Film Journal 2023: Infinity Pool
Directed by Brandon Cronenberg

Is this officially continuing the eat the rich trend from 2022? In part, although I’m still mulling over the fact that the main character, played by Alexander Skarsgard is actually an impoverished writer who “married” into money. The characters that surround him and the vacation resort him and his wife travel to in order to find inspiration for his book however? Money.

Early on in the film we are given a portrait of this resort as being isolated from the world that exists outside its gates. Outside the gates is where the citizens of this city live. As long as the rich travellers ignore this world they can retain their bubble. It’s when these two worlds collide that this bubble threatens to burst. It is precisely this point of contact the Director, the younger of the Cronenbergs, is looking to examine and explore.

If you have seen Possessor you know his penchant for telling his story using strange and pychadelic visual sequences. This is a way of getting inside the heads of the characters, a way of pulling out the internal battles waging within so as to say something about it. We see much of this on display here, although I found this story to be more accessible and straight forward on that front, for better or for worse. One of the key interests here is the emphasis Cronenberg gives to that internal battle within, playing around with serious questions about the nature of man. Who are we truly when the veil is pulled back, and how does that relate to the controlling systems that surround us. What is it that our innate creature ultimately desires. Mileage might vary on how well he formulates these questions and affords them a resolution, or at least a solid platform on which to ponder them from. His distinct visual style I think will also isolate some and compell others. But I do think the ideas here are ambitious and worthwhile.

I will say that something here kept me at a bit of a distance. The power of Possessor was that it demanded a lot of processing and brain power to unpack. And the more I thought about it and dissected it the more compelling the film was. Given that this is slightly less demanding I find myself with less to process and less desire to linger with it and think about it further, which unsettled my sense of just how strong the film was as a whole. I would be interested to see how a rewatch might reformulate that, but one suspsiciton that I have towards that end is that I had a hard time connecting to Skarsgard’s character. Goth is great of course, but it is Skarsgard who is meant to carry the films thematic force. Part of it is that he is written as a sort of flat, one note persona. Someone whom we meet in the absence of inspiration, and as the story unfolds we end up sort of doubling down on this aspect of his persona. There just wasn’t a whole lot of range on display, leaving me somewhat at a distance.

Still enjoyable though, and worth watching if you are fan of the younger Cronenbergs work. Be forewarned- this gets more than a bit out there with its sensibilities and subject matter, so it definitely won’t be for everyone

Reading Journal 2023: The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History of Humanity’s Search For Meaning by Jeremy Lent

Reading this book actually took me back to last year and delving in to The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber. Slight difference in focus, thesis and scope, but a definite shared concern for reimagining humanities history in light of the evidence and allowing that to shape how it is that we see our place in this world, or better yet, our place in relationship to it.

Lents interest, as the title suggests, is in exploring how it is that humans have arrived at the idea of a meaningful existence. This question, as he will go on to flesh out, has much importance when it comes to how it is that we exist meaningfully in this world. The ebb and flow of history certainly demonstrates the possibility of negative and positive potentials when it comes to the how. Thus Lent posits that it’s not only important to locate how humanity distinguishes itself as a functioning creature, but also how humanity remains connected to the larger world it exists within.

For Lent, the journey begins with overwriting popular histories of man in contest with nature with current theories regarding humanities complex relationship to its environment and to the human, socially bred systems that guide us. Here he borrows from Graeber in pushing back against assumptions which want to draw humanity’s history along linear lines from less civilized to civilized, or premodern to modern, or Neanderthals to intelligent species. Lent spends just as much time as Graeber in dismantling some of the prominent thinkers writing on a popular level, which includes the likes of Pinker and Dawkins. Not that these thinkers are entirely wrong or uninformed, simply that that they fundamentally misunderstand the evidence of history and science regarding how it is that humanity came to be and how early hominids held the very same markings of what we might call civilized society today.

