The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri J.M. Nouwen
Week 2: Part One — The Younger Son (Chapters 1–3)
Read Part One of The Return of the Prodigal Son (the section focused on the younger son). Primary Scripture: Luke 15:11–24.
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The younger son's journey is the most familiar arc in the story — and perhaps the most familiar arc in a human life. Nouwen reads it not as a morality tale about debauchery but as a portrait of what it means to demand independence from the very source of our life, and what it costs us.
Discussion Questions
8 questions1.Nouwen describes the younger son's request for his inheritance as a way of saying to the father, "I wish you were dead." That is a shocking interpretation. Do you find it compelling? What in the parable — or in human experience — supports that reading?
2.Nouwen sees the "far country" not simply as a geographic destination but as a spiritual condition — a place of forgetfulness, of self-sufficiency, of living as though one has no father. In what ways do people (including people who are religiously active) live in the far country without ever physically leaving home?
3.He identifies several forms of leaving: leaving through resentment, through escapism, through the pursuit of success and fame, through numbing ourselves. Which of these resonates most with patterns you recognize in yourself or in people you love?
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