The Younger Son Leaves
The Return of the Prodigal, prt. 1
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
February 13, 2011
Good to be back with you again. Great baptism and membership service last week, wasn’t it? Members of Wildwind, I want to remind you again to look carefully at those commitments you have made to this church. Our ministry is growing and things are going well, yet we are dealing with the very real challenges of building ownership. These first few years are going to be tight as we pursue projects that have been long-neglected and are simply going to have to be done. Take a look at what you are giving and how faithfully; look at where and how you are serving; look at your faithfulness in small group life. And of course continue pursuing a contemplative life with God – a life structured around peace and quietness and solitude and prayer. That is the community we wish to build together, and our members must be always moving forward in regard to that community. Non-members and those of you who have not been baptized, I want to remind you again that we are called to no work greater than the work of baptism – that is to say, bringing people into the fellowship of those who have been baptized into Christ. We invite all of you who have not been baptized to make this a high priority. And we invite those who have not yet become members of the church to attend Discovery, learn about the church, and step into this special bond with us. You do not have to and you will be completely loved whether you do or not. But we hope we can help you realize why it matters and why you are needed.
Today we introduce a new series called The Return of the Prodigal. Perhaps out of all Jesus’ parables, there are none more compelling than the parable of the prodigal son, found in the 15th chapter of the gospel of Luke. In that chapter, Jesus tells stories about three lost things – a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son. They are all powerful stories, but the parable of the prodigal son goes into the greatest detail. Because it does, there are more places where you can see yourself, and I can see myself.
You will have more than one teacher in this series. Allow me to introduce you to them. The first teacher will of course be Jesus. Jesus is the one who told the story of the prodigal son so naturally everything goes back to him. The second teacher will be the great painter Rembrandt. Toward the end of his life, Rembrandt painted a giant painting, inspired by Christ’s parable of the prodigal son, and the painting is called The Return of the Prodigal Son.
Our third teacher will be Henri H.M. Nouwen, a beloved spiritual writer, a priest, and a professor at Yale, who died in the mid-90’s. Inspired by Christ’s story, and by Rembrandt’s depiction of the story in his painting, Nouwen wrote a book called The Return of the Prodigal Son, and his influence will be very deeply felt in this series. The fourth teacher will be yours truly. My job in this series will be to package together the insights from the parable, the painting that was inspired by the parable, and the book that was inspired by the painting and the parable, and make them accessible to you, while adding a few challenges, thoughts, or conclusions of my own. And there is of course one more teacher, and that is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the bridge between a story in a book, a painting in a frame, a story about the painting about the story, and YOU! The Holy Spirit is the bridge between all of this material and the life you are living at this moment. You don’t need to be fixed. You don’t need to live according to my preaching. But you do need to keep turning inward in this series and asking, “God, what do you want? What are you saying? Where can I find you in my reactions to the sermon, to the parable, to the book, and to the painting?”
It is February. It is well and good in the month of February that we should preach and hear sermons about love. But we’re going to do something a bit different this month. Instead of hearing about the imperfect love of our spouses for us, or focusing on how imperfect our own love still is, I want to spend the month of February talking about God’s perfect love. And not only God’s perfect love but about you and I, who are the objects of that love. And how we each have left the Father, left the house of love, and squandered all that the Father has given us on pointless projects, pursuits, plans, and pleasures. We’ll look at the younger son’s choice to leave home, at his life away from the Father, at his choice to return home, and at both the Father’s response, and the elder son’s response, to the younger son’s homecoming. If the Holy Spirit is working in your life right now regarding God’s great love, if that is something that is tugging on your heart, you will come to understand God’s great love for you in a new way. You will understand how Christ is not only the Father in this story, but Christ is also the younger son, and Christ is also the elder son. You will probably identify strongly with either the younger son or the elder son (and this is good), but you will also learn how your call is ultimately a call to become the father – to become the one who forgives, who welcomes home, who loves without exception, and who lays healing hands upon all the prodigal sons and daughters of the world. If you are receptive, this story in Luke 15 will leap off the page and make a permanent impression in your mind, your heart, and your life.
There, that is our syllabus for this course on the parable of the prodigal son! Now that you know what we will be learning, and from whom, let us begin in earnest. I want to start by reading the parable. This may well be the only time I do this, as the parable is rather long, and we will focus on certain portions of it each week. But let’s give it a full listen. It will not be on the screen, as I am inviting you to just listen. Try not to let your mind wander, but visualize what is happening as I read. See faces, see the action, see emotions in the eyes of the characters. Enter in.
Luke 15:11-32 (NIV)
11 Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons.
12 The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.
13 "Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country...
This is primarily what we will focus on this morning, but let us read the rest of the story.
13 "Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.
14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need.
15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs.
16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17 "When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!
18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.'
20 So he got up and went to his father. "But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
21 "The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'
22 "But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate.
24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.
25 "Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.
26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.
27 'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.'
28 "The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.
29 But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.
30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'
31 "'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.
32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'"
This story, really, begins with leaving. Even the name, The Return of the Prodigal Son, indicates that leaving has already happened. Someone was someplace, then they left there, then they went back again. The story is about returning, but we only return someplace after we have already left. It is easy to miss this, but this request the younger son makes to have his share of the inheritance while his father still lives is – in this culture – equivalent to wishing the father dead. Is it an insult, a slap in the face. It is an affront to the Father’s love and dignity.
