It’s a little surprising to me that Andrew Lloyd Webber never wrote a musical based on the parable of the Prodigal Son. The only Broadway treatment that I know of this parable is contained within the 1971 show Godspell - it’s highly mannered, and hasn’t aged well, if you ask me. But Lloyd Webber, and his lyricist Tim Rice, who, together, wrote two biblical musicals, could have done a good job with this story, I think. There’d have been a stirring number when the Prodigal Son goes to his father, full of self-confidence, and asks for his part of the inheritance: perhaps the song would be titled, “Give me my share.” I can almost hear it.
But maybe a show like that shouldn’t be written by Webber and Rice. Maybe Lin-Manuel Miranda would be a better choice for a show like this, and for the song, “I’m gonna take my share.” Miranda has no record of dealing with biblical material, but his percussive cadences and driving rhythms would be highly effective, especially in rapping out the details of that part of the prodigal’s life, which was left unexplored by the evangelist: the period of time when the headstrong son “squandered his property in dissolute living.”
The word “dissolute,” I am informed comes from the Latin dissolutus "loose, disconnected; careless; licentious,” which is the “past participle of dissolvere ‘loosen up.’" “Loosen Up” makes a good song title too, and I imagine Miranda inventing some character who encourages the Prodigal Son to loosen up, now that he is out of the grip and control of his father, and who shows him just how to do it. Miranda has a way with tragedy. He can show us what becomes of the Prodigal Son, now that he has taken his share and has learned to loosen up.
If I were consulted, I’d tell Miranda to set that scene in Philadelphia. If I could workshop it with him, I’d place on stage a street sign marking the corner of 33rd and Allegheny Ave, just around the corner from St. James School, and on which corner, I am told, earlier this month, shots were fired in the middle of the day, while school was in session.
Being so close, the shots were heard in the school. And I believe I am correct that, although gunfire is not rare in the neighborhood (I have heard it there myself), I believe the incident marked the first occasion in the eleven years of the school’s history that the school went into lockdown. Doors were shut and locked, shades were pulled down, and teachers and students huddled in the safest corners of their rooms, while the principal and head of school consulted the police. The lockdown did not last long - only minutes, I’m told. The shooting is not listed on any published police reports that I can find, so I am assuming that no one was injured. But, of course, someone could have been. There have been 371 non-fatal shootings in Philadelphia so far this year, and 101 fatal shootings. The incident I’m talking about isn’t even included in that count.
Now, I don’t know anything about the person who fired the gun that day. And it’s not my real purpose to speculate about whomever that person was, that maybe, for instance, it was someone’s prodigal son. Rather, it’s my purpose to speculate about the dissolute living of the Prodigal Son - the one from the Bible. It’s my purpose to imagine that he did not just make a few bad but un-specific decisions that were rather unfortunate; but that his decisions, his choices, one after another - loose, disconnected; careless; licentious - those choices landed him somewhere very much like the corner of 33rd and Allegheny, where shots were fired not so long ago.
But I can’t avoid wondering if maybe those shots were fired by someone’s prodigal son. Or maybe they were fired at someone’s prodigal son. And maybe, in neither case, did the prodigal son have any idea that only a block away there were middle school children huddling with their teachers in the corner for safety. And, the fact remains that this is what happens - this is what happened - in the real world.
To be honest, I have another purpose in speculating this way, which is to say that there are in this city, and in every city, town, and village across the globe, and at every intersection, prodigal sons and daughters everywhere, who have done nothing more drastic than loosen up - because who doesn’t want to loosen up? - and who do not realize how much danger lurks when you become loose, disconnected; careless; licentious - and who find themselves at crossroads very much like the corner of 33rd and Allegheny, on one side or the other of gunshots, while children huddle for safety nearby. How are we going to set such a thing to music and sing about it?
No matter who the composer and the lyricist are, the curtain might fall at the end of Act I, as the shots are fired, and the children race to the corner of the classroom, and their teachers assure them that they will be alright, and the theme of “Give me my share” is played by the orchestra.
