What I'm Reading #27: The Prodigal God (Timothy Keller)

The Prodigal God: Recovering the Heart of the Christian Faith, by Timothy Keller

I can recommend the book The Prodigal God (Dutton 2008) readily as being accessible for its length, content and language, which is great in and of itself. But Keller concisely states an interpretation of the parable of the prodigal son that is not necessarily new but is still important for people of all walks of faith to hear. It recasts the parable of the prodigal son as the parable of the two lost sons and uses the adjective "prodigal" to apply to God in an interesting way.

My favorite book on the parable found in is and always will be Henri Nouwen's The Return of the Prodigal Son, which uses Rembrandt's beautiful painting of the homecoming scene as a meditative center. Keller, like Nouwen and many others, encourages readers to focus not just on the younger son but on the older son. Rather than joining the party and welcoming his little brother home, the older son sulks, feeling jilted.

Keller's description of the older son hit pretty close to home for me in many ways, as did Nouwen's when I first read it: I am literally the oldest child, the goody-two-shoes, the rule-abiding, parent-pleasing daughter who does what is expected of her and more. When I read Nouwen's book, I felt chastised for attitudes I held (and still struggle with) in relation to my younger sister, and reading Keller's book, I felt similarly convicted for how I sometimes approach my faith. Rules and order are important to me, and although this is not a bad thing, I realize that rules can become idols. Discipline is an integral part of the spiritual life, but never for its own sake, and I am having to learn to recognize and let go of rules that I cling to as an end in themselves rather than a means to an end—the end being communion with God and others, and the participation in the kingdom. Keller says that religious legalism is as much as if not more of a way of abandoning God than the younger son's abandoning his father because it is an attempt at controlling God and getting what you want out of God.

Something interested that Keller pointed out about the older son he does by situating the parable in its context between that of the lost sheep and the woman with the lost coin. In both of the latter stories, someone goes looking for what is lost, but in the parable of the prodigal son, no one goes after the younger son. This raises the question: who, if anyone, should have gone looking for him? The answer is clear: his older brother. But the older son's pride and self-righteousness prevented him from extending compassion to his younger brother and seeking him out as he should have done.

Early on, Keller points out that the actual definition of the word prodigal is not, as we so often assume, "wayward." Rather, the word means "recklessly spendthrift." In this context, he says, it is really the father in the story—God—who is prodigal. The father recklessly, foolishly, lavishly gives his money, his property, his dignity and his love to a son who has rejected him. This is the God we must learn to love and to imitate: a God who loves with reckless abandon, when it makes no sense, when it is rejected, when it causes resentment in those who think they deserve it more. This is the prodigal God to whom we are continually called to come home.