conventions, freedom from our parents' cramping lifestyle. We need freedom to discover our real identities. But when this boy found freedom, it was a more complicated thing than he thought.
Imagine someone on the top of a cliff. He feels he's free. 'Free to jump, free to fly like a bird.' So he launches himself off the cliff, and flies like a bird—all the way to the bottom! He failed to appreciate the gravity of the situation! Some of us spend quite a bit of time clearing up the mangled mess at the bottom of that particular cliff of 'freedom'.
Freedom, you see, is not the licence to do as we like. Properly understood, freedom is the liberty to do as we ought, the freedom to be what we were meant to be. We human beings are not unconstrained creatures; there are norms within which we are intended to operate. Without those norms freedom is meaningless, indistinguishable from the arbitrariness of a person who just makes decisions by tossing coins all the time. That boy may have been looking for freedom, but he didn't find the freedom he was looking for when he broke free from his father. All that he found was the stink of a pigsty. In the story of this dissatisfied, degraded individual, Jesus illuminates the tragedy of all of us when we, in our folly, try to be free in an impossible way. We are not the captains of our own souls. We are made by God and cannot escape that creatureliness, no matter how hard we flap our wings on the edge of the cliff.
The words 'no-one gave him anything' are full of pathos. He no doubt found plenty of people willing to exploit his hunger; but they were all takers, not givers. The same is true today, of course. Some drug-pusher will be looking for some such young rebel out on the streets tonight. He's not really interested in him, only his money. He wants to see him feeble, wretched, and begging for the next fix. He's not a giver, but a taker. The same goes for the prostitute. She tells us that sex is the answer, and
