We come today to the third message in the series on the story of the Prodigal Son. My mentor and senior minister while I was in seminary preached on this same parable once each year. I often wondered how he found so many messages in one parable, but I’m beginning to understand. 

Today we look at the father. Sometimes he is called “The Prodigal Father.” The suggestion is that only a foolish “prodigal” father would give his son all his inheritance. The son was wrong to ask, and the father was wrong to give it. Sometimes the parable is called the parable of “The Waiting Father.” I like that title. It means that the real story is not in the son, but in the father. 

The father was wiser than the son knew. He knew his son was not ready for such a large wad of money. There is some evidence that the father in the story was intended to be pictured as a wealthy man. Rembrandt included some of this in his painting, with all of the adornments and jewelry on the father. The father knew the son was impetuous, foolish, prideful and wasteful. He knew the son better than the son knew himself. In 1957 I went off to college to study engineering. I learned later that my father knew ahead of time that I would never make it as an engineer. He didn’t tell me at the time, but he knew. This father knew his son better than the son knew himself. 

The father also knew the temptations of money and friends, especially the temptation to spend a lot of money when one has a lot of friends. There is an anonymous saying that goes, “A fool and his money are soon parted.” The father also knew the consumer mentality of the world. That mentality is fierce and intense today, but it has always been a factor. 

Yet the father loved his son enough to comply with his wishes. He set the son free, even though the father felt a very heavy heart. 

Now I ask you to fast-forward about two years. Can you see the father gazing out on the horizon each morning, hoping to see his son returning home? Can you see him walking down the path to the mailbox each day, hoping to find a letter from the son? Can you see him sitting down on many nights writing a letter that is never sent—pieces of a letter that he hoped to send if he could find out where his son had finally landed? Can you see the father on his knees nightly, praying for his son’s safe return? William Barclay tells of stumbling on his father one night when his father was on his knees in prayer beside the bed. Barclay tiptoed out of the room, thinking to himself, “I know my father is praying for me.” 

God is a patiently waiting father. He knows our weaknesses. He knows our hearts. He knows our fantasies—both the appropriate and inappropriate ones. He allows us to make our mistakes and to go our own way. Still, God waits expectantly for us to return home. 

And so Rembrandt paints the father. Look at him closely. See the details. Again, the painting is somewhat un-Biblical. There is no indication that the father ran to meet the son in this painting. Rembrandt painted the father as a very old man. Could an old man really run to meet his son? 

Rembrandt also paints the old man as almost blind—perhaps with cataracts, perhaps with glaucoma, perhaps with macular degeneration. But if you look closely at the painting you’ll see that the eyes of the father are not focused on his son, but more gazing off somewhere to the right. Henri Nouwen says, “The father recognizes his son, not with the eyes of the body, but with the inner eye of the heart.”[i] There is an inner beauty to the father. There is always an intense beauty to the interior life.  

The father is also dressed in his finest clothing and jewelry. He affords his son a royal welcome. He wears his best red cloak. 

As Henri Nouwen studied the painting, he paid close attention to the hands. I’m not sure I would have noticed any of this. I know that I will never take any great piece of religious art for granted again. I once raced through the Louvre in Paris in about 30 minutes, trying to catch all the highlights. I will never do that again. 

Look at the hands. The light in the painting is concentrated on those two hands. The eyes of the bystanders are focused there as well. The older brother is not looking at the father or the son. He’s gazing down at the hands. So, also, the man who sits behind the older brother. The left hand is strong, muscular. The left hand has strength to hold. The fingers are spread wide apart. The right hand is refined, soft, tender, fingers closed. The right hand lies gently on the boy’s shoulder to caress, to stroke, to console, and to comfort. Nouwen says, “It is a mother’s hand.” Is this not a wonderful illustration of the mother/father aspect of our God? 

There are at least two other drawings of the return of the Prodigal Son by Rembrandt. No artist has done this scene more often or as effectively. Both are interesting. One was painted about 1636 when Rembrandt was in his early 30s. Again the scene takes place at the door of the home. The boy has dropped his walking stick. His face is buried in his father’s cloak. On the right-hand side of this drawing you can see the servants bringing new clothes and new shoes, a ring, as the father has ordered. 

The second drawing is about six years later in 1642. In this drawing perhaps the father has come running to meet the son, or at least walking quickly. It is the father’s walking stick now that is on the ground. A small boy in this particular drawing looks on in some amazement. 

But the painting of our concern in the last year of Rembrandt’s life is the most powerful one. Henri Nouwen writes, “There is enormous stillness in this portrait of God.”[ii] There’s a story of a little boy who was doing some drawing one day. His mother asked him what he was drawing. He said, “I’m drawing a picture of God.” The mother said, “But honey, nobody knows what God looks like.”  