If Graeber takes a big picture view, Lent dials things down concerning the question of what makes us human to something he describes as the patterning instinct, the key marker of our cognitive history, which is what distinguishes humanity from all other species. It is within these patterns that we find humanities penchant for both cooperation, communication, and perhaps most importantly metaphor/symbolism which help us make sense of reciprocal relationships around us. It is perhaps more true to say that we create meaning through our ability to both think and speak cooperatively it in proper relationship to our environment than it is to say that such meaning is sought.

Now, here is a point of disagreement I have with Lent, and it is a pretty strong one. There is a sense in which he appeals to metaphor to help us see how humans can be defined as human because of our need to think in necessary binaries- light and dark, good and evil. And yet as he unfolds the larger narrative of humanity’s mythic consciousness he caters to an all too common portrait of religious development and consciousness. While attempting to place religious thought as the natural outcome of our need for metaphor and symbolism in langauge and thought, he locates the problem with religion as a movement from polytheism to monotheism. His end goal is to uphold East and West as representing two different trajectories in this regard, with the West ultimately emerging as the colonizing force through its appeal to monotheism as a means of enacting binaries between us and them. Part of this movement then becomes a shift from humanity operating in relationship to nature (once upon a time seen to be either the resident of the gods or the gods themselves) to humanity operating within a split level world where nature is bad and the transcendent is good, be it by the divine images that reside in the heavens or by the later sciences that would come to define the worship of the enlightenment. There is actually a lot here that I share in terms of value, interest and concern. I do think there are problems inherent in the west and that the enlightenment has proved wanting, and I do think this has to do with no longer adhering to the simple value of living in relationship to our environment and the other. But I disagree with his analysis of religion and religious development, especially his heavy emphasis on christianity as one that upholds this split level view positing the spiritual body/kingdom in contest with the material world/self. It in fact pushes against such a view. He makes multiple references to christian texts for example that do not adhere to some of the better scholarship, and ironically falls into the very trappings he is looking to deconstruct by appealing to wrongly informed histories to locate a kind of linear movement from less enlightened to more enlightened.

The end result leaves him attempting to weave his thesis into concrete and practical assumptions concerning the truth of meaning in this world in ways that felt a bit dishonest and certainly unable to acknowledge it’s own appeal to irrationality. He wants to lay out meaning as created while also claiming the freedom to make multiple claims about meaning as given truths that should or must guide our actions. Its perhaps ultimately not the fact that he does this but rather that he doesn’t acknowledge these leaps in reason that felt most frustrating, especially when half the book is disguising itself as a wrongly placed critique of religion and religious development.

Lots still though to mull on, and overall offers a helpful push back on certain ways of thinking according to western paradigms and allegiances. I think one learning that really stuck out for me is how he unpacks the connection between our patterning instinct, honed as it is to find meaning in this world, and our being wired for metaphor and symbolism. It permeates everything, even if the langauge of the West has muddled it and polluted it, and reenchantment, or recovery of meaning, begins with a recovering the power of language and story as part of the essential human distinctive.

Reading Journal 2023: Legends and Lattes: A Novel of High Fantasy and Low Stakes by Travis Baldree

Just to set up my experience with this book. I first heard about it early last year when it started to show up in seemingly every think piece, podcast and online discourse. For a book that had seemingly muscled itself into these conversations though, it proved impossible fo find. It is what you might call an unknown “discovery’. A small book by an unknown author that explodes on to the scene via word of mouth. Unlike film, when a book experiences this phenomenon it means it sells out in a very short amount of time, and to print more generally takes a good while.

So here we are over 10 months later, the book finally getting a rerelease, this time with an added prequel attached at the end. The verdict? I get why it has been such a hit with a wide cross section of readers. It is high fantasy, but with a very grounded, down to earth and real world approach. Sure, the world might be populated with unfamiliar creatures such as elfs, dwarfs, orcs, gnomes, and weird spider like monsters called a scalvert queen. It even has a dire cat. But it also tells the simple story of one such Orc named Viv who, having tired of life as a constant adventurer lived by way of muscle and sword, desires to start afresh by relocating to a quiet, unassuming village and opening a coffee shop, a new drink she happened across while on one of her adventures.

