The Gospel and Will Smith with Amy

The Gospel and Will Smith

"There was a man who had two sons." Luke 15

And so begins the parable of the prodigal son - one of Jesus’ most well-known stories. A story about entitlement. A story about inheritance. A story about men fighting over what they believe they are owed. A story about men fighting over resources—money, land, property.

The New Testament scholar Amy-Jill Levine reminds us that Jesus’ first-century audience would have expected a particular outcome when they heard Jesus start a story with “there was a man who had two sons.“ Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau…King David himself the youngest son. Jesus’ audience was formed by these stories and these stories would have come to mind as soon as Jesus said “there was a man who had two sons.”

What stories form us? What stories shape our understanding of how God works in the world and in us? What does Jesus have to say about that in this parable?

Scripture is full of stories about men fighting over resources and who’s entitled to them and who isn’t. Entitlement leads to violence more often than not in Scripture, though it doesn’t in the case of this parable. The parable is unresolved, though, and I can certainly imagine an ending where violence or war occurs between these two sons. Can you?

I was reminded of this parable when I saw the clip of multimillion dollar star Will Smith slap multimillion dollar star Chris Rock at the Oscars when Smith took offense at a joke Rock made at the expense of Smith’s wife multimillion dollar star Jada Pinkett Smith. (It appeared that Jada Pinkett Smith was silent during the incident).

I wonder about the intersection of entitlement, money, gender and the stories we tell ourselves in that encounter. I wonder about the persistence of a patriarchal world view that allows men to be violent. I wonder about my own sense of entitlement that resides in my heart, that drives me to anger or violence when I perceive it to be threatened. I wonder what story Jesus would tell about all this.

What do you think?