An alternative title for this essay might be โA Comedian Interprets the Parable of the Prodigal Son.โ In the most recent โFaith for Normal Peopleโ podcast, โthe other God-ordained podcast on the Internetโ (Bible for Normal People is the first one), comedian Pete Holmes is the guest. I confess I had never heard of the guy and Iโm not sure Iโm headed to YouTube to find some of his standup. But heโs one of the few comedians I am aware of who unabashedly talks about faith and religion in his routines, so thatโs a plus.
Pete Holmes on Faith for Normal People
About halfway through the podcast, hosts Pete Enns and Jared Byas talk with Holmes about Jesusโ parable of the prodigal son, a story that Holmes calls Jesusโ โcloserโ in which โall of Christ, all of Christianity, and all of the gospelโ is included, noting further that โhistorians agree that the most authentic teaching of Jesus like, not added by a scribe, not mucked with in any way.โ Holmes ges on to say that he tried a version of this parable on stage one time, along these lines:
This young guy asks his wealtht father for his inheritance early, gets it, leaves home and union with his father, then squanders his inheritance in riotous livingโsex, drugs, alcohol, you name it. He ends up working with the pigs, which for a Jewish audience means that he canโt sink any lower. He thinks itโs all over. He thinks heโs going to die.
But then this guy Jesus comes along, finds the guy among the pigs, and says โLook, Iโll walk you back to your father. Now, I know your father. Heโs judgmental, heโs powerful, he holds a grudge, and heโs going to need someone to be tortured and murdered for this nonsense that you did. We all know that your dadโs an unreasonable tyrant. Someoneโs going to have to pay for what you did; heads are going to roll.
But Iโll go in with you, Iโll plead your case to your father. Iโll say โI know you want to kill your son for what he did, but kill me instead.โ And he does. He tortures and murders Jesus and then the prodigal son is safe to come home.
Any person familiar with the story, of course, will say โThatโs not how the story goes!โ But the father in Pete Holmesโ retelling of the story is behaving precisely as the God that many of us were taught to believe in behaves. God is judgmental, God cannot abide disobedience and sin, so Jesus has to die as an atoning sacrifice for those sins and to appease God who, perhaps grudgingly, accepts us back into divine good favor only after the sacrifice of Jesus. If the father in the prodigal son parable stands for God, as virtually all interpreters of the story say that he does, then given what weโve been taught to believe concerning God this is how the story should go.
But it doesnโt. Instead, while knee deep in the muck of the pigsty, the son remembers his father. Iโm his son. Maybe if I go back heโll at least let me be a servant and have a place to stay. And of course he does go back, his father sees him โfrom afar off,โ runs to him and embraces him. The prodigal has a little speech prepared, but the father says โWhatever. You were always with me, and everything I have is yours. Letโs have a party!โ
Pete Holmes remarks โThat sounds like God to me, but thatโs not the God we want. We want a God that hates what we hate, loves what we love.โ This radical and unconditional forgiveness stuff? Thatโs too much. The God many of us were taught to believe is very different. Holmes continues:
Heโs also mad if you donโt believe in him! Or mad if you say fuck! And then I go, you mean like your boss at Applebeeโs? Mad that you said the F word? Like, have a god thatโs better than your boss at Applebeeโs!
Thatโs excellent advice. Since our picture of God is always a projection of our imagination, we might want to stretch our imaginations a bit.
Suppose, for instance, that the issue is worse than saying โfuck.โ Suppose you have cheated on your partner. Suppose that your partner lets everyone know that you have cheated. Your partnerโs mad at you, everyone you know is mad at you. But you have this one โride or dieโ friend, Larry. You have a couple of drinks with Larry and he listens to you as you try to figure out why you did such a terrible thing. Why do I always screw up every relationship? You come to realize that your examples and models of relationships from your childhood were toxicโyou learned to cut relationships off before they get too serious, and learned to distance yourself to avoid getting hurt.
And Larry listens and Larry forgives you, but God canโt? And I go, I shouldnโt have to say this, but have a God thatโs better than Larry! Have a God thatโs better than Larry!
More good advice. If Larry can forgive you, perhaps God can as well.
My Baptist preacher father once gave me a book to read when I was in my middle school/high school years. It was a small theology classic; J. B. Phillipsโ Your God is Too Small. Each brief chapter describes a God of limited imagination: a policeman God, a projection of your parents, a God of perpetual grievance, and more. I recall little of the content more than five decades later, but the concept in the title has stayed with me ever since. If your God get its underwear in a knot if you drop an F bomb, you might want to stretch your imagination a bit. If your friend Larry can forgive you for your worst behavior but your God canโt without blood sacrifice, you need a different God. As J. B. Phillips would have said, your God is too small.