HELLO!

In 35 years of preaching, no scripture story has provoked so much anger as The Prodigal Son. I once had a family who would ask when this lectionary reading was due to be included in the Christian Year so they would be absent that day. Why you ask? The underlying message of this iconic text is grace, the notion that love transcends the metric we typically use in our western European Christianity, that being “fairness”. When person speak freely, openly and without filters, fairness is the way we typically speak. “She deserves that award”, “He deserves that mention” and “they deserve to be chosen”. The question of need rarely enters the conversation. I remember very clearly a conversation, when I was in politics, with a very wise elected official. We were discussing the need to increase the amounts people living in poverty receive from the government. He responded, “most voters will only support increases of this kind if they benefit too, as they believe it is only fair since they deserve it as well”. I responded, “but they don’t need the benefit”. He concluded, “we are not talking about need, we are talking fairness”.

Nouwen focuses this second chapter on the elder son. Our mainline churches are filled with eldest sons, if not literally then culturally. Many of us have “worked hard, played by the rules” even as others, even siblings, have “frittered away” their inheritance and then returned for more. Many of us have witnessed parents who were stressed by the needs of one of their children, as the others thrived. In Rembrandt’s painting the elder son is depicted as stern, distant. At the time Rembrandt offered this masterpiece he had lost his fortune, was bankrupt. The elder brother has nothing but contempt for him. Not also the posture, the father bends down to the light to embrace the returning younger son, the elder son stands erect, remains in the shadows. Finally, note the hands, the fathers are spread out as a blessing, the elder sons are clasped together.

Nouwen reveals his own “elder son” feelings about this story, how he resents how those who take chances, leave home, and explore are free to do so, while he remains confined, duty bound. “I know, from my own life, how diligently I have tried to be good, acceptable, likeable, and a worthy example for others” and “why do people not thank me, not invite me, not play with me, not honour me, while they pay so much attention to those who take life so easily and so casually?” And finally, what so many of us “elder sons” come to know, “the tragedy is that, often, the complaint, once expressed, leads to that which is most feared: rejection”.

Nouwen reminds us, this Gospel story is part of a larger narrative, where Jesus is confronted by the Pharisees because he eats and welcomes “sinners”. “When Jesus heard this, he said to them, those who are well have no need of a physician but those who are sick” (Mark 2:17). To seek the lost, is to reveal what it is to be found. The father in this story does not compare the sons, does not try to be “fair”, he offers to each what he feels they need, what they need to know. Peace, Kevin

PS If reminded Tuesday night I will share a story about a funeral where I once witnessed several eulogies by the adult children of a well-respected father, and how a son both annoyed his siblings and moved the rest of us so deeply, by revealing what many “elder sons” so desperately crave.