Prodigal Sons and Daughters, Part 1

Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

March 21, 2004

(Much of this sermon was interactive, and the narrative reproduced here was invitation to participation of the congregation.)

I believe it was Alfred North Whitehead who remarked that all of Western philosophy is just a footnote to Plato. Well, one might say something similar to that about our passage this morning from Luke. All of the wisdom of scripture, and of 2,000 years of theological reflection amount to not much more than commentary upon this one story. It's all here ‚ the nature of humanity and the essence of God in a few paragraphs of a story so simple that children get it, even grown up children quite distant from parents either human or divine.

It's all here in a story so often-told that it is an implied staple of our popular culture. From Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz to Simba in the Lion King ‚ the themes of the wandering child returning home, of prodigious talent wasted and then restored, of jealousy and of grace and of forgiveness, turn up in the tales our culture tells.

Indeed, the story is told so often ‚ and I mean that even the original Biblical story is told so often that it would come as some surprise to run into someone who has never heard it told, who doesn't hear the ending even as the opening is repeated: "there was a man who had two sons ..."

This story, with its rich detail, is central to our understanding of Christian faith, and, as I have reflected during this Lenten season on our particular understanding of the faith and how we embody it here at Clarendon, I have been struck again with the importance of this signal story.

So I want to do something a bit unusual ‚ for me, at least ‚ and spend two Sundays dwelling with the same text. You will recall at the congregational meeting earlier this year that Session laid before us four mission-driven areas of focus: building on our life together as a community; exploring how we worship and grow spiritually; discerning our call to reach beyond our walls; and reinventing the use our space such that the space and its use more closely reflects the mission of Clarendon Presbyterian Church as a progressive, inclusive and diverse community of faith that welcomes all who are called to explore their faith and doubts here. I hope you recall also that each of our committees of session presented ministry overviews during worship last month reflecting how these mission priorities are enfleshed through the work of the committees.

I hope you will have noticed, also, that our Lenten study has focused on the practices of faith that both shape us as a Christian community and enable us to discover the ways in which God is calling us and leading us toward the church that we are called to be and to become.

On top of all that, I hope you will have noticed that the focus of worship thus far during Lent has been on discerning call; on trusting God's call and claim on our lives even in the midst of change and uncertainty, and on the gospel imperative to choose life: to choose a life of joyous discipleship, of service to the gospel of love and justice, of deep spirituality and of praying with our hands and feet as we follow the Prince of Peace into the public square to be doers of justice, makers of peace and those who humbly walk with the one who came that we might have life and have in abundantly.

All of that review is simply to say that our Lenten journey at Clarendon has been intentional, and it has been pointing toward this one little story. Let me read it now:

"There was a man who had two sons ..."

This is the word of the Lord, thanks be to God.

This morning, I want us to put ourselves into this story, to explore together what it feels like to dwell within its framework, to imagine what it might feel like to inhabit this narrative, and to share deeply with one another what it means to be prodigal sons and daughters.

We're going to do this together not by way of listening to me preach on the text ‚ I'll do that next week. Instead, this morning I want us to put ourselves inside the story. We're going to do that by way of reference to the sketch on our bulletin cover. It's a Rembrandt sketch from the series on which his great painting, Prodigal Son, draws.

Henri Nouwen's wonderful meditation, The Return of the Prodigal Son, [1] is an extended reflection on Rembrandt's masterpiece. Nouwen says there that he first saw the painting at the end of an exhausting period of his life. He saw himself immediately in the painting as the wondering prodigal falling into the embrace of the loving father. He was, he says, "exhausted from long travels, I wanted to be embraced; I was looking for a home where I could feel safe. The son-come-home was all I was and all that I wanted to be." [2]

But as his spiritual journey with this painting continued, he came to recognize himself, after a while, as the older brother. He writes:

Beginning with the simple fact that I am, indeed, the eldest child in my own family, I came to see how I had lived a quite dutiful life. When I was six years old, I already wanted to become a priest and never changed my mind. I was born, baptized, confirmed, and ordained in the same church and had always been obedient to my parents, my teachers, my bishops, and my God. I had never run away from home, never wasted my time and money on sensual pursuits, and had never gotten lost in "debauchery and drunkenness." For my entire life I had been quite responsible, traditional, and homebound. But, with all of that, I may, in fact, have been just as lost as the younger son. I suddenly saw myself in a completely new way. I saw my jealousy, my anger, my touchiness, doggedness and sullenness, and, most of all, my subtle self-righteousness. I saw how much of a complainer I was and how much of my thinking and feeling was ridden with resentment. For a time it became impossible to see how I could ever have thought of myself as the younger son. I was the elder son for sure, but just as lost as his younger brother, even though I had stayed "home" all my life. [3]

Finally, toward the end of his life, as his ministry turned to the Daybreak community of mentally disabled adults in Toronto, Nouwen found himself in the picture one more time. A friend challenged him to look to the painting once again. She said to him, "We, at Daybreak, and most people around you don't need you to be a good friend or even a kind brother. We need you to be a father who can claim for himself the authority of true compassion." [4]

Now there is so much more that could and, no doubt, should be said about the story, about the painting, about Nouwen's meditations on it, but I do not want to paint the entire picture for you ‚ as if I could if I wanted to. I'd rather invite you into it now.

I will lift up one observation that comes from the painting rather than the sketch. In the painting, one of the father-figure's hands in clearly masculine and the other is quite clearly feminine, which underscores the transgendered, if you will, quality of compassion that is central to this story. So, whether you are man or woman, there is a place for you in this story.

Now I'm going to ask you to get into groups of three for the next several minutes; take your bulletins with you, please.

First, we're going to spend a few moments in silence reflecting on the sketch on the cover. Imagine, as you look at this drawing, what it would feel like to be there. Imagine the feelings from the point of view of the different characters.

--- time of silence ---

Now, in your groupings of three, as I read the story again, I'd like you to take a bit of a risk here and actually embody the picture. Choose among yourselves a prodigal child, an older sibling and a welcoming father or mother, if your are able, move to a space in the sanctuary where you've got a bit of room, and pose yourselves in the manner of Rembrandt's drawing. As I read this story, imagine yourself as the character you are posed as: what does it feel like? What thoughts are going through your mind? What should you feel that you don't? What should you not feel that you do?

Let me read the story again:

"There was a man who had two sons ..."

Now I invite you to share in your small group what feelings you experienced, felt or thought about as you imagined yourself in your particular role in this story.

-- a time of sharing --

At different points in our lives, at different places in our own journeys, we spend time, I think, as each of these characters. All of that is part of the journey. If, however, we are on a journey toward belovedness, if our call is toward the life of the beloved, if our call as church is to live into the community of belovedness, then the arc of our journey is toward lives of compassion.

Next week we will explore the risks that such a journey entails, and what it might look like for us ‚ prodigal sons and daughters of the church at Clarendon.

Let us pray:

Gracious and loving God, father and mother of us all, you call us home; and whether we have wandered far or not you stand ready to welcome us into your loving embrace. For that knowledge we thank you. Amen.

Rev. Dr. David E. Ensign