Return of the Prodigal Son – Fourth Sunday in Lent (Luke 15: 1-3, 11b – 32)
Last week we heard The Parable of the Fig Tree, which is one of the shortest parables that Jesus tells. This week, we heard another parable, The parable of the Prodigal Son. This is one of Jesus’ longest and most well-known parables. It has permeated our culture so much that the phrase “prodigal son” is used often in regular conversation. Usually, it is used to refer to someone who has gone away and is now coming home after a long absence. There is more to it than that of course. As we reflect on it this morning, we will be aware of how we identify with the story and what lessons we might take from it about our personal relationship with God, and our personal journey to the Realm of God. Which is, of course, the journey we are on during the season of Lent.
Previously, I worked at a school that was K-8. I worked as a teaching aide in the special education department. At the school they placed an emphasis on teaching the children how to make appropriate choices. As the students went throughout their day, they are asked to be mindful of their choices. Are they making good choices or bad choices? Are they working hard on their assignment and following instructions? Well, then that’s a good choice. Did they smack another student? Well, then that’s a bad choice. I don’t think this is unusual for school age children. I think parents and teachers and other adults often try to teach us to make good choices, and to avoid making bad choices. Our notions of right and wrong are shaped by our environments. We start out seeing right and wrong through the eyes of those around us. As we grow, we continue to see things through this lens. So, we take all of that -the lens, the way of seeing the world- when we approach these Bible stories. This is important to consider because when we go to the Bible will be presented with choices to make. Not necessarily a matter of good choices or bad choices, but choices about what it is in the stories we will relate to, connect with, and take meaning from.
For instance, today we heard the famous parable of The Prodigal Son. Right there we have a choice to make. There are other names for this story, and which name we choose to refer it by can say something about how we interpret the story. Now, most of us probably think of this first as the story of The Prodigal Son, and that makes sense. After all, that is how it is known in the popular culture. So, if that is the title we choose, it puts the focus on the younger son, the one who demands his inheritance than runs off and squanders it before returning home humbled. After all, the word prodigal means recklessly wasteful, yet when we hear that phrase out in the world it is usually used to reference someone who has gone away and is just coming back after a long time. So, it’s easy to see why the younger son would draw such interest. His story is scandalous and a dramatic roller coaster that sees him eating with the pigs. Doing this, though, means that we tend to see the other characters in the story in relation to how they deal with the younger son. We admire The Father for loving his son and welcoming him home with a party. Meanwhile, the Elder Son is judged for initially rejecting and seeming to be jealous of his younger brother. And while that is one way to choose to look at these characters, there is more to them than that, and they have their own stories we can identify with.
The painting on the front of the bulletin is The Return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt. Once I was leading a Bible study group focused on the book The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen. Nouwen was a Christian minister, author, chaplain, and professor. In this book Nouwen writes about his love for this painting by Rembrandt, “The Return of the Prodigal Son.” As you can see, the painting depicts the scene near the end of the parable when the son returns home and is welcomed back by his father. The younger with his back to us, kneeling in front of the father. Off to the side, is I assume, the older brother, looking on with his arms crossed. The we have the father, with his hands resting on the younger son’s shoulders, welcoming him home.
In the book, Nouwen writes about how at different times in his life he has been able to identify with each of the primary characters in this story, and painting; the younger son who ran away, the elder son who stayed home and worked, and the father, who loved them both in his own way. So, in this Bible study I wanted to focus on each of these characters, as well. So, I started out by asking the group which character they found themselves connecting with. I invite you to do that as well this morning. Which character from this famous parable to you find yourself connecting to? The prodigal son, who left his home in search of riches and excitement and returned home in shame? The elder son who stayed home and carried out his responsibilities dutifully? Or perhaps the father, who always endeavored to share his love with both sons? I invite you to consider that before I share the results from my Bible study group. Personally, I think I agree with the way Nouwen frames it in his book. There are times in my life when I could identify with each character in some way. Or at least each of the sons. There are times when I have been willful and selfish, doing the things I want to do without any interference, but maybe ended up feeling lost and depressed in the end. There I times when I have followed the “right path,” the one people expected, and yet things didn’t go my way, and I ended up feeling lost and angry.
