Photo by gabia party

By Eun Joo Angela Ryo

Over the centuries, the Parable of the Prodigal Son has been exegeted inside out and upside down by both the bright and serious theologians and your average churchgoers alike; each character, each action, each dialogue, each WORD had been carefully dissected and analyzed and overanalyzed again and again.  So when I was tasked with preaching the most wonderful (but not so much wonder-filled) story of the prodigal son during Lent, I balked.   What new insight could I possibly bring to this beloved story which my highly-educated congregation had not already considered?

As I researched the cultural aspect of this story, I came across something I had missed in my previous studies of this passage:  According to the Middle Eastern culture of Jesus’ time, when the younger son cuts off ties with his father to go off to live in a distant land, it is the responsibility of the elder son to go after his brother, bring him back home, and reconcile him to the Father.  The gross inaction of the elder son would have been understood by the listeners of the story as utterly disrespectful and inconceivable and therefore, offensive.  In fact, the younger son and the elder son do not exchange a single word in this parable.  Their lack of communication is stunning.  Not only are they separated by physical distance when the young son goes away, but they’re separated by their differences in identity, personality, and relationship to the Father.  Had the elder son acted as the reconciler in this story, I wonder how the dynamics in their relationships as well as the characters themselves would have been transformed?

When I was serving as an English Ministry pastor at a Korean immigrant church in the suburbs of Chicago, a huge dispute among a few elders threatened to split up an already floundering congregation.  As the church was part of The Presbyterian Church (USA), our presbytery sent a delegation of ethnically and culturally diverse people to investigate the matter and bring about reconciliation among the elders.  A committee comprised of 4-5 non-Korean speaking Presbyterians started attending our church on a weekly basis.  They sat through the Korean-speaking worship service every week for close to a year.  Of course, none of them understood a single word of it, but come they did, sometimes breaking up fights along with other church leaders in the middle of the worship service, other times crying through heart-wrenching prayers in Korean, and always enjoying the hospitality of Korean food with the congregation in the fellowship hall afterwards.

A year passed like this and at the end of the year when a peaceful resolution was finally reached, one of my friends on that committee said to me how much she had enjoyed coming to our church every Sunday although she could not understand anything that was said during worship.  Because she could not understand the words, she relied more heavily on the presence of the Spirit and really felt at one with the congregation.  In her confusion, she sought understanding that went beyond mere words, and in her efforts to reconcile one elder to another, she herself was the most transformed of all.

Recalling that friend’s comment helped me to better understand the story of the prodigal son and the elder son’s role as that of a reconciler.  Whether I speak their language or not, I have been called to do the ministry of reconciliation across generations, cultures, races, and gender lines.  And when I do, is it not I who is transformed the most?  Perhaps the elder son did not think he could communicate effectively with his younger brother given their radically different personalities, lifestyles, and worldviews.  But had he tried, I wonder if the elder son would have joined the party at the end of the story.  And I wonder…am I partying enough?

Eun Joo Angela Ryo immigrated to America from Korea when she was nine. Having graduated with an MDiv from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, she was ordained as a Teacher Elder in the PCUSA this past July and started serving in her first call at The First Presbyterian Church of Ann Arbor as a Resident Minister.