky ranged from a bright blue overhead to the palest lavender at the horizon. A light breeze came up. For the first time in my life I was able to pray with my eyes open. In classic Ignatian contemplation you imagine yourself in various Scripture passages, trying your best to see the place in the mind’s eye. But this time I had to do no imagining at all. Here it was, laid out before me. On Barluzzi’s portico I could easily imagine the first-century fishermen plying their trade on the sea—because I could see beneath me, on the shoreline, fishermen casting their nets.
Suddenly a terrific wind arose, sweeping all the dry palm leaves off the portico. I laughed, because I really wanted a storm to blow up. Let me tell you why.
I’VE BEEN A SPIRITUAL director for more than twenty years. It is one of my greatest joys.
Spiritual direction helps people notice where God is active in their prayer and in their daily lives. While it may overlap with a number of other practices, spiritual direction is neither psychotherapy (which focuses mainly on the psychological underpinnings of a person’s problems), nor pastoral counseling (which focuses mostly on problem-solving in a spiritual setting), nor confession (which focuses on sin and forgiveness). Spiritual directors are trained specifically to enable a person to recognize God’s activity; this means helping that person with prayer.
