The Return of The Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming
by Henri J.M. Nouwen
It was a long week. I had worked several days straight through. I was cramming for a test adding undue pressure to myself. I was waiting for my relief at the nursing home to hurry up. They were late. Yet again. This was beginning to become the norm for them. I loved working with Alzheimer’s and Dementia patients. My fathers side was plagued with mental disease. He was a manic bipolar depressant and my grandfather was a victim of Parkinson’s. However, tere was one patient at the facility that was always difficult for me. It was basic knowledge that he preferred the female aides to help him. My relief came and I bolted. Before I could get home I received a call from the charge nurse that the supervisor on duty (and my stepsister) and the other aide on duty (her girlfriend) had filed a report that I had physically abused the difficult patient. It didn’t help that the complaint was expedited because the charge nurse was the girlfriend’s mother. Not sure what I would do with this recent suspension I spent the rest of the day just trying to keep myself busy with distractions. I attended a yoga class, ate out with friends, just enjoyed a day off. Then about 11 that night I received a call that would haunt me ever since. It was my cousin letting me know that he was supposed to go to my dad’s house to watch the Nebraska football game with him, but when my cousin arrived he found my father face down on the carpet. He passed away from chronic heart failure. So now I’m jobless and my father was gone. The next day I was numb. The shock still hitting me. The Executive Director of my facility said that she found the charges against me preposterous but not to be surprised if the State performed an investigation. Numb and uncaring I said let them, and quit. She said she understood. I went into healthcare ager my dad’d bipolar had gotten worse. He was gone my interest in healthcare was gone. I tried a few side jobs but had zero passion in them. I withdrew from hanging out with friends.
Then the city of Wichita was ablaze as the Wichita State Shockers were doing phenomenal in the NCAA tournament. At an outdoor bar I ran into a friend who’s father also had mental problems, though her father was declining due to Alzheimer’s. We talked as the game went on. She convinced me to apply as a busier at the restaurant where she was a server. It was a fine dining restaurant. During the interview my magnetic personality shined through and though I applied for a mediocre behind the scenes position I was hired as a server. Within six months I found myself the most magnetic personality, topping nearly every sales metric. If not for the conversation during that basketball game, my mourning and immediate future may have been very different. There is something special in these seemingly insignificant moments. It was during my tenure as a server there that I realized the calling that had left me several years prior as a writer and scholar of theology and philosophy. If not for that game I would not be writing this. Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming is his telling of one such moment in his life.
He opens up the book talking about he had become stagnant in his pastoral position. Yes even those spreading the Gospel go through down and out periods. During this time and as he worked with those mentally handicapped he would become introduced to Rembrandt’s painting portraying Jesus’ telling of the Prodigal Son. He was able to see the painting from a poster copy to the real painting. He dedicated the next few years to learning everything e could about it. This “Aha!” moment with a painting would paint how Nouwen viewed life and colored his faith. It was the renewing he was looking for. After the small narrative of his introduction to the painting he goes back and forth between talking about the parable, Rembrandt’s process of the painting, and Nouwen’s own spiritual implications of the new understanding of perhaps the most famous parable. He goes explains all three by dissecting the characters in the parable, first the youngest son, then the elder son, and finally their father. This is the structure of the painting (p.23.)
The younger son is going through something we all have. That’s why we need our “Aha!” moment, we have a feeling of detachment. (p. 19) The son already feels detached from the family before he sets off. Rembrandt lived a lavish lifestyle in his youth, much like the younger son (p. 33.) There are many implications of the younger son’s request to take his share of his inheritance from the father. He is basically telling his father he has house for him. He might as well be dead. He is also saying that everything the previous generations have been working on is meaningless to him (p. 36.) The spirit of the younger son’s rebellion are that he does not understand his role as the Beloved one (p. 40.) The world’s love is unconditional. The Father’s is not. In this world, we try to get things to fill the voids we fill in life. We try several different addictions. But the world can only offer things that will forever fall short. The younger son as Rembrandt portrays him is the end of this rebellion (p. 42-43.) The son is Rembrandt’s reflection of himself after living a lavish lifestyle. This is one of his last works. In this portrayal all symbols of status and individuality are gone. Everything had made him him is gone. All that remains is his sword, proof he had not forgotten who he was and where he came from (p. 46.) Completely alone, the son has dropped to the lowest in society (p. 48.) One of the greatest challenges is to change our perception of God. We are to seek His forgiveness, but instead we have a tendency to cling to our comfortable life of sin. Its what we know. But it convinces us of a perception of God as a righteous judge holding guilt and damnation over our heads. That, however, would require us to put everything is God’s hand, let him restore us back to son rather than a lowly servant (p. 53.)
Contrast is obviously important as we move on to the elder son. Rembrandt putting the older brother in the painting ties it to the parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector (p. 63.) Nouwen in his own life had become resentful, and as a friend points out rather than see himself as the defiant younger son, perhaps he was actually like the bitter, jealous elder son. Whereas a position for a long time had cause “obedience and duty “ to drain and influence his attitude, making him cold (p. 70.) Rembrandt portrays the contrast between the brothers rather than the celebration as the parable tells (p. 74.)
For Nouwen the parable is not about either son but the father who goes searching for them both (p. 82.) Rembrandt’s portrayal is opposites pitted against each other, the rebellion and the welcoming home. The sons and the father (p. 92-93.) The center of the painting is the father’s hands (p. 96.) The father, especially the way his hands are drawn show the father as both masculine and feminine (p. 99.) There is contrast between Rembrandt’s earlier paintings (always portraying himself) which show his lavish lifestyle and this (one of his last works), where it is perhaps his hands modeled after his own (p. 100.) The father calls for all the items that would signify the younger as a son again. Everything he asks for would restore him as a son and not a servant or hired hand (p. 111.) God brings about many gifts but these all lead to joy. Joy for Him as Father. Joy for the sinner as he comes home. The joy is the reward and does not mean the absence of suffering (p. 114-116.) Tradition dictates that either of the sons are the focus of the story, but Rembrandt shows that the father is the real focus of the story (p. 122.) Rembrandt shows up that Father’s compassion is the real theme of the painting, and the parable (p. 124-126.) Rembrandt well represents that the father demonstrates compassion, not power, control, or influence (p. 127.)
Nouwen finishes by reflecting on the father’s life. How a life of suffering has brought him the joy that has transcended all the suffering. He does well to transfer this joy to his sons. This life of joy is the goal. Being like the father is the goal. We may find ourselves acting like the rebellious or jealous son but the compassion of the father is the gospel (p. 137-139.)