Some of you already knew this, but did you know that by law, even if the parent DID grant the inheritance, he still had a legal right to live off of it? One could take it if it was given, but one could not remove it from availability to the parent. But of course the son not only asks for his share of the inheritance, but then packs his things and takes off. So the son’s request is a rejection of the father, his leaving is a cruel rejection of his father’s values and the values in which the father has trained and raised and brought up his son. Luke writes simply that the son, “left for a distant country.” This is not sight-seeing, it is rejection of home, of family, of community, and of culture. It is a radical break with the stream of tradition of which he is a part. Up until now he has belonged someplace in every sense of that word, but now he has chosen to no longer belong and to drive a massive wedge between him and everything that could ever have held him close to home, close to the love of his father, close to the faithful friendship of his friends and community.
So the geographic leaving points to a much deeper leaving. In Nouwen’s words, leaving home is “a denial of the spiritual reality that I belong to God with every part of my being...Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home and must look far and wide to find one.”
And Nouwen defines home as “the center of my being where I can hear the voice that says: ‘You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests’ – the same voice that speaks to all the children of God and sets them free to live in the midst of a dark world while remaining in the light.”
That’s home. Home is the place where you are assured, and you know, that you are home. Home is the place where you know you belong. During any moment in your life when you cannot hear that voice, or when you are unable to heed its words, you are not home. You are in a distant land. You have wandered away and are squandering the father’s riches in a desperate attempt to get what you already have. Do you know how I like to define home? You know you are home when you are no longer trying to get there, and as long as you are trying to get there, you are not home. Think deeply about that. You know you are home when you are no longer trying to get there, and as long as you are trying to get there, you are not home. That’s why God said to us,
Psalm 46:10 (NASB)
10 "Cease striving and know that I am God.
Be still. Stop looking. When you stop looking, when you are still, you will know that you are home. The far country is the looking – the sense that there must be something else. The sense that I must have this or that. That IS the far country. That IS the place where you do not, and cannot hear the voice of the Father that says, “You are home.”
No doubt the prodigal believed the world beyond his father’s home offered something that the father did not. No doubt he believed that he would be missing something if he didn’t go out and explore it. No doubt while he was in the home of his father, he didn’t have a clue how home he really was. He was drawn away not by voices that whisper you are home, but by the many voices that say, “I’ll show you home – spend the night in my bed.” “I’ll show you home – drink this.” “I’ll show you home – achieve these things.” “I’ll show you home – buy this.” “I’ll show you home – say this creed.” “I’ll show you home – go to this church.” They are all the places we seek. “I’ll show you home – it’s right here.” So we try it, find it’s not home, and look elsewhere. But home is where seeking is not necessary. When we are truly at home, we are at rest. We are not seeking and striving. Nouwen writes, “Faith is the radical trust that home has always been there and always will be there.”
Very, very early in life, we hear the voices calling us away from home. Parents, friends, teachers, colleagues – perhaps especially the mass media. They say, “Show me how good you are.” “you’re not as pretty as her.” “How are you going to get through school?” “Why wouldn’t you own a beautiful car?” “Don’t show weakness, you’ll be used!” “What connections do you have?”
As long as we know we are beloved, we can hear this for the well-meaning concern it usually is. But when we cannot hear the voice of love calling to us any longer, these mostly innocent suggestions start dominating our lives and pull us into the “far country.” We can know when we are in the far country. Obvious signs that we have left home are things like anger, resentment, jealousy, desire for revenge, lust, greed, antagonisms, and rivalries. Our faith that we are the beloved is weak. We need reassurance. We’re so afraid of being disliked, blamed, cast aside, ignored, and persecuted that we are constantly developing strategies to defend ourselves and assure ourselves of the love we think we need and deserve.
Nouwen writes, “Many of my daily preoccupations suggest that I belong more to the world than to God. A little criticism makes me angry, and a little rejection makes me depressed. A little praise raises my spirits and a little success excites me. It takes very little to raise me up or thrust me down. Often I am like a small boat on the ocean, completely at the mercy of the waves. All the time and energy I spend in keeping some kind of balance and preventing myself from being tipped over and drowning shows that my life is mostly a struggle for survival: not a holy struggle, but an anxious struggle resulting from the mistaken idea that it is the world that defines me.”
Seeking for ourselves, for our fulfillment and identity in sex, wealth, power, status, admiration – this is life in the distant country. Nouwen says, “I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found.” Of course this is mostly where we all seek it – in places where it can never be found. So we are endlessly hungry. Endlessly unfulfilled. We are left feeling endlessly unloved, while the father who loves us waits for us patiently to return. God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but they decided it would be cool. They could handle it. So they left their father’s home and struck out in independence. Beneath all the efforts we are making to create a life apart from God is what Nouwen aptly calls “the great rebellion” – the radical NO to the Father’s love.
Let’s conclude by looking closely at the painting for a moment. Please look carefully at the painting as I speak our final words for today’s message. Nouwen points out that in this painting he sees not simply a compassionate gesture toward a wayward child. He sees the end of the great rebellion. It is when the one who has left home, who has shunned the love of the father, returns home. And not only returns, but returns to discover what he never knew before – that he was loved all along – that the place he left in order to find love was the only place where true love will ever be known.
We are each created and born in the vast and permanent and unconditional love of God. And we each, at some point, say a no to that love and set off on our own to seek what, ironically, can only be found in that seemingly boring place called home. But it is there, and only there, that we can find what we most crave. So for each of us, eventually, the return must happen. The father loves us enough to let us leave, even though he knows the pain it will surely bring to both him and to us.
Nouwen writes: Here the mystery of my life is unveiled. I am loved so much that I am let free to leave home. The blessing is there from the beginning. I have left it and keep on leaving it. But the Father is always looking for me with outstretched arms to receive me back and whisper again in my ear: “You are my Beloved, on you my favor rests.”