Anyway, in this Bible study class, when I asked this question of them, it was unanimous. Each member of the group said that they connected with the elder brother. They saw in the story of their lives a similar arc. They grew up and took on responsibilities in their lives. They saw themselves as loyal to their families, even as caretakers of family members. They did what they thought was right, what was expected of them. None of them identified with the prodigal son, not for even a moment in their lives. However, as a group, they were also unanimously able to identify the person, or group of people, in their lives who was the younger, prodigal son – the one who ran away, the one who caused trouble, the one who they had to take care of or clean up after. I was surprised by this. Perhaps you are too. Or maybe not, maybe you agree and connect with these observations. Maybe you also have a prodigal person in mind.
I think maybe why people find it so easy to relate to the elder son over the younger son is because he was the one who made the “good” choices. He stayed home, helped his father maintain the family business, and generally did what was expected of him. And we all like to think of ourselves as people who have made good choices in life. Or, at least more good than bad. The other son made all the bad choices. He rejected his family and his birthright. He spent his money unwisely and recklessly. He associated with the wrong people. He followed this bad choice road until he found himself alone, sleeping among the pigs. So, it is not surprising that many fine people struggle to see themselves in the choices being made by the younger son.
Whatever the case, I think it is important for us, when we read the Bible, to consider where it is we identify with the story and which character we see ourselves in. I think this is part of why Jesus uses parables in his teaching, because he knows that people connect to stories, and find meaning in stories. Think back to last Sunday, if you can, we read the parable of the Fig Tree. Even within that brief parable there are places for us to connect to the story. If we were approaching the parable from the cosmic level, we might connect with the tree that was expected to bear good fruit and was in danger of being cast aside until the gardener intervened and convinced the vineyard owner to give the tree more time. Or you might zoom in a bit more and look at the story on a more personal level. When I did that, I connected with the idea of the fertilizer used to help the tree grow, and how that might represent how the act of repentance helps us to grow as people.
There are always places for us to connect to the stories of the Bible. It is why artists, such as Rembrandt, paint scenes from the Bible. They connect to these Bible stories and they know these stories are meaningful to others. So, through art they can bring people close to that experience of the divine. However, I also think, that these parables, and works of art can reveal to us that we are not so different from the characters. There is truth to be found even in the ones we don’t identify with, such as, in the case of that Bible study group, the character of the prodigal son.
The younger son did not simply leave home and set out to live a different kind of life. No. His choice was even more personal than that. He was rejecting his father, and all that he stood for. He was declaring that he no longer wanted, or needed, the father to be part of his life. At the time and the culture in which this story was first told, the words the son speaks to his father can be interpreted as the son telling his father that he wants him to die. In this action he is making all the poor, bad choices he can all at once. Knowing this context, we can see that the son’s actions are unspeakably cruel. So, it is not surprising that my little Bible study group did not want to see themselves in the choices being made by the younger son.
The story of the prodigal son though is not just the story of two sons and their choices. It is also the story of a father. The father is the one who calls us, loves us, and makes a place for all of us no matter what choices we make. The father calls us to make the choice of creating a community for one and all to live together in love. Good choices and bad choices, good sons and bad sons. The father meets us in between all these things, and this is not easy for the sons to accept.
People identify themselves with the older son because they feel they have spent their lives making what they believed were the good choices. He seems to have done everything right. But, when he is faced with the reality that the father will gladly welcome the younger son back, the eldest son becomes engulfed in his own judgement and jealousy. People do not identify with the younger son because he made the bad choices, and we are taught that the consequences of these choices will always be proportional and deserved according to the logic of “good choice or bad choice”, but that is not always how life works. Sometimes bad outcomes find us no matter what good choices we make. And this parable shows us that bad choices can sometimes be met with love and understanding.
If we are too much like the elder son and cannot look beyond the merits of our choices than we deny ourselves a fuller experience of life. As Nouwen points out in his book, joy is replaced by judgement. If we are too much like the younger son, we fail to see beyond our personal desires and passions. In both cases we are disconnected from others and from God. However, if we can see in ourselves that we are also like the father and that we possess a divinely given ability to love our brothers and sisters and neighbors, no matter what choices they make, then we open up a world of possibilities.
When we are like the father, our choices are no longer limited by good and bad, or by what we have been taught to see as good or bad. We can make any choice that is guided by our heart to serve and loves others where they are, this is the heart of the father, and it is the heart of our faith. These are the choices that lead to the Realm of God. These are the choices we can train ourselves to make. We are blessed with things like art and scripture -like Rembrandts painting, Nouwen’s book, or Christ’s parable (which is both art and scripture)- that can help us become sensitive to the places in the world where the creative and loving choices are being made. Let us see ourselves in those stories.
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Amen.