University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

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2. THE FATHER

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

A Sermon by Robert E. Dunham

University Presbyterian Church

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Fifth Sunday in Lent              March 21, 2010

            When we hear Jesus tell this parable, we may think the father is more gracious and forgiving than we would ever be, but generally speaking, we see him as an exemplar of compassion, as a generous and forgiving soul, as someone we might well aspire to emulate. We dearly admire this man. We want to believe that God is like that… at least will be like that to us.  So it is hard for us, I think, to understand why those who first heard Jesus tell the parable found the portrait deeply unsettling, even blasphemous. In their minds this father was not beneficent; he was instead a weakling…and a fool… and hardly worthy to be drawn as a metaphor for God. 

            So, what I hope to do today is explain to you once again why that was so…and to ask you to try to put yourselves in their shoes, so you can grasp something of the power and shock value the parable originally conveyed.  Consider for a moment, then, how a first-century Middle Eastern audience might have heard what Jesus was saying. Their culture was shaped by the land and by the ethos of farming. The land was their life. The land was their connection with the past, their provision for the present, and their legacy for the future. They were a people more rooted in the values of stewardship and trust than of ownership and production, more in the core values of family and community than of the needs or desires of individuals.  There were no property lines, except those remembered and respected by the community… and the work of the farms was a shared, inter-generational enterprise. People relied on each other as neighbors and kinfolk, as there was no machinery to help them build their barns or plant or gather their crops.

            The bonds of family and community were thus held in the highest of honor in Jesus’ time, and within such honorable ties, no one was accorded more respect than the patriarch of a family. At the same time, there were certain traditions and practices, a long-understood decorum, if you will, that governed these heads of households.  They were expected to be faithful and firm, instructing and guiding and, to be sure, controlling their children, but never bowing to them. Patriarchs were to be trustworthy.  They were to uphold and undergird the family and community structures of which they were a part. There were also prohibitions explicit in their tradition, things a patriarch would never do.  A patriarch was never to lend money without witnesses… never to run… never to leave their place at the table when guests were present…never to transfer their property to their children during their lifetime.  Such a transfer was an insult to the father and an affront to the community.  Barbara Taylor says, “When the younger son asks for his share of the family property, he deals his father a double blow. He not only means to break up the estate; he also means to leave his father, who counts on both of his sons to care for him in his old age.”[1]

            In that insult lies the father’s shame, a shame visible not only to his older son, but to the whole community. This patriarch was not firm, as he was expected to be, but weak. He had essentially let his younger son lay siege to the land which was his family’s legacy. He had not insisted on upholding the importance of family or community. It’s hard to imagine what the community would think of him as the word spread, whether they would feel sorry for him or ridicule him.

            Still, when, months later, word comes that the son is back and that he has squandered his inheritance among Gentiles, we can be assured that the community (as well as those who heard Jesus tell the story) would expect the father, despite his earlier display of weakness, to be firm with his prodigal this time.  There was even a Jewish ritual designed for just such an occasion – a quetsatsah observance, prescribed by the Talmud to punish a Jewish child who loses the family inheritance among Gentiles. It involved filling a large earthenware jar with burned corn and nuts and then breaking it in front of the offender and shouting his name aloud to pronounce him cut off from his people.[2]

            But as you all know, there was no quetsatsah observance this time. There is not even a shred of firmness or discipline or patriarchal decorum. Instead, the father is filled with compassion for his son, hikes up his robes and runs… runs!... to greet his son.  It might have been something one might expect a mother of the time to do, but not the patriarch.  Patriarchs did not run, and yet the father runs and kisses his son for everyone to see.

            No doubt when Jesus told that part of the story, his audience – faithful Jews – would have gasped. They would have been horrified.  The father had clearly sacrificed his honor and standing.  He had run like a woman to greet the son who had insulted him, the prodigal who had broken community and family ties for his own selfish desires.  You know the rest: how he called his servants to put a robe and a ring on this derelict son and to slaughter the fatted calf so there could be a great banquet for the entire community, a banquet that everyone but the father seemed to know was in such poor taste …everyone… especially the father’s older son who, when he learned of the plan, refused to come in to take part, yet another insult to the father.