The book is an easy, undemanding read (hence the low stakes), and for high fantasy avoids the complicated world building and details you sometimes find colouring the genre. This is the sort of book you can finish in a couple sittings, a feel good story meant to endear you to its characters and leave you with a smile befitting a well made latte. And I think it succeeds on this front. I won’t be surprised to see this made into a series or a film someday.

Reading Journal 2023: The Givenness of Things: Essays by Marilynne Robinson

At one point Robinson muses about the challenges of being both an academic and a Christian. She describes how when people discover she is a Christian it tends to result in shock and confusion.

In truth, the identifying feature that is probably more shocking is the fact that she is a Calvinist. Imagine my disillusionment then when I found myself being won over by some of her arguments for entertaining a Calvinist perspective on the givenness of things, a title which is essentially captured through a series of reflections which attempt to bridge the gap between meaning and reality. Robinson demonstrates a knack for pulling out the strengths of the system while simultaneously challenging some of its most maligned and controversial positions. Just as there is such a thing called a generous orthodoxy, it appears a generous Calvinism could apply just as well. Here we find her engaging what is typically an exclusivist and heavily dogmatic religious expression by reimagining it as a celebration of the goodness of humanity and of Gods creation. She exchanges an emphasis on depravity for a willingness to locate Evil external to what is the fundamental and given value of the human and the created world. She allows her religious convictions to assume and to evoke definite polarities- light and dark, good and evil- within her discussions of reality. And she trades a view of the cross, mired as it is in Gods death wielding ways, for a view of God’s determined involvement in the restoration of this given reality in the light of a common grace and an equal love for all people and all things.

To be clear, The Givenness of Things is not shy about its religious interests, but the book is geared towards both religious and non-religious readers. She has an interest in engaging academic discussions and intellectual discourse, and we see this woven naturally, and almost in a linear fashion, through the sciences, the humanities, and philosophy. It’s no mistake that she begins the book with an essay titled “Humanism” and ends with chapter titled “Realism”. Inbetween she offers compelling and formative discussions that interpret her humanist concern through a greater sense of what reality in fact is, expanding our views and challenging our presuppositions as she goes. Thus the final chapter on realism is able to reinterpret reality in a way that appeals to something both reasoned and mysterious, certain but also allusive, something able to be known through the sciences but something that also holds the power to reveal, thus the givenness of thing both observed and experienced.

No, she didn’t quite convince me towards calvinism, but she definitely did compel me towards meditating on the profound nature of her ideas. For as disorienting as it was to read something so intelligent and aware alongside quotes of Jonathan Edwards, this is a book I would have no problem handing to my non religious friends, to my Calvinist and my non calvinist friends. There is little doubt in my mind that it could lead to some rich discussion.

Film Journal 2023: The Territory, Retrograde, Wildcat

Caught up with three recently released documentaries, one cited by some pundits as vying for a nomination at this year’s Oscars (The Territory, now steaming on Disney+), one an intimate and harrowing look at the moments before and after the announcement that American troops would be leaving Afghanistan (Retrograde, now streaming on Disney+), and the last film an emotional and honest examination of the human struggle with relationship and depression by way of this rescue project involving a baby ocelot (Wildcat, now streaming on Amazon Prime).

The Territory leaves little doubt about its ambitions, establishing its desire to connect the particularities of the genocide it’s depicting with a very real global concern. We meet the individuals who make up the remaining population of this decimated tribe residing deep in the colonized and razed rainforests of Brazil, giving the issue of deforestation a human face. The films rich visuals and the dynamic sound design and score help to immerse us in a part of the world bound to be foreign to many viewers, celebrating its beauty while inspiring genuine anger over the devastating affects of power and ignorance. A vital message that helps shed light on both a people and a global reality.

Retrograde, in contrast, stumbles a bit by allowing it’s true concern (the Afghan people) to get clouded by a one dimensional and narrow emphasis on American patriotism. And yet, even where it fails to shed light on the true complexities of the situation in Afghanistan, it still manages to pull together some genuinely harrowing footage and a great looking and engaging doc at that.

