| The story of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is one of the most famous stories in the Bible. We know this story illustrates God’s patience and steadfast love. But it has an odd ending that seems puzzling. The purpose for this article is to explore this parable and learn. | |
| The father has two sons. One son requests that his father give him all of the money that he would collect if his father was dead. This son is in conflict with his father. The father does as his son requests and gives him a large sum of money. Interestingly, we do not have enough information to plot which state the father is in at this time. | 
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| The son goes out of town and spends all of his money on fast living. Eventually he runs out of money and realizes the dissonance between his current life and the life he once had. He does not yet seem ready to reconcile with his father so I believe he is in chaos. In essence he has withdrawn from the conflict and cannot discuss the situation with his father to alter his state. | 
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| The son returns and the father runs to greet him and orders a banquet feast. We need to skip ahead to interpret this behavior. It is the other son that tells us that this behavior is extraordinary. Thus, the father has accepted the dissonance of the prodigal’s return and demonstrates his love for the prodigal. I think it is safe to say that the father is now in a transformed state. | 
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| The father and prodigal then enter into alignment. So far this is a wonderful little tale about a lost son returning to find that his father still loves him. We can treat this as an allegory and say that the father represents God and the son represents us sinners. If we did that then this story has a happy ending, but it has little relevance as a teaching tool. | 
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| The dissonance in this tale comes at the end. There we read that the other son is not happy and has entered into conflict with his father. In and of itself this is not unusual. Families are full of conflict. And the emotion of jealousy is not unusual. Again, however, I persist that there is a purpose for this story that we are missing. | 
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| I believe that the key to unraveling the teaching purpose for this tale is in the linkage between obedience and conflict. In brief, obeying means there is a commandment to obey. But the very act of commanding is an application of force. The aspect of this story that I had missed before is that obedience implies conflict. The conflict might be internalized or it might be coercive. Where that force comes from is not significant. What is significant is that we are not aligned. Thus, we cannot enter the Kingdom as long as we focus on the choices between obeying and disobeying. Given the choice between obedience and disobedience the correct answer is—neither.
Here then is the purpose for this story:
Does this then mean that when the Kingdom of God is realized there will be no need for laws to govern those who are aligned? Does this mean that the laws will vanish? Unfortunately not. While it is possible for adult humans to learn to trust others, listen to dissonance and align our wills, such behavior is difficult for an infant. And think about what you know of teenagers. You can force a teenager to obey, but do you increase their love for you by doing so? Rather not. The end result from forcing compliance is an increase in antagonism. And thus we encounter free will. God draws us to alignment through love and dissonance. Forced compliance or even compliance achieved through obedience creates conflict and prevents alignment. But the counter argument then arises as to why Moses created the Hebraic laws in the first place. I am going to attempt to slip away from that argument by returning to our need to grow from infants to adults. There is a time in our life when we need rules because we cannot yet internalize alignment. Our social web, like a child, needed time to grow and mature. In essence I am saying that society today is more capable of supporting alignment than was society at the time of Moses. I need to defer my justification for that statement until the next article in this set. But before I close I want to now apply what I learned from studying this parable. Consider the tax laws. Do you today seek every deduction and exception possible to minimize the tax you pay? Do you studiously obey the tax laws? Then you are in conflict. In essence, you are at war with your government. You contend with them for money. Alignment means that you seek the same end. Do you agree that it is necessary for someone to pay for a government? Then pay. Any contention you may have about the size of the government, the wastefulness of politicians, the proportioning of the burden or anything else is conflict. You cannot enter alignment while you are in conflict. You cannot achieve an integrated alignment of your whole being while any aspect of your life is in conflict. Unless it is your intent to declare war on the government, find the shortest, simplest form possible and pay whatever they ask. Seek alignment even when it is time to pay your taxes because obedience is not good enough. | |