He was rich. He had property. He had land. He had slaves. He had two sons. The younger asks for his inheritance and squanders it. He goes back home and is welcomed back by his father. With a feast, a robe, sandals, and a ring. The older is angry, feels slighted, and left out so the father reminds him that “you are always with me and all is mine is yours.”
In the end, everybody lives happily ever after. Father and sons. Still propertied. Still landed. Still slaveholders. Still rich.
There was another man with two daughters and a son.
He was propertied, landed, and filthy rich from illegally-gotten wealth. He actually wrote a letter noting that his only son was lazy and lacked willpower. This son, his junior, now thinks he can be the president of his country.
My friends, I think we should stop identifying rich fathers, rich landowners, and rich slaveholders with God. Or God's representatives. The parables of Jesus were subversive speech. They indicted the status quo. They challenged Pax Romana. They proclaimed good news to the poor.
They were the reasons Jesus was executed by the Romans.
*art, "The Prodigal Son," JESUS MAFA 1970 (from the vanderbilt divinity library digital archives).
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