Robert Frost once observed that “home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in ...” Home is where we belong and are welcomed in unconditionally – where we feel safe and secure. Home is the fundamental relationship in our life. Much of our scripture is ultimately about that longing to come home … home where we belong and where we are in relationship with others.
Ultimately, life is based on entirely on relationships … this weekend I've been busy working on my Master Thesis and exploring the definitions of place, community and a relatively new buzz word idea called Social Capital … Social Capital is an intangible, and ethereal concept first envisioned in the late 1980's by a researcher working in the inner city neighbourhoods of Chicago who wondered what it is that binds communities together and gives them a step up when it comes to addressing issues, challenges and problems within them. He noted that frequently in neighbourhoods that lack any sort of traditional capital like money, property, and what economists look to to define a healthy community, - in those places, there was a lot that contributed to the quality of life by the residents in a positive and beneficial way.
Coleman, the researcher began a conversation that since has involved an enormous number of scholars, researchers and students who are constantly defining and redefining the idea of social capital … but social capital at its most basic level is the relationships between people. It is a form of trust that says “I will do this, and in time as a result of the benefit YOU have received, you will be willing to return the favour ...”
The end result – without getting too technical or too immersed in scholarly talk is that Social capital takes many forms and is difficult to predict or define, but when a society has healthy and mutually beneficial relationships between residents who in turn who form networks and social interaction you have not only an abundance of social capital, you also have a community that is able to address many of its challenges and issues itself. A community with strong social capital is a community that can face and overcome almost ANY thing that it faces …
Social capital is the mark of healthy relationships in society … and relationships are what forms communities and gives rise to societies and the values we hold.
Our New Testament story today ultimately is about relationships, and in a remarkable way, it is an example of what can happen when we are open to the ways in which interaction between people teach and inspire us to experience and live the transformative power that arises in moments of challenge …
We know the story of the prodigal son. It is a familiar story that has been repeated and retold in a myriad of ways. We know the characters, we know the out come, we know the jealousies and the resentments, and we know that ultimately, it is about acceptance, and seeing things from the perspective of God and faith, rather then from our own ego … BUT … there is far more to this story, then just the return of the lost son. It is ultimately a story that challenges us to look inward and to think seriously about which character we might be today, and when we might have been another character in a different time and place … When I was a student in University at McMaster, I had a prof who came to studying the New Testament, and more specifically, the life of Jesus from a Jewish point of view. Doctor Reinhartz, was upfront in saying she was a Jew, and she was studying Jesus as a Jew in a Jewish world. As a result, she illustrated and explained many of the teachings of Jesus that were firmly in the Jewish tradition, and whose subtly was lost because we were removed from that tradition by 19 plus centuries of Christian interpretation.
One of the areas Dr. Reinhartz was working in at the time was the role of anonymity in the Jewish Scriptures. She illustrated this idea by citing the many stories in the Old Testament that had anonymous characters in them. Her theory was that the anonymous character allows us to step into the narrative story and experience the events being told in a first hand way.
In the case of the story of Noah and the flood, she would suggest that the unnamed wife of Noah is there so that we as the listener can step into the story and be that person – hearing, seeing, experiencing first hand the events connected with Noah and the ark.
In the case of this parable, no one is given a name – the two sons, and the father are anonymous. It is not a stretch to see them as a template wherein we can place ourselves and experience the events of this story first hand.
This idea was picked up by the theologian Henri Nouwen, who wrote two amazing reflective books on his encounter with the Rembrandt painting of the Prodigal son and his wrestling with it that began in 1983, and continued for a decade and a half … Nowen in his first book – The Return of the Prodigal Son explores the lessons the various characters have to offer as he reflects on the painting, and the familiarity we have the story AND most importantly, the things we might well overlook because of that familiarity.
