The younger son had demanded his inheritance before his father's death. This was, in the social code of the time, equivalent to wishing his father dead. The father gave it. The son left. He squandered everything in dissolute living — the text is specific about the dissolution — and ended up feeding pigs in a foreign country, so hungry that the pods he fed the pigs seemed appetising.
He came to himself. This is the phrase the text uses — he came to himself. Not: he felt guilty. Not: he was ashamed. He came back to the truth of his situation. His father's servants ate better than this. He would go home and ask to be received as a servant, not as a son. He had forfeited the son's claim. He would offer what remained: his willingness to work.
He rose and went.
While he was yet a great way off, his father saw him.
The detail is precise and has been pondered for two thousand years: the father saw him while he was yet a great way off. Which means the father had been watching. Had been looking toward the road. Had not stopped watching the road that led from the dissolute country back to his house. He had given the inheritance and watched the son go — and kept watching the road.
When he saw him, he ran.
The patriarch of a prosperous household in the ancient Near East did not run. Running was undignified. It was the movement of servants, of children, of people with nothing to protect. The father gathered his robes and ran. He reached the son while the son was still rehearsing his prepared speech about being received as a servant. The father cut off the speech. He called for the best robe, the ring, the sandals — the symbols of sonship, of restoration, of the return of full standing. He called for the fatted calf. He said: this my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. The prodigal son story is not about the son's return. It is about the father who was watching the road. Who ran. Who restored without requiring the prepared speech to be completed. Who threw the party before the accounting was done. This is the image that has endured — not the wayward son, but the undignified father running toward the returning failure while he was yet a great way off.
The elder son was furious. He had stayed. He had worked. He had been faithful. No party had been thrown for him. This too is in the text, and the text does not dismiss the elder son's complaint — it is legitimate. The father says only: you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But your brother was dead and is alive. We had to celebrate.
The parable does not resolve the elder son's grievance. It leaves it open, because the question it raises — the question of the one who stayed and the one who returned and the different welcome they received — does not have a tidy answer. It has a human one. The father loved both. The circumstances required the party for one and the quiet assurance for the other. Both were his sons. He was watching the road for both.
Someone has been watching the road for you. Has been watching since you left. Will see you while you are yet a great way off. Will run.
You do not need to complete the prepared speech.