Then Jesus said,

“There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout 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 to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up 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 like one of your hired hands.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate. Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 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.’” Luke 15:11-32New Revised Standard Version

You can call me Wilbur. No, you are not hallucinating: I can talk. And yes, as you can see if you look carefully, I have been circumcised. And no, I do not recommend having it done unless you are an infant who won’t be able to remember.

Once I was your basic, average-Joe pig, living in a filthy pen with my family and friends. Oh, I’d get a pang of wanderlust now and again. I had not yet lost all my friskiness. I would daydream about visiting faraway lands and slurping swill of a different color. But would I ever act on these fantasies? As long as I knew that in the morning the pig-keeper would toss a fresh batch of seed-pods into the pen, my urges were circumscribed.

But one day a new guy tossed the pods into the pen. He was different. Was it the unshorn forelocks? He was talking to himself. Muttering. Clearly he was in some kind of emotional turmoil that even a pig could sense.

The next morning he raked up the pen and tossed seed-pods at us, and then he came up close to me, locked his eyes on mine, and asked a question: “What am I doing here?”

After what seemed an eternity, to his amazement and my own, I answered him: “Why are you dragging me into your existential crisis?”
His eyes widened further. “You can talk?”

“You think we are stupid?” I asked back.

“Not only stupid, but unclean,” he answered.

“You’re the pig-keeper,” I blurted. “If you don’t like our sanitary condition, do something about it. But to say I’m stupid – well, no human ever talked to me before, so I never answered. Just because we don’t initiate conversations with you doesn’t mean we cannot engage in dialogue.”

This released a flood of dialogue, all right. Clearly, he had no humans to whom he could pour out his soul. He told me how he had been bored out of his wits back in his homeland of Israel, as a second son who would always live in the shadow of his father and older brother. He asked his dad to give him his inheritance and he took it and went down to Egypt where he drank it and smoked it and slept it into oblivion, and then in destitution farmed himself out to the farmer who owned me and my fellow pigs.
“I have to go home,” he told me. “I must go back to my people.”

“What is Israel like?” I asked. He enchanted me with descriptions of the glorious holy city of Jerusalem, with its magnificent temple. He recounted the deeds of Moses and King David. He elevated my soul with the wisdom of the Proverbs and the lofty ideals of the Torah.

“Take me with you,” I begged. “I want to be a Jew.”

“No, that’s impossible. You are a pig. Jews do not eat pork,” he said.

“Thanks be to Yahweh God!” I exclaimed. “I don’t eat pork either!”

He then explained something that shocked me: Egyptians eat pigs! I had no idea. Every so often one of our fellow pigs would be led away, never to return, but we just assumed that was the natural order of things. I was horrified, and all the more convinced of my need for religious conversion. He went on to explain that in order to be a Jew, I would have to be circumcised. I did not understand the implications of my decision until I persuaded him to take a corroded brass knife and do the deed. Once it was done, my fate was sealed. The other pigs in the pen thought I had lost my mind, and they shunned me.

In the cover of darkness, the Jew led me out of the pen and onto the road north to Israel. For weeks we walked, together eating the same seed-pods that he had tossed into the pen.

When we got to his home in Israel, his father saw him coming and ran down the road to greet him with open arms. He didn’t see me at first. I had the good pig-sense to hang back a bit and observe the situation. But once the excitement abated, the father gazed at me with scorn. “What is this filthy pig doing here?” the father asked. “He helped convince me to leave Egypt,” said the son. “Well, then, I suppose we should offer him welcome, too,” said the father, tentatively.

My quarters were at some remove from the household, but not so far away as to prevent me from hearing the celebration of the return of the prodigal son. Afterwards, every day, he would visit me for a while, bringing me seed-pods to eat and letting me know how he was adjusting to life back at home. “My brother is still pretty ticked off at me,” he reported. “He is upset that Dad was so joyful at my return, even though I abandoned the family and blew all my money. How can I make amends?”

“Tell him you brought home the bacon!” I answered, my tongue in my ample cheek.

“Very funny. But I don’t think he will think it is funny.” Every day, he gave me further details about his awkward circumstances.
Same old s—, different country, I concluded after a month of living in Israel. The prodigal son was so busy patching things up with his family that he never got around to taking me to Jerusalem to see the sights. Not that I would have been any more welcome there than I was in his village.

So one morning, after he tossed me a few handfuls of seed-pods, I asked him: “Why am I here?” His eyes widened. He was speechless. “It is time for me to go home, to go back to my people,” I told him. “I don’t belong here.”

He was sad to see me go. He wrapped a bundle of seed-pods in a bandanna around my neck and wished me well as I waddled south down the long road back to Egypt. Right here, just east of the Nile delta, I ran into this herd of pigs and asked if I could join them. I’ve been with this gang ever since. We are a motley band of strays: an interfaith community, so to speak. So my circumcision is no big deal. Life’s not easy for us, but the freedom and the conviviality and the starry skies can’t be beat. No way I’m going to end up as carnitas in some Egyptian’s taco.

The prodigal son went home. Big party, with the fatted calf for dinner. I guess he’s better off, if not exactly happy.

No party for me. No fatted nothing: you’re looking at lean pork. But I went just close enough to home to be exactly happy.
 
JIM BURKLO
Website: JIMBURKLO.COM Weblog: MUSINGS Follow me on twitter: @jtburklo
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Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California