This parable is traditionally known as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. That this title is unsatisfactory has often been noted and alternate titles such as the Parable of the Prodigal Father have been proposed. My proposed title puts the emphasis on the relationships of the three characters in the parable. One of the key questions for me in looking at the relationships is: how well do they know one another? If, in some instances, one does not know another truly, what has prevented a true knowledge? Might Mimetic theory help with these questions?

The Parable of the Two Brothers is the third in a sequence of parables where Jesus tells us about rejoicing in Heaven when one was lost and has been found. Both the shepherd who goes after the lost sheep and the woman who searches for her lost coin act foolishly. Not only are they frantic in their search, but they are extravagant in their rejoicing over finding what they had lost. The parable of the lost sheep is particularly interesting to mimetic theory as it demonstrates the reversal of collective sacred violence. Fundamental to sacred violence is the conviction that one person is dispensable. Not only that, but it is necessary that one person be dispensable. As Caiaphas said: it is better that one person die than that they whole people perish. This parable, on the other hand, tells us in no uncertain terms that nobody is dispensable. The sheep that is lost becomes not the least important but the most important. It is often pointed out that the shepherd is foolish to leave the ninety-nine and go after the one lost sheep. He is sure to loose the ninety-nine without necessarily finding the lost one. If Girard is right in saying that the binding force in society is the collective violence of all-against-one, then the shepherd's imprudent act of leaving the ninety-nine refers to the unraveling that can happen to a society if the dispensable victim become indispensable. By going after the lost sheep, Jesus really does undo the fabric of society. God is indeed being revealed as the irresponsible shepherd who scatters the flock by giving up his life so that nobody may be lost. The extravagance of the woman celebrating her finding the lost coin is even more absurd. By throwing a party, she will have spent far more than the lost coin was worth, thus losing many, if not all, of her other coins.

The third and concluding parable begins: "there was a man who had two sons." The triangle of three persons is established and we expect that their relationships will drive the story. Interestingly, the first thing that happens is that the older son drops out of the story and does not come back on stage for quite some time. The younger son proceeds to ask for his share of the property. Much is made by commentators about the arrogance of the request and the imprudence of the father in granting it. The younger son must have realized that his father was a soft touch or he would never have asked for what he did. Most fathers would slap down a son who asked for such a thing. The younger son must have expected that would not have happened to him. One question that comes to mind is: if the younger son knew his father was indulgent, why would he choose to leave him?

One possible answer is that the younger son wanted to get away from his elder brother. In world mythology and in scripture, mimetic strife between two brothers is common. So, when this parable begins by positing two brothers, one suspects the likelihood of a mimetic doubling. The parable says nothing directly about the relationship between the two brothers at this point. However, one effect of the younger brother's leaving is to withdraw from the arena of direct mimetic strife with his brother and to create space for himself elsewhere, with no reference either to his father or his brother. Given the undeniable effect of his departure, it seems likely that the cause was an intention on the younger brother's part to solve a problem of relationships within the family.

A second possible answer to the question of why he should leave such a loving father, and one which receives much more emphasis, is the lure of a sensuous and irresponsible life. Again, very little is actually told in the parable. It says that the departed son "squandered his property in dissolute living." What did he actually do that was dissolute? Artists have filled in the blank. In Rembrandt's famous self-portrait as the Prodigal Son, the young man is living it up with women and friends. Prokofiev's ballet "The Prodigal Son" also devotes much choreography to the carousing friends and a seductress. Towards the end of the parable, the elder son complains that his brother has devoured the family property with prostitutes. But how did he know? Rembrandt and Prokofiev used their imaginations and the elder brother is not necessarily a reliable witness. However, the younger son's behavior was described as "dissolute," so he wasn't exactly acting responsibly. Dissolute behavior has its own mimetic dimension. A person may try to establish his independence by rebelling against social norms and moral codes. This happens all the time and the result is always the same: rebels against moral decency do the same things: they carouse, they get drunk (or drugged) and they engage in loose sexual behavior. Modern advertizing is often an attempt to draw people out of themselves into the dissolution of dissipated behavior. It is because of the sameness of dissolute behavior that Rembrandt, Prokofiev and the elder brother can make assumptions that are likely to be close to the mark.

The Greek phrase that in English is translated as: the younger son "squandered his property" is actually much stronger and richer in the original. Literally, the phrase means: he "scattered his substance." That is, the younger son completely lost himself in his dissolute living. He thought he was forging an individual selfhood by separating from his father and his brother. He succeeded in doing nothing of the kind. Geographical separation from family does not lead to psychological independence. In relation to his father, the younger son became an ineffectual parody of his father's extravagant nature who soon had nothing to give. As for his relationship to his brother, the younger man shows himself to be a mimetic double in the sense of being the opposite or mirror image of his brother. What we see later of the elder brother makes it likely that this elder brother "needed" the irresponsible behavior of the younger to build up his own self-identification as a righteous man. As for the younger brother, it appears that he "needed" to be a mirror image of his brother, even if the result was his own disintegration. In such a state, cut off from the relationships that could give him substance, the younger son was vulnerable to becoming a nobody, indistinguishable from his carousing companions. Indistinguishable, that is, until something happened to the social fabric of the distant land to which the younger son had traveled.