Nowen places himself in the story and invites us to follow – to see and experience the tale of the prodigal son from the first person perspective … how does it feel to be the father watching his youngest son leave and squander his wealth – something that took a lifetime to accumulate … how does it feel to be the youngest son – to take the money and wealth and squander it only to end up in a place that is about as low as a Jewish person can get – the youngest son found himself thinking about eating the slop he was giving to the pigs … you can't get much lower then tending pigs when you're a Jews – but to be in the place where you're thinking that the pig's food looks good – that's bad …
It is a lesson that would not have been lost on Jesus' listeners … they would catch their breath in that moment and think about where this young man had so foolishly found himself …
Or, how does it feel to be the eldest son – the loyal one who stayed home, worked the land with his father only to watch his brother run off, take his inheritance, waste it, and return home to a party … How would it feel in that moment?
All of this swirls when we read this story … much of it happens unconsciously – so when Nouwen stood before the Rembrandt story and began to think about the image of the bedraggled prodigal son kneeling before his father while the older brother looks on … he began to think of the profound lessons on relationship and faith that are embodied in this image …
The father, filled with love and forgiveness … the youngest son filled with shame and guilt and a longing to come home … and the eldest son filled with resentment and anger and likely bewilderment at how incredibly naïve and stupid his father could be …
All of this lead to a multi-year journey by Nouwen as he repeatedly returned to this image and the multi-layered reflection it offers … so much so, that in the early 1990's he offered a series of reflections on that were made into a book a couple of years ago that continued the reflection on the Prodigal Son and the lessons it offers us …
Nouwen eloquently embraced this process when he wrote in Welcome Home:
“This is an invitation then to see yourself right here and right now in the name of many brothers and sisters, believing that as something moves in you, something may also transpire in those in whose name you live.
This may be new for you, but I encourage you to imagine yourself surrounded first by family and then by loved ones, relatives, friends, acquaintances, business associates, those in your neighbourhood, church, culture, continents, and world. Perhaps some of the circles nearest you aren't easy for you. There are family struggles with spouses, parents, children, brothers and sisters. There are many painful memories and feelings about breakage, losses, and communication struggles. Also, many other people near and far are in your consciousness; some doing well while others languish in poverty, sickness, abuse, violence, loneliness, famine, refugee camps and despair. Bring them all around you, claim your humanity with them, never thinking or growing or speaking or acting just for yourself.
As you progressively become opened to others, allow all you choose in the most hidden places of your heart to be lived for all those who are alive and for those who have died. Gather them and keep them around you. You belong to every other person and to every particle of the universe.
Like a stone thrown into the water, your life has ever-widening circles of relationship surrounding it. Enter the parable with all people in your heart. Call them around you, identify yourself with them, and let your thinking be deeply one with them as you journey into the story.”
The power of the parable is found in it opening doors to the many connections and relationships we have with others … as we wrestle for ourselves with the issues of anger, resentment, guilt, shame, acceptance and all the other emotions that are contained within this brief story about a father and his sons, and the relationships between the brothers – we are connecting ourselves with our own feelings and with the relationships we have with the many circles we are part of … These relationships are the heart of social capital – the heart of our communities – the heart of how and where we connect in the world …
The power of this parable is found in the ability for us to step into the various roles occupied by the characters and to feel for ourselves the emotions and the challenges they are experiencing … we can feel the heart break of the father watching his son leave … we can feel the disdain of the elder son thinking his brother a fool … we can feel the hopelessness of the younger son feeding pigs and being SO hungry that he contemplates sharing in their feast … we can feel the wonder and joy of the father watching his lost son return … we can feel the anger and resentment of the eldest son bitterly watching the festivities and wondering why he had never been accorded such extravagance … we can feel the humility of the youngest son welcomed home … if we pause to listen to this story, it can teach us much …
The heart of our Biblical stories today – all of them – is about being welcomed home – finding a place of belonging where we are loved, cared for and given security … in the story of the Prodigal son, that gift comes to ALL three men … the sons, and the father … it comes in the restoration of relationships among them and between them … and these relationships are the foundation on which EVERYTHING else is build … these relationships are the social capital that under girds and contributes to our families, our churches, our neighbourhoods, our communities and our societies …
And it all begins by seeing our connectedness that comes from our relationships and the transformative power those relationships can bring us … all thanks to the living out of the welcome that bring us home …
May it be so – thanks be to God … let us pray …
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