Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: (Includes some key quotes and a "digging deeper" insight from Barbara Reid; Chapter 6 study guide, part 2)

 Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

This post is the second on chapter 6 about the Prodigal Son parable. It includes some key quotes from the chapter and "digging deeper" insights from Barbara Reid about misinformed patriarchal readings of the parable. 

QUOTES FOR REFLECTION AND DISCUSSION 

“As we have seen, Jesus in Luke argues that vertical generalized reciprocity—the advantaged giving to the disadvantaged without expecting anything in return—is the means by which wealthy people can enter heaven (e.g., Luke 14:12–14; cf. 16:14, 19–31). This parable, then, may offer a similar message: assistance to those in need should be given even to those who may be—or appear to be—undeserving.” 

“Understood by God, accepted at the core of our being, we thus have a radical confirmation of community.…Therefore, the foundation of community is built on the loving actions of God. But a human response to the whisper of God in our hearts is also required. Even though the parable itself is ambiguous about whether the younger son truly repents and whether the older son ultimately reconciles with his father and brother, the desired outcomes are clear for both, and the restoration of community is dependent on those responses of repentance.” 

“One cannot truly love ‘the hungry’ or ‘the homeless’ without loving and caring for in some concrete ways individuals who are hungry or homeless. Part of caring for other human beings involves serious attempts to understand their context and situation. Understanding other people’s contexts involves more than just acknowledging their predicament at a particular point in time; this effort also seeks to become aware of their potential. To truly love people involves, as Thurman liked to put it, meeting people where they are and dealing with them as if they were where they should be.” 

Howard Thurman: “For better or for worse, God and I, God and you, are bound together, and I cannot be what it is that I must be if between you and me, between you and God, there is no community.…God cannot be happy in his heaven if any man is in hell. Therefore, I must work out my salvation by seeking in every way to further communion between myself and all living things and myself and God.” 

“Answering the question of ‘What is God like?’ inherently leads to Jesus’s call to act like God our loving parent does (e.g., ‘to be merciful, just as [God] your father is merciful’; Luke 6:36). In that way, human beings can act to restore and preserve community, a fundamental issue of ‘salvation’ for Thurman.” 

“Becoming a repentant child is but one step on the path to becoming the welcoming father.”

DIGGING DEEPER

This parable was told and heard in a patriarchal society, so the absence of the mother and no mention of daughters are not surprising. It is not just the compressed nature of parables that could influence why they do not appear. Some interpreters attempt to include the mother by arguing that the parable incorporates maternal metaphors—the mother is the “unspoken binary of the father”—by linking the son’s starvation to the need for (motherly) nourishment or the father’s affectionate (motherly) kisses of the returning son (Scott 1989, 115, 117, 122). As Barbara Reid states, however, such “feminizing” of the father does not insert women into the story. Instead, by normalizing the image of father for God and rarely using female images such as mother, interpreters “divinize” patriarchy, allowing it to reign not just on earth but also in heaven: “When our foundational stories about God exclude female images, then believers are left with the message that being male is more God- like.” The best course is for interpreters to include women—like the woman finding the lost coin—in their images for God and language about God (Reid 2001, 66).

Howard Thurman, "The Work of Christmas" for 2025-2026

 

  

Another year; another opportunity to rededicate ourselves to this message from Dr. Thurman:

"The Work of Christmas," by Howard Thurman 

Howard Thurman’s poem, “The Work of Christmas” is my favorite Christmas poem, and I post it every year. It provides a vision of a society informed by Jesus’s parable of the Sheep and Goats in the Gospel of Matthew and the biblical principle of hospitality: 

When the song of the angels is stilled, 

When the star in the sky is gone, 

When the kings and the princes are home, 

When the shepherds are back with their flock, 

The work of Christmas begins: 

To find the lost, 

To heal the broken, 

To feed the hungry, 

To release the prisoner, 

To rebuild the nations, 

To bring peace among brothers, 

To make music in the heart. 

Thurman reminds us of how Jesus wants us to respond to our fellow human beings in ways that God demands and in ways that echo, as Jesus of Nazareth declared in the Sermon on the Mount and elsewhere, how God loves and treats us. 

May we truly make "music in the heart" for others and therefore ourselves in 2025.