Wildcat is my favorite of the three. What elevates this deeply human story about the struggle with relationship and the realities of clinical depression is the way it uses the wildcat to frame this story within larger questions about the nature of life itself. There is a certain tension that exists between this endeavor to rescue and reabilitate “carnivores” back into the wild, and the way these human agents must appeal to something more than simply the laws of the nature when attending to the value of their lives. The film never finds a way to truly solve this tension, ultimately accepting blind sentiment without need for jusrification or rationalization. For me though this film functioned as a sort of meditation on one of life’s great contradictions. How do we perceive of such realities evident in nature, which hinges on survival of the fittest being necessary to life, coexisting with what is at its heart an act of compassion attempting to circumvent the rules of the jungle.

How do we justify such compassion for a wildcat. How do we justify such compassion for the human agents. What makes one life more valuable than another. What makes life itself valuable. These are the sorts of questions the film tables simply as a by-product of its raw but sentimental look at human and beast in proximity and in relationship. They are questions that might be easy to bypass with what ultimately is a very engaging and engrossing sentimental story, but they nevertheless linger for those willing, or perhaps compelled as I was, to dig beneath the surface.

Film Journal 2023: Broker (Directed By Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Where to watch: Mcgilvary Cineplex, Cinemateque

If you are not yet familiar with the work of Kore-eda, one of the best living filmmakers of our present day, do yourself a favor and experience the sheer emotional and inspirational brevity of some of his most celebrated works. While the awards attention garnered by 2018’s Shoplifters helped with bringing his name into the spotlight of celebrated international works, films like Like Father, Like Son, After the Storm After Life, I Wish, and even the grossly underrated The Truth, his first foray into English language features, are films made to break you in all the right ways.

Thematic throughlines and touchpoints defined by moral complexity, along with storied scores and rich casts of characters defined in some way shape or form by the idea of family, found family on the margins being a favorite, seem to be the true mark of his cinematic presence, and true to form Broker delves deep into these different aspects by utilizing a fresh concept. The opening scene of the film is framed by the towering and luminous presence of a church tower before the camera drags our sight lines downwards to a box that occupies space beside the church doors. Visually this brings together the moral and social concern of the films basic premise. It’s a baby box, designed to encourage those unable or unwanting to care for their newborn to safely pass their child into the care of social services under the safety of anonymity.

What we quickly realize is that two of the church workers tasked with monitoring this box are engaged in a practice that could only be described as human trafficking. They take particular babies and, instead of bringing them into the care of social services, they erase video evidence and search for potential parents by way of desperate couples or individuals in positions where they are unable to afford traditional adoption costs and are unable to conceive. The film follows one particular child and the accidental relationship that transpires between the birth mother and the black market dealers after she returns to retrieve her child and stumbles upon their backroom enterprise.

If this sounds like a somehat shocking and disconcerting premise, rest assured that even with me outlining the opening moments of this film, everything about the way these scenes are constructed is designed to leave us unsettled and uncertain and confused. This is precisely where Kore-eda’s deeply formed penchant for writing moral ambiguity and nuance into his characters is able to take root. We know what they are doing is wrong, and yet at the same time Kore-eda challenges our potential and desire to judge these people out of hand. And the more time we spend with them the more compassion we are able to form, deftly shifting that unsettled feeling on to the system and the reality itself.

Cleverly positioned contrasts in the plot help connect these stories, each different and each intersecting in their own way, within this question of the inherent worth and value of life itself. Never far away from the question of this mother abandoning her baby, a question that in itself is submitted to the nuance of the films moral concern, is the question of these peope each feeling abandoned by the world in their own way. It is this juxtaposition that begins to break down some of the very real walls between their stories, gradually giving birth to this messy and complicated portrait of found family.

