Kindness and mercy

Whether this parable [of the prodigal son] is meant more to map sinners and Pharisees, or Gentiles and Jews, or waywardness and self-righteousness in more general terms is impossible to decide. For in fact it is all of them in turns or at once. At each level and in every case, the Father is the one whose mercy is worked out as kindness to the wicked and ungrateful. In Luke’s Gospel, this is the God whom Jesus calls Father.—One True Life: The Stoics and Early Christians as Rival Traditions, 128