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans (Includes a sermon by Thurman and a visual art reflection; Chapter 6 study guide, part 1)

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

This post is the first on chapter 6, the second chapter about the Prodigal Son parable. It includes a sermon from Howard Thurman and a discussion of this painting by Frank Wesley.

Frank Wesley, Forgiving Father.

Frank Wesley was born in Azamgarh, India, on December 12, 1923. Wesley became the best-known Christian Indian artist of his day (e.g., his 1947 Blue Madonna was selected for the UNICEF Christmas card, several other works won awards and honors, and his design was selected for the urn that held Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes before they were immersed at the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna rivers). Wesley painted Forgiving Father while at Kyoto Art University in Japan (1954–1958), but the painting retains the cultural symbolism of Indian and Hindu social practice. The Brahmin father, dressed in white, welcomes his son home, his left hand holding his son’s back, his loving right hand caressing his son’s head, and his head bowed into his son’s neck (Wesley was influenced by Rembrandt; cf. the etching by Rembrandt and his famous painting in the Hermitage Museum). The emaciated son is too weak to stand on his own and depends on the father to hold him up, his right hand responding to his father’s love by clasping his father’s arm. Note the color contrasts—the people, clothes, and background—especially how the color of the clothes of the son and his loving father begin to merge as our eyes move downward (see Wray 1993). 

The simplicity but profoundness of this painting makes it fertile ground for “slow looking” explorations of how this painting works, what it means, and what it wants. For Wesley, the father symbolizes God and the son humanity: God is present unconditionally seeking to reconcile with sinful humanity. The son, like humankind, is unable to stand on his own without the loving support of his father (Wray 1993, 44). Other interpreters argue that the son looks and dresses like a Dalit, the lowest and most oppressed social level in India, in contrast to his father’s appearance as a Brahmin, the highest caste. Some interpreters also argue that the father resembles Mahatma Gandhi.

HOWARD THURMAN AUDIO

In his sermon, “Salvation: What Is God Like?” (September 16, 1951), Thurman observes that the lost sheep and lost coin parables have profound implications about the nature of God, human beings, and the relationship between human beings and God. The lost sheep parable, for example, portrays God as a shepherd who loves and seeks out the lost sheep, those who are out of touch “with the group that sustained” them. In reality, Thurman says, “everyone in some sense is lost,” and so God takes the initiative, actively searches for the lost, and seeks to restore them to the community in which they belong. 

The next post (on chapter 6, part 2) will focus on some key quotes from the chapter and some other resources.

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans (Includes a sermon and meditation by Thurman; Chapter 5 study guide, part 3)

     

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: 

From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

How Howard Thurman's insights benefit current discussions about what to do in the face of the injustices that so many people face today: highlighting parts of my recent book, Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans.

The last post featured a key quotes sermon by Thurman, including is famous quote about th Prodigal Son parable and :coming to face with God."

Today's post, the third on chapter 5 and the Prodigal Son parable, focuses on some "digging deeper" insights, including a sermon by Thurman, a meditation by Thurman, and other resources:

The Prodigal Son parable’s relative complexity leads to greater depth of reader engagement: it has several scene changes, a more extensive plot, a number of conflicts, three major characters, and more developed (mostly indirect) characterization—including dialogue, one of the few interior monologues among the parables, and a speech. (See David B. Gowler, “The Characterization of the Two Brothers in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11–32 ): Their Function and Afterlives.”) 

The quote from Petronius alluded to in this chapter (Satyricon 80.9) is, “Friendship endures only to the last coin.” 

The prodigal son was hungry enough to “gladly eat” (15:16) the food he was assigned to give the pigs, wording similar to the rich man and Lazarus parable where the destitute Lazarus—at the gate of a rich man who, to his later detriment, ignores Lazarus—“longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table” (Luke 16:21). 

In “Sing Your Own Song” (March 6, 1964) Thurman uses examples from Catherine Coblentz’s Blue Cat of Castle Town to encourage his listeners to “sing their own song,” to find their own authentic voice, and “then God, who is the creator of life and all the living substances, will be able to sing his song through you.” 

The sermon “The Sound of the Genuine” (May 1, 1977) further explains what the Sound of the Genuine means, and it includes a description of the “Good Samaritan” who helped Thurman at the Daytona train station.

