On a trip to Tanzania, I read the Prodigal Son story from Luke 15 to Lutheran seminary students and asked, “Why does the young man end up hungry in a pig pen?” I was curious to see how many would write “Because he wasted his money” or “Because there was a famine.” But about 80 percent of them answered, “Because no one gave him anything to eat.”
Why were the Tanzanians struck by this reason, more than the other two? Surely they didn’t think this was central to what the story was about? Actually, they did.
I asked, “Why should anyone give him anything? Wasn’t it his own fault, squandering his money like that?” They told me this was a callous attitude. The boy was in a far country. Immigrants often lose their money. They don’t know how things work. They might spend all their money when they shouldn’t because they don’t know about the famines that come. But it doesn’t make any difference because, in any case, the Bible commands us to care for the stranger and alien in our midst. It is a lack of hospitality not to do so.
This message is excerpted from the Bible study “Multiple meanings: Learning from other interpretations” by Mark Allen Powell in the April 2018 Gather magazine. Today is the Fourth Sunday in Lent.
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