Choosing Foolishness

Laetare Sunday

Joshua 5: 9a, 10-12: "I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you."
2 Cor 5: 17-21: Be reconciled to God!
Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32: "But now we must celebrate and rejoice.."

(I am very grateful to Barry Sons, and to Chris and Linda Booker--the owners of the painting--for permission to use his painting "Waiting for the Prodigal Son" in the blog this week.  I would encourage you to visit the site to see this work, and Mr. Sons' other work.)


If you run "the prodigal son" on Google images, the results are amazing: about 621,000 images in 0.22 seconds.  I have to admit that I barely remember, though we are all at home with Google now--I can barely remember the cyber-world without it!--that I am still in awe of such results.  Anyhow, not only is the quantity impressive, but the array is as well.  Most, of course, are renderings of the moment we most immediately remember: the great reunion...the son humbling himself before the father...the father bowed down to raise the son up to himself.  I would estimate, just from a flip through the first couple of pages of results, that the most common image is the Rembrandt, as well it might be; it is beautiful.  But the problem with most of the images is the problem with the story: they are so familiar...too familiar.  I read the story and I know it so well that I miss the good news.  And that is sad, for it really is good news!

Among the many images, however, there is one that is truly different: Barry Sons' "Waiting for the Prodigal Son."  It is striking in its simplicity--a slightly abstracted, somewhat impressionist landscape.  A road runs into an autumning landscape to a misty horizon.  It is morning, or evening, or sometime in between.  There is no one on that road.  There is no hint there ever will be.

Since I first spotted this painting, I have been thinking a lot about who's view this might be;it is most likely the father's of course, but it could be the son's--either of them.  For each of these characters has an experience of waiting in the story.  And the painting looks so different through each set of eyes.  The empty road holds a brightness, perhaps, for the father, though one cannot ignore the passing of time, the falling of each leaf. It holds a question for the younger son: there is an end to his journey hidden in that mist, and it was perhaps spring when he first set out.  And there is a gathering of consequences for the elder one, an already troubling problem: what to do when that one returns?

But I am convinced that these were the only eyes for whom the scene was painted.


There are, after all, our eyes--mine and yours.  How we look down that road says so much about us, so much about how we receive this story...how we will really receive this story.  We all know how the story is supposed to end, but it is so much up to us to bring it to the conclusion that Jesus asks of us.  We are the ones who have to make the story real, the ones who have to look down that road and deal with the issues--our issues.

The setting of this story in the Gospel of Luke is critical to our understanding what the Lord is really asking of us.  The scribes and the Pharisees again condemn Jesus for hanging out with tax collectors and sinners.  So he tells them not one, but three parables, each familiar to our ears: the Parable of the Lost Sheep, the Parable of the Lost Coin, and the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  But the first two stories begin with explicit questions: What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? and : Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house searching carefully until she finds it?

The truth is that none of us would waste our time on these fruitless tasks.  The foolish shepherd would lose all his sheep to save the dumb one who didn't know enough to stay with the flock.  The foolish woman would waste all her time to find the coin, and then spend so much more again to entertain her friends.  No, the lost sheep is a nuisance, and lost coins generally turn up.  It is not so much that we would be well rid of them, it is just that they are not worth that sort of time and effort.

It is only when we admit what our true answers would be that the Parable of the Prodigal Son begins to challenge us; when we admit our own hard and calculated responses we learn that the parable is more the story of a miracle than a fable.

The truth is that the Prodigal has left, and there is no hope of his returning.  That road is so empty.  And yet, the old man, getting older with each day, with each falling leaf, through hours unending, watches.

The truth is that an empty road stands before the Prodigal, asking him to journey on it, trusting as best he can, an unseen outcome.

The truth is that there is a lost brother out there somewhere, and everything will depend on how the elder child--the righteous one--receives the Prodigal.

We are each of these characters.  And we--we alone--have the power to make Jesus' story real.

For only when we look down that road with loving, compassionate yearning, can the Prodigal come home.

And only when we look up that road with trust--real trust, not the I-already-know-the-end-of-the-story trust, which is not trust at all--with the trust that tells us the truth about ourselves--that we are the prodigal, that we do not deserve what we are asking, no matter how good and manipulative our little pre-prepared speeches are--that the father can receive us.

And only when we face the hard decision that we have to make--the real and consequential choice that we can keep this sin alive forever or we can walk into the banquet and rejoice in the return of the sinner--well, it is just that simple.

And each one of those choices is foolish, utterly foolish.  As foolish as leaving ninety-nine sheep to save one.  As foolish as wasting time and effort to find a coin and then squander everything to celebrate the finding.  Everyone knows the answers: that Prodigal should be dead to the father, at least as a son; the Prodigal should get on with his life, either to find his own success or whatever; and the elder brother should tell that doddering fool of a father what he really thinks--he is right, after all.

And the frightening truth--which is the only context in which to understand the Gospel--the Good News--is that God chooses none of these sensible, responsible alternatives.  God chooses foolishness.

And he asks us to do exactly the same.

Only in choosing foolishly to look for the lost sheep and the lost coin, to wait for the Prodigal who will never return, to go up the road to face the truth about ourselves, to go into that feast over all our correct objections--only in choosing these do we take the first steps on our own journey home. Home, indeed, with a sad hard truth: I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I no longer deserve to be called your son, your daughter...a truth, which peculiarly sets us free (John 8:32), free at last to face the truth about ourselves, free at last to go home.

Home to a Father who awaits us.

Home to a Father whom we have come to resemble in the choices we make.

Home to a Father for whom the party will never begin until we are all there...all of us.

AMDG