It’s worth noting that Kore-eda affords equal time to the two government workers who are tracking their endeavors, looking to capture evidence and charge them for illegal activity. It is actually through these two characters that we as viewers are able to find the permission to second guess what a right judgment of these people might be. What they are doing is wrong, and yet there are notes of grace and beauty that permeate the sheer reality of that which what they are doing ultimately serves- finding homes for babies with parents who desperately want one. Even the two agents, whom are used to structure the story as a kind of fun detective-criminal chase story, don’t quite seem to know what the right answer is, and this proves a powerful sentiment in what is a deep and profound exploration of what it is to be human in a complicated world. To hear the words “I’m glad you were born” is not something the film simply assumes or takes for granted, and yet the fact that it imagines that somewhere in the shadows this sentence holds a necessary power is part of the films deeply felt sense of hope.

Shout out as well to the films astute use of humor and the most charming and winsome child performance I’ve seen in a long while. For as heavy as these themes are the film proves a pure joy and delight.

Reading Journal 2023: The Silver Crown By Robert C. O Brien

I was made aware of this book after listening to a podcast episode discussing the film adaptation of The Secret of Nihm. The book being a childhood favorite, I decided to revisit it in 2022. Unaware of whether the author had penned other works I decided to do a search. The minute I saw The Silver Crown come up in my feed I knew I needed to buy it.

It’s a simple story with complex themes, which should come as no surprise to those familiar with the stark social commentary driving The Secret of Nihm. All the same characteristics are on display here with many parallels in plot and theme, beginning with trading a magic amulet for a magic crown. The journey itself, framed as it is by this young girls (Ellen) desperate attempt to find her aunt following the tragic events of a fire which open the story, leads her deep into an unfolding mystery of world shaping importance. Along the way she will learn important truths about both how the world works and her place in it. The ending (track down the version with the alternative British ending) cleverly tables some interesting moral questions as well, bringing together these larger themes regarding human nature.

It’s a charming and wholly compelling literary work that fits nicely alongside the great childhood adventure stories of years past.

Film Journal 2023: The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse (Directed by Peter Baynton and Charlie Mackesy)
Where to watch: Apple TV+

“Life is difficult, but you are loved.”
This beautifully animated film, based on the book by the same name, follows a simple cast of characters who happen to find each other as a small boy searches for home. As the four of them form an unlikely bond, they discover what it means to exist in this world together. The dialgue is intentionally sparse, uncluttered by the noise of uneccessary words. Each phrasing, each truth that emerges with the inevitable knowing that comes from journeying together rings clear and true, with a wonderful score serving as its compliment. It’s a concise 40 minute run time, but it’s got more on its mind then many 2 hour animated films.

Over Christmas I found myself meditating on and reflecting on the Gospel of Luke, specifically the parallel stories of Zechariah and Elizabeth and Mary and Joseph. I came across an interesting thesis titled The Blessed Mother Sarah: The Figure of Sarah in Genesis Rabbah in Light of Christian Exegesis and the Rise of the Virgin Mary by Rami Schwartz.

One of the things the paper explores is the development of the figure of Sarah in the midrashic tradition and second temple Judaism. It then parallels this with the development of Sarah in relationship to Mary in the NT texts and later christian traditions (specifically Origen). There are a couple key observations that emerge from this:

1. As the thesis points out, one of the challenges of locating this within the NT text is that it was written in a world where Jew and Christian did not yet represent a separation and divide. At the same time however, to quote, “often the Christian Bible presents a unique worldview or containsexegetical developments without precedent in the Jewish world.”

Here in lies the challenge for engaging such questions like- who was Sarah, how did the early texts see her, how does later midrash see her, how does the NT text see her, how does later rabbinic and Christian tradtions see her (especially in light of the then divide). This is never as simple as saying that Sarah develops from this to that.

2. As a Christ follower there do arise some interesting questions when it comes to paralleling Sarah with Mary, especially when it comes to locating the miraculous birth story in Luke and Matthew (and I would argue John). Even for those who simply reject the miraculous birth out of hand, they must still contend with the question of where the story came from, what it’s doing, and why it’s included.