When the curtain rises on the next act, things do not get better for the Prodigal Son. Having hit bottom, he hires himself out to a pig farmer and finds himself envying the pigs. There’s a song to be sung here too, which proves that comedy is tragedy plus time: the Prodigal Son eyeing the pigs’ feed, since no one will give him anything. Eventually, the young man comes to his senses. In the telling phrase of St. Luke, “he came to himself.” Seeing himself again for who he really is, the son decides to go home to his father, and as he sings, he imagines how deeply and earnestly he must beg his father’s forgiveness. “I am no longer worthy,” he sings, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
As the curtain rises on the final act, we find the father gazing into the distance, and he can see his son coming home, even though he is still far off. For dramatic purposes, we will have to re-organize the biblical material and put the scene with the jealous older son here at the beginning of the last act, before the actual return of the prodigal son, while the fatted calf is being killed and the robe and sandals are being set out and the ring is being polished. And when the Prodigal Son arrives back on stage, back home, we will have to add some words to St. Luke’s text, to make sure that the song makes sense to the audience and conveys its important meaning.
St. Luke writes only that the son said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But the song we will ask Miranda or Lloyd Weber to write will be more precisely specific in its meaning, and clearer in its purpose. When he opens his mouth to sing, the Prodigal Son on stage will say this: “Father, forgive me, for I have sinned against heaven and before you.” Father, forgive me, he begs, Father, forgive me!
And when the Prodigal Son throws his arms around his father’s neck, with tears running down his cheeks as he gives himself to his father’s embrace, the audience knows that his tears do not flow from remorse that he spent months or years in some abstract and undefined state of dissolute living. We know, rather, that he begs his father for forgiveness because he has stood at the corner of 33rd and Allegheny on one side or the other of gunshots. And since coming to himself, he had learned that nearby that day there were children in a school, huddled in the corner, frightened and brave. And he has been dreading this moment of reunion with his father, wondering how his father can ever forgive him for such things, since he has been having a hard time forgiving himself. Our composer and lyricist will give us a song for the father to sing that includes the famous line, “this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And the title of the song will be a word that answers the plea of the Prodigal Son as he ran to his father’s embrace: “Forgiveness,” it will be called.
Having been told and re-told so many times, the parable of the Prodigal Son often sounds dated and highly mannered to our ears, as if it is an interesting relic that might be distantly related to our current experience in some small way, but not, perhaps, of urgent significance to us. But there are many stories being told in our own day and age about what happens when we loosen up more than is good for us, and we become disconnected; careless; licentious.
And we forget (because St. Luke is not explicit in his language about this), we forget that the father has to forgive the Prodigal Son. We fail to see that it’s forgiveness that the elder brother struggles with and is less ready than his father to offer to his brother. Nor did we see all that the Prodigal Son needed to be forgiven for; just as I did not realize, when I first heard it, that the story of the gunfire at 33rd and Allegheny is a narrative in need of forgiveness. And it’s one of the easier ones, since as far as I know there was no bloodshed that day. But best to start with the easy ones. Because there are other narratives, too - at least 371 non-fatal stories, and 101 fatal stories so far this year in this City of Brotherly Love - all in need of forgiveness.
We should tell this story of forgiveness as many ways as we can. We should be very, very clear about what it is that happens when we squander what’s been given to us in dissolute living. We should affront ourselves with the depth and variety of tragedy that comes as a result of doing nothing more than loosening up: becoming disconnected, careless, and licentious. We should be clear that these are stories that happen to people we know and people we don’t know; people we like and people we don’t like; situations we can relate to and situations that are hard for us to relate to. These are also stories that have happened to us - to you and to me. And in all of them, forgiveness is required. Forgiveness is required.
The story of the Prodigal Son, after all, is not meant to teach us all that much about the Prodigal Son - we can all fill in the blanks of that story pretty easily. The story of the Prodigal Son is a story that is really about the father. It is a story about a father who forgives, and whose forgiveness is not gauged against the depth of our dissolute living, or the extent of our disconnected, careless licentiousness. This father is ready and willing to forgive the prodigal son whose finger pulled the trigger on the corner of 33rd and Allegheny Ave. He is ready to forgive 371 shooters in this city, and another 101 shooters, and more than that, too.
He is hoping that if we tell this story enough times, sons and daughters will learn how not to demand their share and how not to squander all that’s given to them. But since we have proven to be slow at learning these lessons, he is ready to forgive. And if he is ready to forgive us our trespasses, then we ought to be ready and willing to forgive those who trespass against us, as Our Lord taught us to pray.
Preached by Fr. Sean Mullen
27 March 2022
Saint Mark’s, Locust Street, Philadelphia
Lin-Manuel Miranda