The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

Jesus and the Family

But for all Jesus’s defence of marriage, and of children, he had little to say in favour of the family, or of comfortable prosperity. On one occasion he said to a crowd of people who wanted to follow him, ‘If you don’t hate your father and your mother, your brothers and sisters, your wife, your children, you’ll never become my disciple.’ And Christ remembered Jesus’s words when he’d been told that his mother and brothers and sisters had come to see him: he had rejected them, and claimed that he had no family except those who did the will of God. To hear his brother speak of hating one’s family worried Christ; he would not have chosen to write those words, but too many people had heard Jesus say them.

Then one day in Christ’s hearing Jesus told a story that disturbed him more greatly still.

‘There was a man who had two sons, one quiet and good, the other wild and unruly. The wild one said to his father, “Father, you’re going to divide the property between us anyway; let me have my share now.” The father did, and the wild son went away to another country, and squandered all his money in drink and gambling and debauchery, until he had nothing left.

‘Then there came a famine in the country where he was living, and the wild son found himself in such desperate need that he hired himself out as a swineherd. He was so hungry that he would have been glad to be able to eat the husks that the pigs were eating. In his despair he thought of his home, and said to himself, “At home there are my father’s hired hands, and every one of them has all the bread he wants, and to spare; and here I am, dying of hunger. I’ll go home and confess to my father and beg his forgiveness, and ask him to take me on as a hired hand.”

‘So he set off towards home, and when his father heard he was coming he was filled with compassion, and he hurried out of the town to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him. The son said, “Father, I’ve sinned against heaven and I’ve sinned against you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Just let me work for you like one of the hired hands.”

‘But the father said to the servants, “Bring out the best robe, and some sandals for my son’s feet, and hurry! And prepare a feast – the best of everything – because this dear son of mine was dead, and here he is alive again; he was lost, and now he’s found!”

‘But the other son, the quiet one, the good one, heard the sounds of celebration and saw what was going on, and said to his father:

‘“Father, why are you preparing a feast for him? I have been at home all the time, I have never disobeyed your commands, and yet you’ve never prepared a feast for me. My brother walked away without thinking of the rest of us, he squandered all his money, he has no thought for his family or anyone else.”

‘And the father said, “Son, you’re at home all the time. All that I have is yours. But when someone comes home after being away, it’s right and proper to prepare a feast in celebration. And your brother was dead, and he’s come to life again; he was lost, and he’s been found.”’

When Christ heard that story, he felt as if he had been stripped naked in front of the whole crowd. He had no idea that his brother had seen him there, but he must have done, in order to mortify him so exquisitely. All Christ could hope was that no one had noticed, and he resolved to keep even more discreetly to the background in future.