The next post (on chapter 6, part 1) will focus on the secpond half of the Prodigal Son parable, including a sermon by Thurman and visual exegesis of Frank Wesley's Forgiving Father.

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: Coming "face to face with God" (Includes quotes of Thurman; Chapter 5 study guide, part 2)

    

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: 

From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

How Howard Thurman's insights benefit current discussions about what to do in the face of the injustices that so many people face today: highlighting parts of my recent book, Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans.

The last post featured a sermon by Thurman and a visual exegesis of Albrecht Dürer's The Prodigal Son amid the Swine. Today's post also focuses on chapter 5, the first chapter on the parable of the Prodigal Son: "Listening for the Whisper of God: 'You have to churn the Milk.'" 

Here are some key quotes from the chapter:

“We have forgotten that the only true basis for a sense of security…is the awareness that you are precious in the sight of God, that you are of worth, and that your worth is not derived from anything that you do, anything that you have, anything that you know; it is a part of the givenness of God in His children.…Now this is the contribution that the religion of Jesus makes.”

 “Thurman captures the essential element of the parable: the father (God) loves the son (the sinner) even before he repents.…The good news is that God and God’s love are relentlessly seeking us, and in response to God, ‘something deep within you will begin to move,’ and you will begin to open doors deep within you until at last you will find ‘that which you have had all along.’” 

This quote is especially important for understanding Thurman's thought and insights (emphasis mine):

“‘When [the prodigal] came to himself,’ he came to his father.…When I…come to the very center, the very core of myself, then I come face to face with God. That God is, God is within me. That he is the very point of my being and existence.…That there is that of man which is God. Not a reflection of God. Not some staggering accent of God, but that which is God.” 

When you listen to the audio of Thurman, you can tell how much he emphasizes the "is God" in the last part of that quote. 

“One of the ways that Thurman explained the presence of God within ‘the inward parts of the human spirit and the human heart’ was to borrow an image from Hinduism: ‘the butter is in the milk,’ and ‘thou hast to churn the milk…if thou desirest to taste the butter.’ God is found within human beings who have to cultivate awareness of God within them, and one necessary path was to ‘limit one’s intake,’ to slow down and focus on important things amid the multitude of distractions in our hectic and harried lives, since there can be a ‘striking relationship between the inner and the outer’ aspects of our lives. Instead, we must churn the milk of our inner selves so we may taste the butter.” 

“When we listen for and respond to the sound of the genuine in another human being, we are ascribing to them the same sense of infinite worth that we (should) believe that we have. This sound of the genuine is another aspect of our common consciousness, and here the power of imagination takes root and gives us the ability to put ourselves truly in the place of another human being.” 

The next post (on chapter 5, part 3) will focus on some "digging deeper" insights, including a sermon by Thurman, a meditation by Thurman, and other resources.

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans (includes a sermon by Thurman and a Dürer visual exegesis; Chapter 5 study guide, part 1)

   

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: 

From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

How Howard Thurman's insights benefit current discussions about what to do in the face of the injustices that so many people face today: highlighting parts of my recent book, Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans.

Today's post focuses on chapter 5, which is the first chapter on the parable of the Prodigal Son: "Listening for the Whisper of God: 'You have to churn the Milk.'" 

As preparation for the chapter, I first recommend readers listen to an audio of one of Thurman's prodigal son sermons: "The Prodigal Son," (September 23, 1951). In that sermon, Thurman notes that God is like the loving father, and anyone could be one of the two brothers, estranged from their father. But God always welcomes us back, and when the prodigal “comes to himself,” he comes to his very center and comes face-to-face with God within him.

