One of the great things about becoming a parent is that you get to introduce your child to all the things you enjoyed in your youth, thus giving yourself permission to enjoy them again. No one is more aware of this than the Walt Disney Company, which over the past several years has produced remakes of every movie millennials adored as children: The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and The Lion King. We were the generation that forced our parents to take us to the theater multiple times for each one, producing the financial juggernaut known as the Disney Renaissance. Now, they ask us to keep them afloat when their creativity has long since dried up.
But not everything is about late-stage consumer capitalism. Back in the 1980s and ’90s, there were some childhood joys not yet harnessed by multinational corporations for maximum shareholder profit. There were even entertainers who genuinely cared about children. A favorite of mine was the popular children’s songwriter Raffi. His song “Baby Beluga” became such a cultural mainstay, it was featured on an episode of Full House.
When it came time for me to have a child of my own, I happened across a Baby Beluga book at Target and had a sudden flashback to days of yore. “Is Raffi still in business?” I wondered. The answer, happily, is yes. He remains active as a musician and advocate for children through something he calls “child honoring.” He is passionate about the dignity and worth of the youngest among us. It was nice to find someone from my childhood who has not ended up mired in controversy.
Raffi’s songs now make regular appearances in my household, and his books are worn from use. I even found Raffi on Threads and gave him an immediate follow. There I saw what Wikipedia had already confirmed for me: he is a big fan of equality, environmentalism, and other things typical of a socially conscious liberal. He is the sort of person to speak up for those society dislikes or ignores.
However, I was taken aback recently when Raffi waded into the realm of theology: “a Bible story that bugged me. the prodigal son. felt bad for the good one who stayed,” he posted.
What a turn of events! There in black and white was proof that this kindly man full of empathy and compassion was, in fact, an arch-legalist. Well, perhaps arch-legalist is putting it too strongly, but he was certainly a fan of … the Law.
Think back to your days in Sunday School, if you had them. There are two brothers in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. One is the good-for-nothing who takes his father’s money and runs, engaging in all forms of debauchery until he finally ends up bankrupt. The other is a rule-following ideal child who does everything his father asks of him and maintains respectability. (Unsurprisingly, this is the older of the two.) When the prodigal son returns home, the father forgives him and grants him high honors, at which point the older son files a complaint about unequal treatment in the workplace.
The Parable of the Prodigal Son is beloved by Christians for its illustration of the gospel: God’s unconditional forgiveness, his unalterable love. Those of us who grew up in the church were likely trained from a young age to imagine ourselves as the sinful son so that, when we reach the end of the story, we would envision the way God receives us — his eagerness to be reconciled. We were probably told that though our sins may be more respectable, we are not so different from that son who rejected his father and tried to go his own way. We are in equally desperate need of the mercy of God.
But Raffi may have missed those Sunday School lessons, because he imagines himself as the “good” son. That much seems obvious from his comment. His sympathies are with the respectable, responsible, humane person, not the sociopath who torches all his relationships. They are with the man who lives in harmony with the earth’s resources rather than the man who squanders them. The older son is the kind of person Raffi no doubt wants to be, and he rightly judges that this son is a more likeable person: the one we would probably be rooting for if this situation played out in our own life rather than in a Sunday School lesson.
Why? Because in our deepest heart of hearts, we believe rules are important and that people who follow them should be rewarded. Call it a moral meritocracy, if you will. We like the Law. We want the Law. The Law is fair. The Law is good. The older son is the one who lives by the Law. He strives to earn his father’s love and respect through proper behavior. In theological terms, you might call him an übernomian.
The brother who leaves also acknowledges the Law: he simply has no interest in following it. When he rejects his father, he also rejects the Law, as evidenced by his sinful behavior. He lives for himself, for immediate gratification, for the satiation of all his desires. In theological terms, you might call him an antinomian.
However, this story is not really about either brother. It is about the father: the one who is truly prodigal, giving away his love without a thought. The great reveal of this tale is that the father is not operating by the Law at all. He is operating by the gospel, taking the full cost of reconciliation upon himself, not holding his sons’ trespasses against them.
And yes, contrary to appearances, the “good” son has committed trespasses, for he has despised his father the lawgiver in his heart. He is not unlike the young monk Martin Luther, driven to despair by his efforts to keep the Law and earn the approval of an angry divine judge. Years later, in the preface to a complete edition of his Latin works, Luther recalled, “I couldn’t be sure that God was appeased by my satisfaction. I did not love, no, rather I hated the just God who punishes sinners.”
By taking up the complaint of the older son, Raffi revealed his belief in justification by law-keeping. Does this make him a rotten person? Not at all! It makes him completely normal. Everyone thinks this is how God operates until someone tells them differently, and quite often no one tells them differently.
For God does have a Law, and that Law is good, but as the experience of ancient Israel under the Law proves, it is not a path to life for sinners. The only path to life for those of us who sin (which is all of us) is the gospel: the completed work of Jesus Christ on our behalf. We need a perfect law-keeper to stand in our place. We don’t need a son who thinks he is perfect. We need a son who is actually perfect. We need the Son of God.
The good news for Raffi and for us all is that our heavenly Father stands ready to receive both prodigal sons and good sons, those who are obvious sinners and those who are secret sinners, those who declare their hatred for him and those who try to deny it. For our Father knows we can only love him if he enables us to by crossing the distance himself, running to us from a long way off. He pays the full price of our restoration. He crowns us with the honor due to his own Son.
This is the good news for Raffi, for you, and for me. It is good news for übernomians and antinomians. No matter what you have done, no matter where you have been, no matter what society thinks of you or what you think of yourself, your Father is waiting to receive you with open arms. His love alone will draw you home.
