June 16, 2024 | Don Pope
The Prodigal Son
The Return of the Prodigal Son by RembrandtGood morning!
Would you pray with me please?
O Love Devine, we thank you for our time of worship on this Father’s Day. It is a blessing to be in your house with your people. May the messages given here today be meaningful. May the songs that are sung bring joy. And may the words spoken here today, be acceptable to you oh God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Singing:
Home sings me of sweet things. My life there has its own wings. To fly over the mountains, though I’m standing still.
Home, it’s a word or a concept that evokes many different emotions in people. It could be a pleasant memory of an idyllic childhood with parents and siblings. Lifelong friends and acquaintances. A positive time in our lives that we wish could return. It could also bring back not so pleasant memories and illicit angst and anxiety at the thought of going back to a place of difficult times and situations.
Today’s scripture is a story of a homecoming that could have gone either way. On the screen and in your bulletin is the famous painting by Rembrandt of the Return of The Prodigal Son. It is the last of three parables that Jesus tells in Luke 15 as he engages in jousting with the Pharisees. Those being the lost sheep, lost coin and the lost Son.
In researching this sermon, I re-read Henri Nouwen’s book on the Return of The Prodigal Son, which details his love of the Rembrandt painting depicting the story and his very detailed dissection of the painting and what he gleaned from it. Nouwen visited the museum in St. Petersburg where the original resides.
He spent weeks staring at it and offered these words:
“ I felt that if I could meet Rembrandt right where he had painted father and son, God and humanity, compassion and misery in one circle of love, I would come to know as much as I ever could about death and life.”
After reading that, I found that I could look at the image and read the words that I was inspired to come to my own conclusions of what this reading means.
It may be difficult but let’s look at the different characters in this story as we view the image on the screen or in your bulletin.
You can’t see his face in the painting, but I can only imagine the anguish, shame and embarrassment of the younger son returning home. He’s on his knees begging forgiveness. He’s dirty, his clothes are in tatters, his life is in shambles. His uncertainty of how he would be received by his father and the family would be unbearable. We don’t know the actual reason why he left in the first place, we just know from the story his questionable decisions and behavior.
The father on the other hand, is overjoyed at his son’s return and embraces him with loving hands. It’s obvious the joy he feels at the return of his offspring. Nouwen’s analysis of the image of the father is interesting. His left hand shows signs of callouses and hard work, while the right is the opposite. Nouwen describes it as “almost feminine”. Nouwen believed that this was done on purpose by Rembrandt to show both fatherly and motherly love.
Speaking of the Mother, you have to look closely in the upper left corner of the picture but there is a woman painted there and it is believed by many that this could be the mother looking on at the reunion. It’s difficult to see, so you’ll have to use your imagination.
As soon as I saw this, I could almost hear her singing:
Rejoice, rejoice, I found the lost. My son came home, I say rejoice.
The other prominent figure in the red cloak to the right and is believed to be the elder son, which is interesting because the story tells us he was not present at the reunion but out in the fields working. He is out of time. A mystery, we can’t solve today. Rembrandt took poetic license. The elder son doesn’t look happy, and we know from the story, that he confronts his father with his displeasure about the lavish welcome the other son gets.
The father in turn says:
“My son, you are always with me and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again, he was lost and now is found. “
We don’t know what the elder son does after that. Will he come closer and embrace his brother or will he walk away in disagreement? Since I’m a glass half full person, I say there is much rejoicing and reconciliation at some point.
The other two characters are believed to be servants. It’s uncertain why they’re even in the painting.
I’d like to switch gears here and talk about Father’s Day in relation to the story.
Today is Father’s Day. The day that we recognize those individuals that we hold dear in our hearts as Fathers or Father figures. Some are Fathers, some dads. I believe there’s a difference. Some are called Mother, Aunt, Uncle or even sister and brother. Father figures come in all different shapes, sizes and genders.
Parental and offspring relationships can be loving and supportive. They can also be challenging and difficult, as we’ve witnessed in the parable. I am sometimes envious of others who tell wonderful stories of their fathers. Although it’s not healthy to compare one family dynamic to the other as circumstances are different from one to the other. The Pope family dynamic wasn’t exactly out of Ozzie and Harriet.
My own relationship with my father is a bit of a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde story. As a young person I have great memories of my father helping me with scout projects, teaching me to ride a bike and going to a Yankee game in 50’s. My teen years and into my 20’s was a different story. There were some challenging times for all of us. My father had his flaws, as do we all. I came to terms with that much later in life and did my best to be the kind of parent that would love and support unconditionally.
Fathers, sons and daughters, parents and children. It can get complicated at times but if there is love at the core of it all, it’s ok. The love in this house of worship is always apparent, whether it’s a kind word between friends, a smile, a loving look or a patented Holmdel UCC hug from a friend. That’s what we do here. We love and welcome, unconditionally. It doesn’t matter if you’re new or if you’ve been here your entire life. You are loved and welcomed here.
So, returning to the story, what does it all mean?
Is it as simple as a nice story of a homecoming or is it a divine voice of love speaking to us in the hidden parts of our soul?
Was there a complete reconciliation of the brothers and a happy ever-after-ending?
Jesus leaves us hanging with an incomplete resolution to the story. He lets us draw our own conclusions. As Nouwen says: “the fact that the parable is not completed makes it certain that the father’s love is not dependent upon an appropriate completion of the story”.
The Father expresses his love for the prodigal by welcoming him back, no strings attached and with great joy. He expresses his love for the elder son with his statement that all that he has is his and always has been.
There is so much to unbundle in this story, and I struggled to find the right words to conclude this talk.
The overwhelming message we can take from the story is the love of a parent is in most cases, unconditional. No matter the circumstances of separation, there is love in the many forms that it takes.
I know I’ve quoted the book several times in this message, but I believe Henri Nouwen says it best in this passage that really struck home for me. Once I read it, I knew it was the perfect statement to end with.
Nouwen writes:
“The parable of the prodigal Son is a story that speaks about a love that existed before any rejection was possible and that will still be there after all rejections have taken place. It is the first and everlasting love of God who is Father as well as Mother. It is the fountain of all true human love. Even the most limited. Jesus’ whole life and preaching had only one aim: to reveal this inexhaustible, unlimited motherly and fatherly love of God and to show the way to let that love guide us in our daily lives. In his painting, Rembrandt offers us a glimpse of that love. It is the love that always welcomes home and always wants to celebrate.”
Thanks be to God and Happy Father’s Day. Amen.