Perhaps the most interesting question, which the thesis fleshes out, is how when we arrive at the Gospel narratives what seems clear in the way those stories are constructed is that they are deliberately paralleling the Abraham-Sarah story as it fleshes out Zechariah and Elizabeth/Mary and Joseph. Why do those stories, which place Elizabeth and Mary at the center, clearly raise up the figure of Sarah rather than Abraham? Further, if it seems clear that the literary design of Zechariah and Elizabeth is structured to parallel Abraham and Sarah (which I would argue the evidence shows), where do we then position Mary within the story alongside Sarah as the seemingly “mother” of the faith? Is it that the early texts represent Sarah this way in a patriarchal society that goes on to assume an emphasize on Abraham, and later writers are pulling out what is already there? Is it that later midrash reclaims Sarah from the shadows? Reformats Sarah? And then the Gospel writers use this to write the story of Jesus through a Mary centric lens? One interesting aspect of the early texts is that not only does Sarah fit within a thread of many women that often get glossed over in modern readings, but it is no small thing that Sarah is afforded the same covenantal words as Abraham.

3. The other challenge that surfaces here is how the Gospels present Zechariah and Elizabeth as precursers, as a type of the one who is to come (which of course brings in discussions of Elijah’s messianic figure and the Moses-Joshua paradigm- and not coincidentally close readings of the Moses text also seem to place key women figures at the center). Thus Sarah becomes both a type (Elizabeth) amd the true expression (Mary). This grapples with early evidence of Sarah being positioned as the mother of Israel in the same way Mary is the mother of Jesus. From this flows the seeds of the miraculous birth which forms their stories according to the shared promise, with later iterations actually articulating Sarah’s story as both one of old age (Elizabeth) and virgin (Mary).

Anyways, it’s interesting to think over especially when one is reflecting on the Gospels and the arrival of Jesus. There’s a lot going on there to be sure, and it reflects important conversations that can shed light on a text that features a strong and intentional literary design. This is part of, for me, being able to hear what the text is wanting to say both to them in their world and to me today by way of the shared spirit. One thing I am compelled by, which comes from the conviction that the Gospels were being practiced liturgicaly already at the time when Paul was writing, is that one of the key defining points of the Jewish and Christian texts is its appeal to positioning women throughout the larger narrative as the key movers and shakers within God’s ongoing faithfulness to the covenant promise. It is no small thing that the Gospel writers are so well positioned to place these women front and center at the heart of the Gospels arrival in the person and work of Jesus

A couple observations on Luke 15:11-32 (The Parable of the Prodigal and His Brother) for discussion:

1. The context for the passage is found in 15:1
   “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

What follows is a set of three parables. What this should tell us is that all three figures will appear in the parables, as parables are designed so that the audience will see themselves in it. When it comes to the parable then we should see it in this way- the prodigal son is the tax collectors and sinners, the eldest son is the religious leaders, and the Father is Jesus.

Knowing these figures becomes important to hearing the parable as a response to 15:1

2. There is a natural progression to be found within the parables of 100-10-1, and in each case it is one that is lost. 100 is a common number to indicate fullness or wholeness, but one interesting insight might be found within certain midrash which find a sort of parallel with Abraham pleading for Sodom and Gomrroah. One question that surfaces in that story is why Abraham stops at 10. Plenty have weighed in on this question with lots of interesting results. Middleton in his book Abrahams Silence suggests that the one is actually found in the story of the binding of Isaac where Abraham fails to plead for the life of his son over and against a perception about who God must be according to ancient paradigms. Which is to say, God wanted Abraham to push back on a characteristic of God that would have been common in the culture he was called out of. God is in fact demonstrating Himself to be different.

This might or might not be an intentional parallel here where the 10 gets whittled down to 1, but the progression itself does feel intentional and important. Here is something I would wager- in the first two parables Jesus is representing his audience by leading with “Which one of you” and “what woman having ten silver coins”. This implies the religious leaders and would have evoked a tantalizing image regarding their relationship to the “sinners”. If the sheep and coins is Israel in the first parable, then the first two are contrasting this picture of how they might act to “Just so, I tell you”, this is how it is in the Kingdom of God. These first two parables then are the set up for the final one which breaks from the pattern of “which one of you” and switches perspectives from the you to the Father. As in to say, if this is how you would act when it comes to your own, then let’s now place you in this picture as God’s own and see where this places the tax collectors and sinners.