            Now, tradition would say that the only thing the father could do to save face in that moment was to stay seated at the banquet table, to be firm in his resolve to hold the party, regardless of what his older son or the neighbors thought about such a decision. But by now everyone knows that it is not this father’s nature to be concerned with saving face, to care about his honor. All he cares about is his family. And so he goes out to his older son in the same way he had gone out to his prodigal… only he’s not running this time, “because honestly, he’s worn out with these warring, wasteful children of his – of how little it means to them to belong to one another,”[3] of how little it means to them to be reconciled within a family. The father goes out and pleads with his older son to come in and join the party.

            The old man seemed to Jesus’ audience  to be nothing more than an old fool. He seems to care not a whit about honor or dignity or decorum.  All that seems to matter to him is that he show steadfast love and abundant patience and compassion and mercy…to both his children. Then Jesus has the audacity to say to those who hear his parable, that’s the way the kingdom of heaven is.  That’s the way God is.  Jesus said that.  In the context of the tradition in which he told the story, it is no wonder they wanted him gone.  Imagine!  Who would ever want a God like that! Even today, in a far different context, there are some who say that it’s not right – the way this father behaves. They prefer to believe in a God who settles scores, who rewards righteousness and good behavior and punishes those who stray from the requirements. Grace should be available, but only when one truly repents and changes course and demonstrates that repentance over time.  Then God can be merciful.  Even today, unmerited grace has the power to offend.

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            Have you ever seen an image of Rembrandt’s painting, “The Return of the Prodigal Son?”  If not, you can Google or Bing it when you get home, though you won’t be able to get the full effect, of course.[4] The real deal is a large oil painting – eight feet high by six feet wide – which hangs at The Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. Painting near the end of his own life, the 17^th Century artist of the Dutch golden age drew the scene in the contrast of light and darkness, with the disheveled prodigal in the foreground, kneeling in his dusty clothing before his elderly father, who is cloaked in red. The father is leaning over his son and has his hands on his younger son’s shoulders.  What I didn’t notice when I saw the painting was what the Dutch priest Henri Nouwen saw when he studied the work closely.

The longer I look at “the patriarch,” [said Nouwen,] the clearer it becomes to me that Rembrandt has done something quite different from letting God pose as the wise old head of a family. It all began with the hands. The two [hands] are quite different. The father's left hand touching the son's shoulder is strong and muscular. The fingers are spread out and cover a large part of the prodigal son's shoulder and back. I can see a certain pressure, especially in the thumb. That hand seems not only to touch, but, with its strength, also to hold. Even though there is gentleness in the way the father’s left hand touches his son, it is not without a firm grip.

How different is the father's right hand! This hand does not hold or grasp. It is refined, soft, and very tender. The fingers are close to each other and they have an elegant quality. It lies gently upon the son’s shoulder. It wants to caress, to stroke, and to offer consolation and comfort. It is a mother’s hand....

[Nouwen continued,] As soon as I recognized the difference between the two hands of the father, a new world of meaning opened up for me. The Father is not simply a great patriarch. He is mother as well as father. He touches the son with a masculine hand and a feminine hand. He holds, and she caresses. He confirms and she consoles. He is, indeed, God, in whom both manhood and womanhood, fatherhood and motherhood, are fully present. That gentle and caressing right hand echoes for me the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Can a woman forget her [nursing child], feel no pity for the child she has borne? Even if these were to forget, I shall not forget you. Look, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands.”[5]

            That’s the way God is, Jesus said, as he told the parable of the prodigal son. That crazy father with no sense of honor or decorum – the one who values reconciliation and reunion as much as right behavior – that’s the way God is. Given the way the world was in the first-century Middle East, it’s no wonder his hearers wanted Jesus gone.  It was hard for them imagine who would ever want a God like that…hard as that may be for us to imagine.

            But at least for me – one who has been at varying times of his life both the older brother and the prodigal – I am so grateful to be able to lean into the love, faithfulness and grace of God. Indeed, I declare to you what I dearly believe… that

            Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child,

            like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home,

               God is faithful still.[6]