The Younger Son Returns
The Return of the Prodigal, prt. 2
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
February 20, 2011
Well, as you know, it’s February. And if you were here last week, you heard me say that we’re talking about love and about relationship this month. But it’s not about love between human beings and it’s not what we would call romantic love. Instead we want to look closer at the love of God for each of us. To do this we are using Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. That parable inspired a painting by Rembrant, which inspired a book by Henri Nouwen so in this series we are drawing insights from all of these places to come to better understand the love of God.
Let’s look at our text for today.
Luke 15:11-20 (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 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.
Let’s look at the painting for a moment.
Look at the condition of the young man who is held and blessed by the Father. He has left the Father’s house with arrogance, with money, determined to find a great life for himself. He has returned with nothing. Scripture portrays him in desperate straits, starving, longing to eat even with the pigs. Look at him portrayed by Rembrandt. His head is shaved (lice? fleas?). Of course we don’t know for sure whether the man’s hair was really shaved or not, but the symbolism is rich. This man has used money to acquire status and friends and women for himself, but when he runs out of money, there go also the status and friends and women. He is a nobody. Anybody ever notice that guys like me with a beard and goatee tend to look quite a bit alike? Hair is a major way that we distinguish people from one another. It is obvious, and when the hair is gone, we have to look for finer things to distinguish people. It becomes harder to tell them apart. So this man who was on top of the world is now a non-player. The father and the man standing tall observing are both wearing cloaks, but the kneeling son is dressed in what were at the time just underclothes, and Rembrandt somehow (I don’t understand drawing or painting at all) managed to paint these clothes looking thin and worn out. They are barely covering him. He’s wearing a giant rag. His left foot is missing a shoe, and is scarred, and he only has half of his right shoe. He has lost everything.
But if you look on his right hip, you’ll see the one thing he hung onto. He still has his sword. This is the sign of his sonship. This reminds him who he belongs to. As hungry as he has been, he has never sold this sword, though he could have made much money off of it. Again, this is not mentioned in the parable, but Rembrandt is trying to show us something critical. Jesus says that the day comes when the young man says, “What am I doing out here? Even my father’s hired hands have it better than I do.” That sword represents his true identity. That sword reminds him, “You are the son of your father.”
Nouwen points out that although Jesus describes that the man is desperate, and Rembrandt paints his poverty vividly, we cannot see what inner damage has been done to this man. But Nouwen reminds us that we do not have to see it. We already know. He writes, “The farther I run away from the place where God dwells, the less I am able to hear the voice that calls me the Beloved, and the less I hear that voice, the more entangled I become in the manipulations and power games of the world.” And then, in detail I found to be almost shattering, Nouwen goes on to write about the process of becoming lost and alienated from our Father. He captures succinctly a process that may happen over a period of years, but will inevitably happen when we find ourselves in a distant land. (Read marked section on pg. 47 in book)
This is where the younger son finds himself. In that moment, where he is completely lost, when the girls and the money and the friends are gone, and when he isn’t even considered deserving of the pigs’ food anymore, he was brought to his senses. And what brings him back? The rediscovery of his deepest self. That sword still hangs on his hip. He still belongs to someone. He is cared for by someone. Someone misses him. Someone knows his name. He has lost everything. Except for one thing. And that one thing is the thing that matters most. He is still his father’s child.
And so he returns. That’s the moment it happens. Sure he hasn’t gone home yet, but he has returned. He remembers the sword on his hip. He remembers his name. He remembers the place he has left. He says, “I will go to my father and tell him I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” He realizes he has lost the dignity of his sonship but he also realizes that he is indeed the son who had dignity to lose.
And so the son chooses life. That’s a choice we each must make.
Deuteronomy 30:19-20 (NIV)
19 ...I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live 20 and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life...
Nouwen points out that Judas betrayed Jesus and Peter denied him. Both were lost children. But Judas sold his sword. He could not hang onto the truth that he remained God’s child. Jesus still loved him, you know. And Judas couldn’t bear it. But Peter hung on to his sword in the midst of his despair. He remembered who he was, who he belonged to. Peter chose life, Judas chose death. This is the choice you and I must make, and we must make it over and over again. Our great temptation is to wallow in our lostness. It is easy to lose touch with our God-given goodness, and our basic blessedness, and allow the powers of death to take charge. It is easy to forget that we have a home, and that the Father waits there. We forget this every time we say to ourselves, “I am no good. I am useless. Worthless. Unlovable.” Many people live in this place. They usually don’t kill themselves physically, but spiritually they are dead. Once we give up faith in our original goodness and blessedness (because that’s how we were created by the Father), we give up faith in the Father as well. But when God created the world, when God created man and woman in his own image, he said it was very good, and despite whatever the dark voices may whisper to you about your value, they cannot change that. You are good. Yes you are fallen. Yes you have left home. Yes you have disgraced yourself and been foolish. Yes, there have been consequences to you and to people you love. And to God. Yes, you are humiliated and broken and embarrassed. And yes, you are still a dearly loved child of your Father. Say it with me and if you struggle to remember it, pretend you’re singing the song we do here.
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship, or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future nor any powers, neither life, nor death, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8)
“For you created my inmost being. You knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Your works are wonderful... (Psalm 139)
But you must choose life. You must choose it over and over again, even as the dark voices whisper to you that you have failed, that you are a hypocrite, that you are unloved and unlovable, that you never really had a home to begin with. The choice, at every moment, is yours. And the choice is always toward either life or toward death. Choose life.
