Finding Our Way Home Preached on March 31st, 2019 At Wollaston Congregational Church Scripture: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 Today we heard a story … a very familiar one. This story has been called the Parable of the Prodigal Son, though the word prodigal is not used in the biblical story and few of us use the word in any other context. But, the Prodigal Son is not the only name for the story: other possibilities include “the lost son”, “the father and two sons”, “the grieving father.” My hope, this morning, is that we would hear this parable with new ears. I hope we will listen for a different understanding than we may have had learned in the past, perhaps in Sunday School. My hope is that we get away from the “shoulds” and the “oughts” that are often projected when this parable is taught. I should be generous to my destitute, wandering siblings in Christ. I should welcome home sinners to relationship with God when all other options fail them. I ought to be non-judgmental about my younger brother, his earlier wandering years, and his “different from mine” lifestyle now. These “shoulds” and “oughts” may be valid, but where do they leave us? I should and I ought, and perhaps I do, or do not. And there are a couple of reasons why shoulds and oughts will not work for our text today. First of all, our gospel text today is a story. A story does not tell us what to do. A story does not preach. This leaves us free to listen and perhaps to find ourselves in in the story. It frees us from the fear that there is a “moral” sneaking beneath the surface. Another reason for letting go of the “shoulds” and the “oughts” is the context of this story. Jesus is telling stories to the Pharisees and the scribes. They are good and righteous people who try all the time to do the “right thing.” They are concerned that Jesus consorts too much with sinners and outcasts. These religious leaders, like many of us, are steeped in the shoulds and the oughts. Perhaps, this is actually a story to help them let go of the shoulds and the oughts, and in doing so find their way home to their loving heavenly mother and father. -------------------------------------------- Renowned author and spiritual guide, Henri Nouwen, wrote about his long and intimate connection with the Rembrandt painting “The Return of the Prodigal” which resides in the Hermitage museum in St Petersburg, Russia. Nouwen meditated on the painting during a time of deep questioning, moving from a life in academia to his final vocation, in a community caring for mentally challenged individuals. He was moving from a “head” understanding of faith in the academy, to life with those who rely on their hearts to understand the love of God in Jesus. Nouwen was so taken with the Rembrandt painting that a friend arranged for him to travel to the then-Soviet Union to see the original. This was his entrance into the story of the father and two sons, and to see the parable through the eyes of his fellow Dutch man, Rembrandt. Now, I have had the same good fortune as Nouwen. In the summer of 2015, my family took a trip to Russia and St Petersburg. In the dusky sun of late afternoon, following a beautiful day of sight seeing, Maria, our guide, brought us to the Hermitage. This is the former winter palace of the Tsars and is now filled with artwork Russia had acquired from around the world. We debated with Maria what we would look at in the Hermitage. Perhaps Russian art? “No, that is not what the Hermitage is famous for” she said, “how about some classics?” I’m so glad that is what we chose. We entered a room, and were stunned to find ourselves face to face with famous paintings we had seen in books and on television. It was the Rembrandt room. Maria was well versed on the artist’s time of life and state of mind when each work was created. “The Return of the Prodigal” was painted near the end of his life at age 63. Maria was about to explain the parable, but I stopped her. “We know this story,” I said. In that moment I could understand a little of Nouwen’s feeling for the painting. The scene was familiar to me, and still new at the same time. It shows the moments after the return of the younger son from a foreign land, where he had spent all his inheritance and had been reduced to eating the food of the pigs he cared for. It shows the passionate reunion of the younger son with the father. There is the emotion of the father who believes he has lost his child forever. And the “rock bottom” state of the son, returning, head shorn perhaps from scurvy or lice, ragged clothes slipping off his skinny and grimy body. There are also a number of bystanders witnessing the reunion. The man who stands on the right simply observing, is believed to be the elder son. Luke’s story tells us that the elder son of remained in the fields until the end of the workday, ignoring the commotion of the younger son’s return. But it seems that Rembrandt included the elder in the painting for a sense of completeness. The elder son stands on the outside looking in. He is not included in the embrace of the father and the younger son. His face does not show joy, or even relief at the safe return of his brother. He simply looks aloof and disconnected. Henri Nouwen notes that Rembrandt painted himself in each of the three