3. The true protagonist of the Prodigal story then is not the son but the Father. This story is being told from the Father’s perspective with the point of the passage being about the Father’s action towards. This is about establishing how the Kingdom of God operates.

So what do we see in the Father’s (Jesus’) actions? First, we see faithfulness to the promise in the stories use of OT law codes regarding inheritance. This inheritance is placed in the context of the kingdom and played out in terms of the rights of the younger and older sibling. That this inheritance is given of course sets up the given reality that asking for the inheritance assumes the death of the father or functions as though the father were dead. I don’t think it’s a stretch to find in that an appeal to the coming death of Jesus. I could flesh this out more with appeal to exrernal sources, but if the grace gift of the Father (God) is the work of Jesus (God’s self taken on flesh), then this gift says something about their expectation of the Messiah and the Gift of their renewal in covenantal terms which evoke elsewhere this notion of being ratified upon the death of the faithful one.

Its no small thing then for the parable to assume and even impose from the perspective of the Father that there is no distinguishing between the one (the tax collector and sinner) and the 99. This is how it works in the kingdom of God- all are God’s and God’s view of the one does not change

4. Gods view of the one does not change even as the one moves to wander in the symbolic wilderness squandering that which has been given. Again, I see a clever double inference there in saying using this wandering image in a way that would have easily evoked the story of the religious leaders as Israel. This is the same sort of role reversal that we find in the parable of the Good Samaritan. In fact, the image of younger and older here becomes significant in terms of hearing the voice of Judea here, playing the you of the first two parables as a divided Israel awaiting its restoration (the scattered tribes being brought back together) alongside the bringing in of the gentiles that the arrival of the kingdom would usher in.
5. It’s clear, as is in the entirety of the Gospels, that Jesus came to a divided Israel calling the religious leaders to repentance and reform in light of what was upon them- the arrival of the messiah and the full restoration. It is because of this that I have become compelled to see that, as the parable goes on, the younger son is being paralleled with the story of Israel all the more, allowing the religious leaders to see themsleves both as the older and younger son, something again that we see in the good Samaritan. This is as much demonstrating Gods heart and kingdom to the religious leaders (Israel) as it is calling them to image this to the world.

From that angle, much has been made of the final phrasing in the passage,
“Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” It has been used to justify everything from reformed assurance and repentance salvation often playing the dead to life movement as spiritual death and life. I would challenge some common protestant readings on a couple fronts.

• I think making it about that shifts the focus from the Father to the Son and wrongly shifts the message from being about the Father’s action to being about our action. This overplays the sons repentance and underplays the fathers right to lay claim to the son as His
• I think even if one wants to make a play on the sons movement from death to life as the necessary progression in the story, the most logical inference, especially if you consider that it is telling the story of Israel, is to read death to life as comprehensive realities apart from God and with God. Or even better, apart from Jesus’ work and in light of it. There is nothing in the passage that evokes a spiritual death, and nothing pointing to some sort of action that proclaims such son dead in the Father’s eyes. Rather, the most natural reading is that the death comes from the sons own predication towards living as though the Father is dead. This is a reality he occupies apart from the kingdom, one that can only promise death. It is through repentance, a turning and moving back into the kingdom, something that does not change his status in the Father’s eyes, that life is declared, indicating not that he has earned something by way of his actions but that he is now occupying a new and different reality that is able to declare his true sonship to him.
• personally I’m open to that, but even with that reading I think it overplays the phrasing. I think the most natural reading is simply to appeal to the natural implication- the lost and found language of the previous stories. It is the older son who presumes him dead and gone, and given that in the previous stories it is the religious leaders looking for the lost one, here they are not. The older son operates as though he is dead. The proclamation of the Father is that he has returned and thus the one thought dead is alive, which is what the religious leaders are supposed to hear when it comes to the Father’s heart and the way of the kingdom. The older son says why is he back eating with us. The parable plays that back into Israel’s own wilderness wanderings and covenant failure.