Sermon: Prodigal Son, Prudent Son

Prodigal Son, Prudent Son — Ana Levy-Lyons

If life is going to be anything but excruciatingly boring for someone with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, he or she is going to need regular doses of high-intensity experiences. It takes more stimulation for their dopamine to kick in with that yummy pleasure and excitement feeling than it takes for so-called “normal” people. People with ADHD need more of anything – sex, money, new experiences, risk – to get the same high. So they seek out intensity and they thrive on it. The more intense the better.

This is a gross generalization, of course, and it’s a little different from the stereotype, which is about how it’s hard for them to focus on… (Rachel, I love that shirt… I have the same one… where did you get that? I thought I was the only one with that shirt… anyway… where was I?) …but the point is, ADHD can be as much about intensity-seeking as it is about distractibility. Adventure, excitement, risk, newness.

 And so, in a recent Opinion piece for The New York Times, Dr. Richard Friedman, who’s a professor at Weill Cornell Medical College, makes the case that ADHD is not necessarily a bad thing. It’s circumstantial. It’s bad if you have to sit at a desk all day and focus on a repetitive task. But if, for example, you’re an entrepreneur, always traveling, problem solving, encountering new challenges, or if you’re a nomad hunting wild animals on the savannah, it can be life saving.

Dr. Friedman cites a study of a Kenyan tribe called the Ariaal people, who were once all nomadic animal herders. (It always seems a little strange to me that scientists are still doing studies on “tribes in Africa.” But nonetheless, this is pretty interesting.) At one point, a sub-group of the Ariaal settled in one place and began farming and the rest of them continued their nomadic life. The study found that in the group that stayed nomadic, those with the brain chemistry associated with ADHD thrived, while the ones with more typical brain chemistry were skinnier and less healthy. And in the settler group, the opposite was true: the “normal” brain people were fat and happy, while the ADHD types languished. The nomad leading the nomad’s life eats, while the settler starves. The settler leading the settler’s life eats, while the nomad starves. It’s all relative.

This year I’m preaching a sermon series on the Parables of Jesus – one each month – and today we’re looking at the Parable of the Prodigal Son. For those of you new to Unitarian Universalism and wondering about the use of Christian texts, I would say that for UU’s Christian texts are not authoritative in the way they would be in a Christian church,

but we value them as part of our heritage. We draw from the wisdom of many different religious and humanist traditions here. And the mythic archetypes in sacred texts often have resonance and meaning in our world today. For example, if you take the two sons in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, they can be seen as archetypes of the nomadic and the settler personalities that we just heard about. Here’s an abridged version of the parable from the book of Luke:

“And Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.’” (He means his inheritance.) “And the father divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed pigs.” (The Jewish audience that Jesus was speaking to would have considered pigs an unclean animal and so feeding pigs was considered pretty much the worst job you could have.) “And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.” (He was so hungry, he was salivating over the pigs’ food.)

“But when he came to himself, he said, ‘…I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. …The father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate…’ And they began to celebrate.

Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. …But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!’”

And so we have the nomad and the settler. And we also have the father who is the hero of the story, at least as interpreted by most Christian commentators. The father is a transparent stand-in for God who welcomes back all sinners with open arms without holding a grudge, but just with joyful, unconditional love.

In fact, as his other son points out bitterly, the father is even happier about the one who strayed and came back than the one who never strayed to begin with. Seems unfair. But the father does his best to reassure the older son that he loves him just as much.

The text is pretty hard on the prodigal son. First of all, he’s asking for his inheritance early – that was kind of unheard of, like he couldn’t wait for his father to die. When his father, amazingly, gives it to him, he doesn’t invest it in a diversified portfolio of stocks and mutual funds. He spends it all in what the text calls “reckless living” and what the brother calls “prostitutes.” “Prodigal” is a translation of a Greek word meaning extravagantly wasteful. What exactly is he wasting? His father’s money, to be sure, but I think the implication is also that he is wasting his life. He himself says that he has sinned against heaven and before his father. His brother obviously thinks he’s made a terrible mistake. We, the listeners, are supposed to be clucking our tongues and shaking our heads at him.

