By: Pastor David Grousnick
The Religious Ed teacher read the story of the Prodigal Son to his class, clearly emphasizing the resentment the older brother expressed at the return of his brother. When he was finished telling the story, he asked the class, “Now who was really sad that the prodigal son had come home?”
After a few minutes of silence, one little boy raised his hand and confidently stated, “The fatted calf.”
Henri Nouwen, a Dutch theologian and writer, once toured St. Petersburg, Russia, the former Leningrad. While there he visited the famous Hermitage where he saw, among other things, Rembrandt’s painting of the Prodigal Son.
The painting was in a hallway and received the natural light of a nearby window. Nouwen stood for two hours, mesmerized by this remarkable painting. As he stood there the sun changed, and at every change of the light’s angle he saw a different aspect of the painting revealed.
He would later write: “There were as many paintings in the Prodigal Son as there were changes in the day.”
It is difficult for us to see something new in the parable of the Prodigal son. We have heard the story so many times we believe that we have squeezed it dry of meaning.
Yet, I would suggest that just as Henri Nouwen saw a half dozen different facets to Rembrandt’s painting of the Prodigal Son, so too are there many different angles to the story itself. So, let’s look at the other prodigal son.
The prodigal son himself is well known to us all. Restless, impatient for his future happiness, he comes and demands from the father that which he thought was rightfully his.
He took his money and journeyed to a far country where he wastes it. He wastes the money, wastes his life, and finally ended up doing the most indignant task that a Jew could do – the feeding of swine.
It was then that Jesus says that he came to himself. He arises from his situation and goes back to the father to ask to be a servant in his household. And even as he was a long distance away the father saw him and ran out with outstretched arms to greet him. As the story concludes we have the makings of a grand homecoming party.
So where are we at parable’s end? Are we inside the party celebrating? Or are we standing outside with our arms folded, refusing to come in? Jesus will not tell us how this story will end.
The father passionately invites the older son inside, “pleads with him” to join in the welcome. Curiously, however, we are never told what the older brother decides to do. The story ends but it doesn’t end.
In a world where God does not play fair, this parable forces us to make a choice. Who is the real “prodigal” here? Who is the real “waster”? From the beginning Jesus says that this is a story about two brothers. Which one is the authentic prodigal? Which one has yet to come home to the Father’s extravagant love?
Let me share a true story. Back in 1893 there were a group of four sisters. The Cherry Sisters they called themselves, who made their stage debut in Cedar Rapids in a skit they wrote themselves.
For three years, the Cherry Sisters performed to packed theaters throughout the Midwest. People came to see them to find out if they were as bad as they had heard. Their unbelievably atrocious acting enraged critics and provoked the audience to throw vegetables at the would-be actresses.
Wisely, the sisters thought it best to travel with an iron screen which they would erect in front of the stage in self-defense.
Amazingly, in 1896 the girls were offered a thousand dollars a week to perform on Broadway – not because they were so good, but because they were so unbelievably bad.
Seven years later, after the Cherry Sisters had earned what in that day was a respectable fortune of $200,000, they retired from the stage for the peaceful life back on the farm.
Oddly enough, these successful Broadway “stars” remained convinced to the end that they were truly the most talented actresses ever to grace the American stage. They never had a clue as to how bad they truly were!
The Prodigal parable does not tell us what the elder brother did when his father came out to speak to him. It doesn’t reveal to us whether he realized that his envy and disdain had made him just as bad as his younger brother.
Yes, the elder brother had never stooped to find himself in the pigpens of life. He would never have been caught dead carousing with prostitutes or wasting his resources in riotous living but in the end his refusal to rejoice at the return of his sinful brother was, to Jesus, just as offensive.
The tragedy was that he never realized just how bad HE truly was!
Have you been a Prodigal? Then know that this is precisely how much God loves us – always welcoming us home. Jesus says through this parable, “That’s how God loves us.”
David Grousnick, is the Pastor at the First Christian Church in Artesia.