René Girard suggests that natural disasters such as floods, plagues, and famines are often a metaphor for a society in the midst of a mimetic crisis. It is true that these disasters also happen as natural disasters, but when they do, they are apt to trigger a mimetic crisis. In the case of a famine, there is a real possibility that it is caused, not by genuine scarcity, but by hoarding that results from acquisitive mimesis. That is, it becomes important to some people that they have more material goods than others for the sake of outdoing their fellow human beings. For example, many people suggest today that there is enough food available for everybody in the world to be fed, and yet thousands of people starve to death every day. Of course, if there should be a genuine famine where the scarcity is real and not contrived, then the struggle over possession of scarce resources will be intense and that struggle will trigger a society-wide mimetic crisis. When there is a famine, there will be a victim. The choice of a victim is arbitrary in the sense that it is imperative that there be a victim, and it does not matter who that victim is. However, the process of a mimetic crisis leading to collective violence tends to settle on people who, for whatever arbitrary reason, are different. A foreigner is particularly vulnerable when famine strikes. The younger son was living in a foreign land, and he became a victim of the famine.

The younger son was not the victim of a collective murder. He was a victim of expulsion to the uttermost margins of society. The younger son was not merely down on his luck after having spent all that he had. The younger son was deserted by everybody. In spite of all the money he spent on his women (if the elder brother is right about that) or that he spent on his carousing friends, nobody was willing to take him in to tide him over bad economic times. This detail, perhaps sheds light on the unjust steward in the parable that follows immediately after this one. Perhaps this steward's scheme to make friends through irresponsible or dishonest use of material resources didn't work so well and Jesus was being sarcastic in a subtle way. In any case, the younger son ends up as a servant who feeds the pigs (an unclean animal for Jews and many other Near Eastern people) and "nobody gives him anything."

It is in this desperate situation that the younger son recalls how well-fed his father's servants were. With this realization, he "came to himself" and made the decision to return to his father and hire himself out there. This moment in the parable is often cited as a classic instance of what confessors call attrition without contrition. By supposedly showing only attrition, the younger son regretted only the consequences of his sin, but lacked contrition, which would be sorrow for his sin in itself coupled with true desire to amend his life. The younger son gives no indication that he thinks he has done anything wrong and he gives no indication that he wishes to amend his life. Rather, he is only scheming to get himself the "best deal" available under the circumstances and his father seems to be his best bet. As before, the younger son realizes that his father is generous and he expects to be taken back as a servant rather than be angrily rebuffed for his earlier (and present?) ingratitude. Even so, the younger son greatly underestimates his father's love, as we shall see.

There could be more to the younger son's decision to return to his father than self-interested scheming, however. Perhaps what James Alison calls "the intelligence of the victim" is at work. Normally, a victim of a society's collective response to famine would not be noticed in a story of any kind, let alone be a central character of a story. But here, the victim expelled to the furthest margin of a society is given a voice and, more important, an alternative to being a victim. One might argue that the younger son is in such a fix because of his irresponsible behavior. But that is not the reason that everybody has left him and nobody gives him anything. He is feeding the most unclean of animals because somebody has to be pushed to the edge during a time of crisis, and he was a foreigner and available to that need of society. Ideally, the victim will accept his lot and accept responsibility for the crisis. But that is what the younger son does not do. He sees his victimization for what it is and refuses to accept it as legitimate. Surely he should be allowed at least to share the pigs' food, but even that is denied him. Normally, even a recalcitrant victim is trapped and has no alternative to his victim status. But the younger son does have an alternative to the master he serves for no recompense. He can return to his father and serve him for fair compensation for his labor.

Fundamental to the "intelligence of the victim" is an awareness, if unconscious, of mimetic process and its result in collective violence. It seems, though, that the younger son does not say or do anything to demonstrate this level of insight except reject his victim status. However, it should be remembered that his leaving home in the first place might have been a response to mimetic rivalry in his family. Trying to establish "personal space" beyond this entanglement is one way one can attempt to solve this problem. As noted, this attempted solution does not work because the mimetic process continues to be a psychic reality. The wording of the parable at the beginning makes this interpretation of the younger son's motivations speculative. However, the set piece dreamed up by the younger son for approaching his father just might have another dimension besides subtle scheming and false humility. It could be that the younger son simply cannot conceive of being received back into the family and that is why he asks to be a servant. But then again, it could be that the younger son does not want to re-enter the family system of mimetic rivalry. It may be true that the younger son just wants to reject continually his family due to a hard heart, even while he uses it to better his lot in life. But it also could be true that the younger son wisely wishes to avoid a mimetic trap. In any case, regardless of his conscious intentions, it is significant that the younger son's request entails remaining outside of the family and therefore, outside of the dynamics of mimetic relationships. Given the earlier difficulties of matching geographical distancing with psychic distance, this attempt to remain on the margins of his home society are not realistic.

