One of the most famous of Jesus parables is the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-23), and I heard it unpacked this weekend in a rather indicting way.
The basic story is that the younger son asks his father for his half of the inheritance, gets it, and proceeds to live a life of excess in a far off land. He runs out of money as the economy tanks and ends up working as a pig farmer’s hand (totally not ok for a Jewish guy to work feeding pigs). He repents of his folly and heads back home hoping to get a job working for his father. His Dad hears that he’s coming home, runs out to greet him on the road and throws him a huge feast because he has returned.
The elder son becomes indignant that he has never had a party thrown for him despite his years of service, and refuses to go in. The father says to him in reply: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”
I’ve had a few conversations with people about this particular story because it is such a succinct view into God’s grace and his embrace of the repentant sinner, but the other half of the story is the danger of living a religious life thinking that somehow you are more deserving of the love of God.
Both brothers are more in love with their father’s things than their father, the younger brother just has the stones to man up and say it to his face. Modern readers gloss over the younger brother’s request to receive his inheritance early, but he’s essentially saying to his father “I’m tired of waiting for you to die so that I can have your stuff, give it to me now.”
It is central to our fleshly nature to treat God like this, to trust in the things like wealth or relationships or drugs or anything else but Him, because God’s Stuff rarely makes the same demands of us that a relationship with Him does. One of the fun things about finite things though is that they run out and at some point you run out and are left wondering what to do next.
The younger brother runs out of food and turns back to his father in the hopes of living a life of service to his father in order to get more of his stuff, but the father has better plans for him. He will not live as a servant but rather as a son again.
The sinner turning to God is a beautiful and awkward thing. True repentance cannot come without an awareness of the depth of the transgression and an implicit understanding of the appropriateness of punishment. But the Father does not greet repentance with wrath but with rejoicing. Christianity is not a list of rules but a relationship and sin is that which hampers that relationship. Make no mistake, the God of Abraham is a jealous God and his discipline is one of the great confirmations of our adoption as his sons (cf. Hebrews 12:5-11)
But the greater fool is the elder brother. We all think we want to be the elder brother because he is faithful. He does not spit in his father’s face, he serves him in his fields, and tends his flocks. And all he wants to know is where his party is, why all this celebration over his brother being found when he, the elder, had never been lost in the first place.
How much more beautiful would the Body of Christ (the Church) look if we weren’t so busy being the elder brother, if our joy was found in our relationship with Him instead of being proud that he has allowed us to work his fields? How much less judgmental and more loving could we be if we actually rejoiced in the returning of our lost brothers instead of begrudging them the feast that we have the opportunity to join them in? Being a Christian isn’t about abstaining from the things of this world, it’s about partaking in the things of the next. There can be no pride in being a Christian because the things we do that matter at all were prepared for us to do (cf. Ephesians 2:10) and the other things we’re doing either don’t matter or are actively harming the most important relationship in our life.
Sometimes I forget that I am a great sinner and the only thing that I can boast in is having a great Savior.
For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside” Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. ~1 Corinthians 1:18-21
I had some good conversations tonight about God, religion and Christianity. One of the things that I personally enjoy about geek culture is the raw objectivity of it. Language is almost always overly precise, concepts are explored fluidly at high levels and at excruciatingly low levels. The problem as a Christian is that God explicitly states that one of His purposes is to frustrate the wisdom of this world. It seems fortuitous that geek is so close a word to greek, and that in terms of philosophy, desires and demands they are very close. You can basically read the following ignoring the r in greek and it will be perfectly true.
For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. ~1 Corinthians 1:22-27
I wish earnestly that by my words I could convince my friends and acquaintances of the joy to be found in God, but He has ordained that that is not how His purposes will be achieved.
Matt Carter preached on Peter’s denial of Jesus today. The story has had a large impact on me every time i read it, because it’s so very human. Peter had spent the last 3 years of his life following Jesus at any cost, and only a few hours earlier had been in the following exchange:
Jesus: Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.
Peter: Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death.
Jesus: I tell you, Peter, before the rooster crows today, you will deny three times that you know me. ~Luke 22:31-34
This is the same Peter who affirmed the deity of Christ before all the other apostles(Matthew 16:16). The same man who walked on water until his eyes wavered (Matthew 14). The very same man who witnessed the Transfiguration (Mark 9). And in the hours before dawn both on that day and in redemptive history Peter chose the estimation of a slave girl and some dudes around a fire over claiming the name of Jesus. How often is it the testimony of my life that a joke at someone else’s expens or a configuration file are worth more than the name of Jesus.
And yet as much as the story is a punch to the stomach, the ending is happy. For every denial, Jesus gives Peter an opportunity to proclaim his love for Himself. Peter answers every time with variations of “you know that I love you”, and Jesus gives him the roles of “feed my lambs”, “tend my sheep” and “feed my sheep”. Peter, after decades of spreading the good news of reconciliation with God through the blood and resurrection of Jesus, ended his days on a wooden cross in Rome under Nero; traditionally said to have been crucified upside down at his own request because he did not deem himself worthy to die in the same manner as his Lord. Jesus doesn’t owe us anything, we should be so lucky as to die upside down at the hands of our oppressors, for it is far better than to land in the hands of the holy, holy, holy God of the universe whose justice demands an outpouring of divine wrath. But that price has been paid.
The last few weeks have taught me that it takes an alarmingly small amount of persecution to cause me to drift from the loving embrace of the living God, but I am confident that he who began a good work in me will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Phillipians 1:6)