But I’m not sure, actually, that he has done anything so terrible. As far as we know, he hasn’t hurt anybody. He’s a typical teenager. He’s restless. He’s bored. Maybe he has that ADHD personality. He needs intensity. He needs to see the world. He needs to have his own experience of life outside the shelter of his father’s home. He can’t take it on someone else’s word — all the wonders and dangers out there. He needs to know for himself. He’s a Transcendentalist before his time.

Emerson, a more modern Transcendentalist, preached about the importance of experiencing life and spirituality firsthand. He said, “The doors of the temple stand open, night and day, before every man… Truth is an intuition. It cannot be received at second hand. Truly speaking, it is not instruction, but provocation, that I can receive from another soul.

What he announces, I must find true in me, or wholly reject; and on his word, …be he who he may, I can accept nothing.” That wry “be he who he may” is clearly a reference to Jesus, the author of our prodigal son story. Emerson is saying that we’ve got to go out and live, and not take anyone’s word for what’s out there or what we can or can’t do. No one should hold us back. Not our father, not our brother, not even Jesus.

And so the prodigal son does this. He goes out and finds intensity and adventure; we can surmise that he experiences extremes of pleasure and that he hits rock bottom – the humiliation of craving pig’s food and crawling back home to dad. Does he regret what he did? Does he wish he hadn’t done it? I doubt it. True, he calls himself a sinner for his “reckless living” – but at that moment he’s beaten down by life and half-starved. I bet that as soon as he gets that fattened calf in his belly, he’s probably saying to himself, “Wow. What a ride.” He got to be the nomad.

And what about his older brother, the settler? Is he happy with the choices he makes? I don’t think so. If he were, he wouldn’t be quite so jealous of his brother. He would welcome his brother back happily and join the party. He would share the fattened calf. Reading between the lines, the older brother would have loved to do what the younger brother did. But he constrained himself. He was the firstborn. He played it safe and lived the settler life, whether out of a sense of obligation or fear or some of each. Whatever the reason, the older brother represses a part of himself and psychically – spiritually – pays a steep price. He may in fact be a nomad leading the settler life. He’s resentful. He’s bitter. He’s unhappy.

Think of the denouement of this story – the feast for the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal Son eats the fattened calf; the older brother won’t or can’t eat it. The Prodigal Son, the supposed bad guy in the story thrives, while the older brother, the supposed good guy, languishes. This is so interesting in light of the story of the Ariaal people in Kenya. The nomad leading the nomad’s life eats, while the settler starves. The settler leading the settler’s life eats, while the nomad starves. It’s all relative. Yes, the Prodigal Son went hungry for a while, but at the end of the day, he’s the one who gets rewarded. He gets the rich food and the party and the friends and the music and the dancing and the dopamine rush that comes with them.

When the older brother complains to his father, “I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends,” he’s simply observing that, fair or unfair, life does not reward obedience. The key is to live a life that is true to your nature, not the life that, in Emerson’s words, you “receive from another soul.”

I’m not suggesting that we jettison our responsibilities to others and the planet – quite the contrary. I believe that we can make our best contributions in this world by working with our strengths and gifts and brain chemistry instead of fighting them. The world needs both the steady institution builder and the creative iconoclast; the actuary and the Navy SEAL; the dependable parent and the wild child. And of course most of us are not just one or the other; we each have some of the nomad in us and some of the settler in us.

Dr. Friedman’s New York Times piece that I mentioned earlier is called “A Natural Fix for ADHD.” The natural fix that he ultimately recommends is for each of us to gravitate toward situations and careers that work with the way that we’re wired. This doesn’t mean that it will be always be possible or that no one will ever need Ritalin again.

But instead of leaping to diagnose ourselves with “deficits” and “disorders,” sins and inadequacies, let’s look for the beauty and value of who we are and the gifts we can offer.

So this is my New Year’s challenge for you: Give yourself permission to be all three characters in the Prodigal Son story. Feed your inner settler and your inner nomad. Find a place for each in this world. And be your own loving parent too – the parent who accepts and values each; allows each to make mistakes; and invites each to the party. This is the true meaning of freedom. For our own sake and that of those around us, let’s not settle for anything less.

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