The Prodigal Son
by Tom Baker
Lesson: Text, Chapter 5, V. The Ego's Use of Guilt
Date: July 13, 2008
One of the things I discovered as a priest was that people wanted the message of Jesus put simply and quickly, more a sound bite than a sermon. I could see their point. The Bible is long. The Revised Standard Version tops out at over 1000 pages, the Bible is intertwined with ancient history and local politics, and it speaks to a culture and the issues of a culture which are almost entirely foreign to us as Americans in 2008. However, there is one chapter which takes up about one page of the 1000 plus which not only contains the essence of Christianity but also the essence of A Course In Miracles. It is the 15th chapter of Luke. Luke is the third Gospel in the New Testament. You can read this chapter in twenty minutes and it will last you a lifetime. So you don't have to hunt around for a Bible, what follows is Luke 15 from the Jerusalem Bible.
The tax collectors and the sinners, meanwhile, were all seeking his company to hear what he had to say, and the Pharisees and the scribes complained. "This man, Jesus," they said, "welcomes sinners and eats with them." So he spoke this parable to them:
What man among you with a hundred sheep, losing one, would not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the missing one until he found it? And when he found it, would he not joyfully take it on his shoulders and then, when he got home, call together his friends and neighbors? "Rejoice with me," he would say, "I have found my sheep that was lost." In the same way, I tell you, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine virtuous men who have no need of repentance.
Or again, what woman with ten drachmas (about $500.00) would not, if she lost one, light a lamp and sweep out the house and search thoroughly till she found it? And then, when she had found it, call together her friends and neighbors? "Rejoice with me," she would say, "I have found the drachma I lost." In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing among the angels of God over one repentant sinner."
He also said, A man had two sons. The younger said to his father, "Father, let me have the share of the estate that would come to me." So the father divided the property between them. A few days later, the younger son got together everything he had and left for a distant country where he squandered his money on a life of debauchery.
When he had spent it all, that country experienced a severe famine, and now he began to feel the pinch, so he hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants and put him on his farm to feed the pigs. And he would willingly have filled his belly with the husks the pigs were eating but no one offered him anything. Then he came to his senses and said, "How many of my father's paid servants have more food than they want, and here am I dying of hunger! I will leave this place and go to my father and say: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of your paid servants." So he left the place and went back to his father.
While he was a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly. Then his son said, "Father I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son." But the father said to his servants, "Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fatted calf we have been fattening, and kill it; we are going to have a feast, a celebration, because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found." And they began to celebrate.
Now the elder son was out in the fields, and on his way back, as he drew near the house, he could hear music and dancing. Calling one of the servants he asked what it was all about. "Your brother has come," replied the servant, "and your father has killed the calf we had fattened because he has got him back safe and sound." He was angry then and refused to go in, and his father came out to plead with him; but he answered his father, "Look, all these years I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed your orders, yet you never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends. But, for this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property----he and his women----you kill the fatted calf we had been fattening."
The father said, "My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours. But it was only right we should celebrate and rejoice, because your brother here was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found."
This chapter contains three parables, all of them about loss and all of them about rejoicing when what is lost is found. In the first two parables something is lost, in the first one a sheep and in the second one a coin. In the parable about the sheep, the shepherd leaves the 99 in the wilderness (a chancy thing to do) as he goes and searches for the one lost sheep. Notice that the sheep is lost, not rebellious or disobedient or bad. Just lost. And when he or she is found heaven goes crazy with joy. The coin too is lost, not stolen or spent unwisely. Just lost. When the woman finds it she throws a block party to celebrate. The two parables are simple and convey a simple message about our relationship with God. We are lost and God is looking for us. When He finds us He and all that is consciously one with Him is delirious with joy. The first two parables are simple too because they are from the searcher's perspective. They are from God's point of view. God sees it simply: we're lost and we need to be found. There is no mention of sin or punishment or hell or even penance. In short, there is no mention of guilt. However, we do not know how the sheep or the coin feels about being lost. In the third parable the lost one is one of us, or rather, two of us or two parts of us. This parable portrays our reactions to being lost and our interpretations of what loss means, namely guilt. This story is not so simple and it is much longer. The parable of the Prodigal Son is about how the ego complicates and lengthens the process of coming home to God.