“They will when I’m finished,” replied the boy. 

There is enormous stillness in this portrait of God. Perhaps it raises some questions for us to consider. 

HOW GENEROUS? 

Just how generous is our God? Does God give it all? Does God give all God is and God has? Does God give us our inheritance early? 

The answer is probably “yes.” God has given us a beautifully created garden to care for. God says simply, “Here. This is yours.” Note that we may not be doing such a great job of taking care of the garden. But it is still God’s gift. 

God gives a sense of meaning to our days. I don’t know how important that is to you, but it is exceedingly important to me. I know because of my own faith in God that my life is given meaning far beyond anything else it could have. Not because I’m a minister, but just because I’m a human being.  

God gave Jesus to live among us and to willingly die for God’s dream about what humanity should look like. God gives eternity that can begin right now. 

God is a God of astounding generosity. Some of you may remember a parable about the workers in the vineyard. It’s a story that Jesus told about a group of workers who go to work for a vineyard owner. Some of them work all day, starting at 6:00 in the morning. Some only work one hour, beginning at 5:00 in the afternoon. When the time comes for the pay, they are all paid equally the same. If you know the parable, you may know the key questions that Jesus places in the mouth of the vineyard owner in that parable. He says, “Am I not allowed to do what I wish with what belongs to me?” Or, “Do you begrudge me my generosity?” God is a God of astounding generosity. 

HOW FORGIVING? 

And just how forgiving is our God? The parable implies that God is more forgiving than we can ever know or appreciate. There is enormous forgiveness in our God. This parable suggests that God has no desire to punish His children. Note the words of Jesus: “Quickly, bring the shoes for his feet. Quickly, put clothes on his back. Quickly, bring him the family ring. Quickly, kill the fatted calf and prepare a feast. We’re going to celebrate.” God knows that we are already punished by our own waywardness. The younger son is punished by his outward waywardness; the older son perhaps punished by his inner waywardness—his resentment. 

Again, this is why Luke 15 is considered by some to be definitive. Luke 15 contains the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. Eugene Peterson’s translation of that chapter begins with these words. Before any of the parables are told, he translates Luke this way:

By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes on sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.”  

Then Peterson translates Luke this way.

Their grumbling triggered these three stories…” 

God only has an immense desire to bring His children home. Brian McLaren writes:

No one will force you to enjoy the party at home. But it’s hard for me to imagine somebody being more stubbornly ornery than God is gracious.[iii] 

Something else is clear in this parable and in this setting. God will never throw your past failures back in your face. I can’t imagine the father ever bringing up the son’s decision to leave home after the son returned. God never seems to say, “You know, son, I remember how you disappointed me.” Somewhere in the Scripture there’s a text where God says, “I will remember your sins no more.” 

I can’t even imagine the father being rude to the son. Someone gave me a list of the world’s worst questions—questions like, “Are you asleep?” Another of those questions is this: “You don’t honestly expect me to believe that, do you?” The son comes home to his father. He tells his father his story. One thing the father does not say is, “You don’t honestly expect me to believe that, do you?” 

You can always choose to go somewhere else away from home. God knows the pain and the emptiness that can cause. God wants you home, wherever you may have been. Home is where you find everything you have been searching for. God is the meaning, the solution, the answer, and the joy of this life. 

FINDING THIS GOD 

So the question becomes, “How can I find this God? How can I discover this generous and oh-so-forgiving God? How can I discover and connect with this God? How can I find my way home? I’ve made a mess of my life. I want to be different. How do I find God?” The parable suggests you can start home, but you have to let God find you. Soon the question becomes, “How can I let God find me?” 

Remember the key line in the parable: “He came to himself.” When you recognize who you really are, when you recognize what is really important, when you realize to Whom you really belong, you are on your way home. You are on your way to being found. 

You do not need to let go of your career path. Instead you allow your career path to serve God in some way. You do not need to let go of all of your possessions. You allow your possessions to work for God. You do not need to forego the great celebrations of life. You allow each celebration to incorporate the reality of God. 

“He came to himself, and he started home.” When you begin to think in this new way, when you begin the journey, God will find you and welcome you home. 

When you make the smallest start, the smallest beginning, the slightest turn, God will rush to meet you. God will welcome you. God will put a ring on your finger and shoes on your feet. 

One writer says of this parable, “No one who wants to come home will ever be turned away.” And that, my friends, is the greatest gift that life affords. It is also the greatest story ever told.