About the same time I painted the banner for the church in Covington, Billy, the minister there, asked me to paint a parable - the prodigal son. I was loosely thinking of Rembrandt's Prodigal while I did this, though there's little resemblance compositionally, I used the welcoming gesture of a father embracing his son. I added a reflection of the older son, scowling. The soon to be slaughtered calf is visible, as are a guitar and playing cards (symbols of the Prodigal's profligacy. The Prodigal Son thwarts our expectations. We side with the elder son - a pulled up by the bootstraps, nose clean, eyes dead ahead adept of moral accountancy. We look at the Prodigal through dim glasses and see only warts - he is the convenient receptor of our projections: wastrel, dirty hippie, bum - all the things we're afraid of finding in ourselves and bury deep under the surface. To embrace the Prodigal is to embrace moral failure - that is, the possibility that you're just like anyone else, in need of forgiveness. The question is: how can we be like the father, willing to break cultural norms of honor and shame and extend to the weaker position mercy. We live in a society that punishes weakness. Our foreign policy is driven by not showing weakness and projecting power. Our motto: never let them see you sweat. For all the people championing "Christian" values - the big value that Paul voiced "when I am weak, then God is strong" is left in silence. What would it be like for Christians to revel in their weakness: to parade the weakness of the church instead of complaining that we're not powerful? What would it be like for us to investigate weakness, to privilege weakness? These are the questions the Prodigal asks us.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Prodigal Son
About the same time I painted the banner for the church in Covington, Billy, the minister there, asked me to paint a parable - the prodigal son. I was loosely thinking of Rembrandt's Prodigal while I did this, though there's little resemblance compositionally, I used the welcoming gesture of a father embracing his son. I added a reflection of the older son, scowling. The soon to be slaughtered calf is visible, as are a guitar and playing cards (symbols of the Prodigal's profligacy. The Prodigal Son thwarts our expectations. We side with the elder son - a pulled up by the bootstraps, nose clean, eyes dead ahead adept of moral accountancy. We look at the Prodigal through dim glasses and see only warts - he is the convenient receptor of our projections: wastrel, dirty hippie, bum - all the things we're afraid of finding in ourselves and bury deep under the surface. To embrace the Prodigal is to embrace moral failure - that is, the possibility that you're just like anyone else, in need of forgiveness. The question is: how can we be like the father, willing to break cultural norms of honor and shame and extend to the weaker position mercy. We live in a society that punishes weakness. Our foreign policy is driven by not showing weakness and projecting power. Our motto: never let them see you sweat. For all the people championing "Christian" values - the big value that Paul voiced "when I am weak, then God is strong" is left in silence. What would it be like for Christians to revel in their weakness: to parade the weakness of the church instead of complaining that we're not powerful? What would it be like for us to investigate weakness, to privilege weakness? These are the questions the Prodigal asks us.
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1 comment:
Hi beloved:
There's a good sermon there. I never thought about things from the perspective of the father.
FWIW I've never identified with the elder son but with the prodigal even though I was the kind of kid who told the teacher she'd forgotten our homework.
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