St. John’s Lutheran Church
30 March 2025 + Lent 4c
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
The Rev. Josh Evans
“Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So he told them this parable…”
Actually, he told them three parables…
(You might have noticed a few missing verses in the citation in your bulletin.)
The first: “Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
And the second: “Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
And then: “There was a man who had two sons…”
There’s the parable of the lost sheep,
the parable of the lost coin,
and the parable of the … prodigal son?
This is perhaps a good time to remind ourselves
that Jesus didn’t speak with story titles
any more than the Greek text of the gospels had subject headings.
Beyond that, it also seems, to me,
to move our attention away from another more striking contrast.
I don’t think this is so much about the sheep
or the coin
or the son –
the ones who get “lost.”
Instead, I’m more drawn to the ones who do –
or maybe don’t do –
the searching.
The shepherd goes out of his way,
leaving behind 99 sheep,
risking his own life as much as theirs
to find the one lost sheep…
And the woman does a deep clean of her whole house,
just to track down one missing coin,
when she still has nine left…
But the father in the next parable…
gives in to his younger son’s demand for his share of the family wealth,
without so much as a second thought,
and he seemingly lets him go –
just like that.
He doesn’t go searching for his son.
He stays home.
Did he worry?
Did he ever wonder what happened to him?
Did he ask the neighbors,
ask around if anyone had seen or heard from him?
Did it keep him up at night,
not hearing from him,
wondering if he was okay?
Did he wonder:
Did he ever think about them?
***
It was the fall of 1983 when Henri Nouwen first saw the painting –
by way of a reproduction poster in a friend’s office:
“I saw a man in a great red cloak tenderly touching the shoulders of a disheveled boy kneeling before him. I could not take my eyes away. I felt drawn by the intimacy between the two figures, the warm red of the man’s cloak, the golden yellow of the boy’s tunic, and the mysterious light engulfing them both. But, most of all, it was the hands—the old man’s hands—as they touched the boy’s shoulders that reached me in a place I had never been reached before.” [1]
About three years later,
Nouwen found himself at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia,
standing before Rembrandt’s massive oil painting –
eight feet tall by six feet wide –
taking in every last detail for hours on end.
Nouwen’s experience with the painting would later inspire him
to write his own reflection on the parable:
“Often I have asked friends to give me their first impression of Rembrandt’s Prodigal Son,” he reflects. “Inevitably, they point to the wise old man who forgives his son: the benevolent patriarch.
“The longer I looked at ‘the patriarch,’ the clearer it became to me that Rembrandt had done something quite different from letting God pose as the wise old head of a family. It all began with the hands. The two 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…
“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…
“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.” [2]
***
Of course he worried.
Of course he wondered every day what happened to him.
Of course he asked the neighbors:
Have you heard anything?
Of course it kept him up at night,
every night.
How often had he looked out the window to catch a glimpse of him?
How many miles had he spent,
pacing along the property line,
looking out into the horizon,
hoping against hope?
The father didn’t go out looking for him –
like the shepherd after his sheep.
He didn’t tear apart the metaphorical house searching for him –
like the woman after her coin.
But he saw him from a long way off.
“I like that image,” Pastor Emmy Kegler writes, “the father pacing the edge of his land, wrinkled hand shielding aging eyes, peering off into the distance where he last saw his second son. He didn’t go after him, but he didn’t stop looking for him.” [3]
He never stopped worrying.
He never stopped wondering.
He never stopped looking.
Until the joyful, celebration-worthy reunion.
Without a second thought,
he runs,
throws his arms around him,
and kisses him.
Without letting him finish his rehearsed apology speech
(did he even hear the opening line?),
he throws a party.
Grace – in the most unexpected places.
Which, when you think about it,
is exactly how grace works.
***
Deep theological truths like that can come to us
by way of a biblical parable,
or by way of a 17th-century painting.
They can also come to us by way of our latest TV binge –
in my case, this past Friday,
with all ten episodes of Mid-Century Modern on Hulu,
described by one critic (Aramide Tinubu) as “a delightful comedy that blends the wit of Will & Grace with the charm of The Golden Girls.” [4]
When happy-go-lucky and occasionally dimwitted flight attendant Jerry
(think: gay male Rose Nylund)
meets the closeted and about-to-be-married Mason on Fire Island,
what happens next is not exactly the hook-up either of them had in mind,
but instead a profound conversation about faith
and growing up gay in the church.
“How can you still be a part of it?,” Jerry asks. “They hate us.”
“Because they’re human, and they’re wrong,” Mason replies.
“But it doesn’t mean that he is.”
“It all kind of seems like a fairytale now,” Jerry admits.
“If it is, it’s a pretty good one,” Mason confesses.
“That there’s something up there that loves us and believes in us.
That everything can be forgiven and fixed.
Every day you get to start over and do it better.
It’s a pretty nice universe to believe in.”
Grace – in the most unexpected places.
***
(No) thanks to modern Bible translators and editors,
we’ve been taught to see this story as the “Prodigal Son.”
The lavish, reckless, extravagant son.
What if instead
we could hear this story as the “Prodigal Father”?
Here is a parent who doesn’t hesitate for a moment
before running towards their child
and embracing them with a tender fatherly embrace
and a strong motherly love.
Here is a God who loves us and believes in us,
who forgives all,
who daily gives us the chance to start again.
Lavish, reckless, extravagant…
prodigal grace.
[1] Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming (New York: Image Books, 1994), 4.
[2] Nouwen, 98-99.
[3] Emmy Kegler, One Coin Found: How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2019), 7.
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Century_Modern_(TV_series), accessed March 29, 2025.