roles: father, younger son and elder son. There were times in Rembrandt’s life when he could be identified with each of the characters. Nouwen’s meditations also led him to a place of imagining himself in each of the roles. It is hard to believe that a deeply spiritual person such as Henri Nouwen would think of himself as the younger “prodigal” son. And yet, this is the role he had always imagined for himself. Nouwen followed a respectable path into the priesthood of the Catholic church and led a disciplined life. He excelled in academics and was a renowned spiritual guide. Still, he tells of his longing to kneel at the feet of a loving father who is overjoyed to welcome home his lost child. The source of this longing was the message he had absorbed from parents, teachers, friends and the culture as he was growing up. The message said “Show me that you are a good boy. You had better be better than your friend! How are your grades? … These trophies certainly show how good a player you were! Don’t show your weakness, you’ll be used! … When you stop being productive, people lose interest in you! When you are dead, you are dead!” [1] Nouwen paid too much attention to this message, like so many dutiful children, and it led him to a strange and dark land, very far from God. And so he had only ever imagined himself as the younger son, returning to the loving embrace of the father. That was until a friend suggested that he was actually more like the elder son in the story. I can relate. I had always been swept along by sermons that painted a picture of God, like the father in the story, waiting day and night on the porch for the lost child to return. Yes, that’s my vision of God: running down the road to embrace me, anytime I choose to turn back. That’s my longing. Until once I attended a women’s retreat in which the leader took us through the parable. I finally began to see myself as the elder child, just as I am in my family of origin. Yes, my brother was given a significant share of “the inheritance” to compensate for mistakes he had made early in life. Yes, he had broken my parents’ hearts while he wandered. There were times when I was angry over the anguish he caused them. Meanwhile, I faithfully followed the “shoulds” and “oughts” of family life. I achieved what I could achieve, never feeling it was enough. And I had taken the traditional route to career and home ownership, marriage and parenthood. Suddenly, like Nouwen, I could imagine myself in the role of the elder son. The elder son is the dutiful one, the one who is quick to remind his father of the “shoulds” and the “oughts” of his brother’s situation. The brother should not have taken his inheritance and squandered it on selfish pleasures. He should not have left the farm, and all the work, to his older brother. And his father should not have welcomed the wayward brother home as an honored guest. The elder is beside himself with rage and resentment. The father never even spared him a small goat, never gave so much as a birthday party for him and his friends. When Nouwen reflected on the parable with another spiritual friend she reminded him that he was actually closer in age to Rembrandt at the end of his life, than to the sons in the painting. She said “You have been looking for friends all your life; you have been craving for affection … you have been begging for attention, appreciation, and affirmation left and right. The time has come to claim your true vocation—to be a father who can welcome his children home without asking them any questions and without wanting anything from them in return. Look at the father in your painting and you will know who you are called to be.” [2] The final scene of the story is a riotous party, which can be heard out in the fields as the elder son returns from work. There is singing and there is laughter. The younger son, who was once lost, is dressed in the finest robe. The father loves both his sons. And so he goes out and tries to bring the elder one into the celebration for the return of his younger brother. He wants the elder son to return to the family too. There is a longing in the father, beyond the longing to have the younger son home. He longs to have both sons together with him, gathered at the table, for them all to break bread together. Nouwen learned that he was ultimately called to act as the father in the parable. He had outgrown his role as younger son, and he was free to move on from the shoulds and oughts or the elder son’s role. And perhaps this is where we are all being led, to join the host of the party in welcoming home lost children of our mother and father in heaven. In 1996, Henri Nouwen left l’Arche community for the mentally challenged in Canada to make another trip to see the painting in St Petersburg. He was going to appear in a Dutch television documentary about the painting. Nouwen died of a heart attack, in the Netherlands, his home country, en route to St Petersburg. He was on his way home. And so, in hearing this story today, and finding ourselves in it, may we also find our way home. May all God’s people say, Amen [1] Nouwen, Henri J. M.. The Return of the Prodigal Son (p. 121). The Crown Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. [2] Ibid, 22
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