In further preparation for the chapter, I then recommend a visual exegesis of Albrecht Dürer's The Prodigal Son amid the Swine:

The longer version is found in David B. Gowler, “What Can Renaissance Art and Howard Thurman Tell Us about the Prodigal Son?” but here is a quick summary of the visual exegesis: 

In this striking engraving, the urgency of the pigs’ scramble for food matches the urgency of the prodigal’s physical and spiritual hunger, and the prodigal’s pose portrays the moment when he “came to himself.” Similarly, Thurman believes that the famine in the land reflects the prodigal’s physical hunger and internal spiritual famine, and the parable illustrates how human beings can move from such isolation to an assurance of community: When people “come to themselves,” it is in response to “a seeking and beseeching God,” and Thurman muses about how the degradation of the prodigal’s spirit led to “a stirring down at the bottom of his being” that said, “You are lost. You are out of contact with your family. You are out of community. Why don’t you go home?” Thurman thus argues for a deeper spiritual meaning of when the son “came to himself” and envisions it as an exemplar for one’s spiritual journey: human beings can discover God within themselves, realize who they really are, and return “home.”

The next post (on chapter 5, part 2) will focus on some key quotes from the chapter and some "digging deeper" insights.

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans (Some Quotes and "digging deeper" ideas: Chapter 4 study guide, part 2)

  

Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: 

From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans

How Howard Thurman's insights benefit current discussions about what to do in the face of the injustices that so many people face today: highlighting parts of my recent book, Howard Thurman and the Quest for Community: From Prodigals to Compassionate Samaritans.

Today's post focuses on chapter 4, "What do Parables Want?" which argues that Jesus, and Thurman following behind him, aimed his parables in a historical context in which he and his audience were among those who had their "backs against the wall," and the parables, among other things, were aimed at spurring hearers to action.

Here are some key quotes from the chapter. As a whole they illustrate that Howard Thurman understood the first-century socio-economic context of Jesus's teachings better that most New Testament scholars did in 1949:

“People living on a bare subsistence level thus viewed patronage—where the elites distribute goods to the nonelites—as a moral obligation; people who had resources were expected to help in difficult circumstances.” 

“Jesus was an impoverished first-century Jewish artisan who was a member of a politically, militarily, and economically oppressed minority and who spoke prophetic words of judgment against the oppressors of his people. His parables and other teachings focus extensively on issues of money and power, including condemnations of the wealthy elite because of their oppression of the poor. Such socioeconomic contexts thus are essential for understanding numerous aspects of the parables of Jesus.” 

“Jesus’s message affirmed the inherent worth of the disinherited as children of God, the necessity of the love- ethic to pervade all relationships, and the power of love to create community in the midst of and even over against the forces of evil.” 

“How should wealthy elites live…? Jesus demands that they operate with vertical generalized reciprocity—a redistribution from the advantaged to the disadvantaged that expects nothing in return. Since God showers humankind with vertical generalized reciprocity, humankind should follow God’s lead in their relationships with each other (e.g., 11:11– 14).…The elites’ concern for money is linked to their lack of concern for human beings, and this connection between riches and unrighteousness can only be broken through vertical generalized reciprocity (14:12– 14; cf. 16:9, 19– 31).”

The "Digging Deeper" observations drive home the main points above:

• The Gospel of Luke was written by someone in a higher socioeconomic position than Jesus. Although Jesus’s perspective as being “disinherited” is clear in his parables, the author of Luke in many respects interprets the parables for those who like him, economically at least, could be included among the “inherited.” The focus thus shifts slightly from Jesus’s greater emphasis on the condemnation of the elite—which Luke still includes—to Luke’s greater emphasis on Jesus’s teachings serving as a warning to such elites (which Jesus also still includes). 

• Parables include Jesus’s prophetic critique “from below” of the wealthy elite. The rich fool parable (Luke 12:16–20), for example, illustrates Jesus’s admonition about rapacity (Luke 12:15; cf. 12:21). Jesus then elaborates the point when he enjoins his disciples not to worry about material possessions but to strive for the kingdom of God instead (12:22–31). The section concludes with an exhortation to sell their possessions “and give alms” (12:32–34; cf. 14:12–14; 18:18– 23). For Luke, then, the rich farmer exemplifies what to avoid: someone who does not strive for the kingdom, who does not care for those around him (especially those with their backs against the wall), whose treasure is material goods not the “unfailing treasure in heaven” (12:33), and whose life consists “in the abundance of possessions” (12:15).

• Recent scholarship has increased our understanding of the “weapons of the weak” and “hidden transcripts”—sometimes used by Jesus to give ambiguous (and subversive) answers in threatening situations (see page 50 in the text)—so Thurman’s arguments in Jesus and the Disinherited could be reevaluated considering these insights.