The parable begins with the younger son asking his father for his share of his inheritance. The father gives it to him without comment and the boy leaves for a distant country where he "squanders his money on a life of debauchery." This is symbolic of the splitting of our consciousness away from the holistic oneness of God's thought to a consciousness in which we try to think without God. In this consciousness we make God into concrete forms which are neither unified nor eternal, things like money, romance, reputation, good health, addictions, being right, power, status----all the things we use to make us happy but eventually pass away. In this consciousness we try to make it all alone. We are thinking outside the wholeness and allness of reality. This is the beginning of ego consciousness. We seem to be divided from God and we begin to know ourselves as apart from God. At some point we hit bottom, feeling so needy and bereft that we no longer care to live in our own self invented universe anymore and we look to return to the wholeness and allness of reality which looks like light and feels like joy.
The Course sees this as our return from cosmic madness. The simplest definition of madness is living in your own world. The advantage of madness is that you are the maker and master of your world. The downside is that you are all alone. Longing for a love beyond our own invention we turn towards God. This turning back to God or what was called metanoia (from the Greek "to turn") in early Christianity is symbolized by the boy getting fed up with feeding pigs and heading home to his father. However, the boy is still mad, his consciousness still ruled by the ego. He turns over in his mind and then announces to his father that he has sinned against heaven and against his father, that he no longer deserves to be called his son, and asks to be treated as a paid servant. This is the madness of guilt: "The ego is the part of the mind that believes in division. How could part of God detach itself without believing it is attacking Him? We spoke before of the authority problem as based on the concept of usurping God's power. The ego believes that this is what you did because it believes that it is you." (T. Chap. 5, V. p. 84). The boy devises a punishment for himself, assuming his father will follow his instructions: "The ego believes that by punishing itself it will mitigate the punishment of God. Yet even in this it is arrogant. It attributes to God a punishing intent, and then takes this intent as its own prerogative. It tries to usurp all the functions of God as it perceives them, because it recognizes that only total allegiance can be trusted." (T. p. 84). The implied reference to our own punitive theologies is obvious here. Instead of seeing sin as a step away from love into a state of mind in which love is lacking, the ego's theology sees sin as an attack on God which God must punish: "The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love, but as a positive act of assault." (T. p. 84). In the ego's Christian theology Jesus takes the punishment on himself, saving us from the ego's wrathful, vengeful God, but himself receiving the punishment of the enraged deity. Jesus jumps on the hand grenade of divine retribution and by his sacrifice we are saved. In the story and in reality, the father pays absolutely no attention to the son's grim instructions.
The father, who is not the least bit angry or offended or hurt, orders that the boy be decked out as a son, given a robe which reflects his status as his son, a signet ring for his finger (the ancient world's version of the credit card) so he can sign (seal) documents for his father, shoes for his feet to show he is not a servant, all of whom went barefoot, and finally a feast of the fatted calf celebrating his homecoming. There is no hint of blame in the father's actions, only joy. We are back to the simplicity of the first two parables where finding what was lost is cause for rejoicing without any under toe of blame or regret or punishment.
Yet the ego lurks on the edge of the circle of celebration as the bitter brother waits with his legal brief to turn his brother into the defendant and his father into the judge. The elder brother gives away his madness immediately when he reminds his father that "all these years I have slaved for you and never disobeyed your orders" unlike his brother who he refers to as "this son of yours" who stole from him and embarrassed him. The elder brother finds his worth in his brother's guilt. He suggests that his father is guilty too for not appreciating him and never giving him the party he now throws for his brother. In the ego's world of guilt the obedient are rewarded and the disobedient are punished. But no one is loved. No one is loved because no one is worthy of it, not even the father who does nothing but love.
The situation might seem hopeless, brother fighting brother forever, were it not for the father's reply which can be seen as the Course in a nutshell: "My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours. But it was only right we should celebrate and rejoice, because your brother here was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found." As the Course often reminds us, we are as God created us. We have not sinned but only gotten lost. When we choose not to blame and instead to treasure our brother and sister, we allow the celebration to begin.
© Copyright Tom Baker 2008