The father's reaction to seeing his son return, explodes everything. He has already run up to meet his son, "put his arms around him and kissed him" before the son can even begin his set speech. The words he then gets out are comically incongruent relative to his father's gestures, and he is interrupted before he can finish what he as to say. Ironically, the younger son has achieved his objective of avoiding whatever mimetic traps his family may have laid before he left home. The father's ecstatic reception of the lost son and subsequent celebration blows apart the family structure. When celebration is the response to finding one who is lost, there is no room for mimetic striving. Celebration is an ecstasy that embraces everybody. Celebration reorganizes society through a mimetic process of rejoicing that, significantly, even the servants seem expected to share. In contrast to the mimetic process that organizes society around a dispensable victim, perhaps somebody programed to be irresponsible, the mimetic process of celebration organizes society around the indispensable victim who is no longer lost, but has been found.

Jesus' listeners may have broken into applause at this point, thinking that the parable had come to an end, something like the embarrassing moment at a concert when some people applaud too soon. After all, with the elder son unmentioned since the first sentence of the parable, one can be forgiven for forgetting all about him, even though the elder son seems to have been much more of a presence throughout this narrative than met the eye. In any case, after the celebration begins, the elder son steps on the stage for the first time. Significantly, his initial reaction to discovering that a celebration is taking place is suspicion. Far from plunging eagerly into the party, he holds back, and this not on account his brother, because he has no way of knowing that his brother has returned. The elder brother manifests himself as the prototype of the Puritanical Christian who assumes that if somebody is celebrating, then there has to be something wrong. (NB: the actual Puritans were not always Puritanical!) If I am right about celebration as a means of dissolving mimetic tensions in society, then the elder brother's attitude suggests that his attachment to mimetic entanglements might be considerable.

The elder brother finds out soon enough the cause of the celebration and he is not pleased. His bitter words about his brother ("that son of yours") reveal a hardness of heart equal only to his obtuseness over the reality of his father's loving disposition. Only now are we given the "information" that the younger son lost his money by spending it on prostitutes. There is a chance that he is right about that but the question is: How does he know? Furthermore, the elder son assumes that his brother is still an irresponsible person. That also might be true, but the elder brother has not even considered possibilities such as: his brother exercised good stewardship with the resources he took and suffered an economic reverse that he couldn't control, his brother created great works of art but couldn't make any money on them, or his brother is turning a new leaf. The attitude expressed by the elder brother heightens the suspicion that he does "need" to have his younger brother live irresponsibly for the purpose of giving definition to his older brother. One can imagine the psychological pressure exerted on the younger brother to remain immature. It seems that the elder brother's universe might collapse if his younger brother begins to play a responsible role in family affairs. No wonder the younger son ran away from a brother like that! Who wouldn't?

Meanwhile, the father runs out to the elder brother with the same solicitude with which he ran up to the returning younger son. The elder son betrays his mimetic relationship to his brother by contrasting the treatment each has received, as if he was keeping a log since the days of his youth, culminating in the complaint that he was never given a kid to celebrate with his friends but for "that son of yours," he kills the fatted calf. His father lets his elder son say all he has to say without interruption before countering with the words: "You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." The implication is that a kid and much, much more was always available to the elder son. The elder son's disingenuous accusation of not being allowed to celebrate is shown up for what it is. The elder son, apparently, never thought to celebrate with his friends until his father throws a party for that son of his.

We can see, then, that this parable is more than a story about a young man who goes out, messes up, and then returns to receive his father's forgiveness. The parable is that. But the more we think about the elder brother and about what it must have been like to live under the same roof with him, the more likely it seems that the younger brother has had to do some forgiving in order to return home and join in his father's celebration, which must have been quite overwhelming and more than a little embarrassing, since this was not exactly a celebration of his great accomplishments in life. For that matter, just as the elder brother complains about his father being soft on the younger, the younger brother may well have left home, feeling that his father was too soft on the elder and that he failed to protect him from an oppressive personality.

One can get carried away with denouncing the elder brother and wonder why the father would be so patient and so assiduous in trying to get him to come in to the party. Not once does the father upbraid his elder son for being such an insufferable prig any more than he took his younger son to task for what he did. In fact, he did not even ask what his younger son had done. This is indeed a cause for wonder! We should be amazed with this father. All through the story, the natural tendency is to judge the younger brother for his callous irresponsibility but then to be seriously put off by the amazing insensitivity of the elder brother. However, when we discover such attitudes in ourselves, we find ensnared in the parable where we stand convicted of entering into the mimetic struggle between the two brothers, comparing them, taking sides, etc. And by entering their mimetic strife and thus projecting our own mimetic tensions in life on the brothers, we find that our own capacity for love has been obscured and our capacity for celebration fizzles.

This parable does not end when Jesus knocks off telling this story and goes on to another parable. Rather, this parable is an invitation and a beginning. As traditionally believed, this is an invitation to repent, but repentance is not for the sake of making ourselves miserable. The purpose of repentance is to let go of all the ways we are embroiled with other people in mimetic tensions. When we do let go, we may first feel that we are losing our selves because we are losing the ways we have defined ourselves. But through this letting go, we come to ourselves and thus find ourselves for the first time. And that is cause for celebration!