In our gathering yesterday, we looked at Proverbs 2.
Fifteen Years Already?
It’s hard to believe that it has been fifteen years since my mom went to be with her Savior. Mom had suffered from Alzheimer’s Disease for a number of years. Eventually she reached the point where my dad could no longer take care of her at home, no matter how much he tried. After a short stay in the hospital, Mom was admitted to a local nursing home to live out her final days. It was hard on all of us, but it was especially hard on Dad, who I believe thought that he had failed as a husband. Within a few months, Mom slipped away and we said goodbye.
As it often happens with a disease like Alzheimer’s, there was both sadness and a sense of relief. By the end, Mom didn’t know anyone or anything that was going on. She had gone from the sweetest person anyone could know, to someone else entirely. As her mind slipped away, negative things from her childhood came back to life. We knew that the one we were interacting with was not the wife and mother we knew and loved, so when she died we were relieved that her suffering was over and she was made whole.
I remember the funeral back in Maryland. It was a rainy day, and the song “I Will Praise You in the Storm” came on the radio. While bringing a fresh toreent of tears, the song also brought comfort. I knew that I could praise God in the midst of the physical storm and the emotional storm because the loved me and he loved Mom. She was now resting in his presence and one day all of the tears would be wiped away.
Over the years, the pain has lessened. That is only natural. I still remember all of the good times with a wonder, loving mom who would gladly have given herself up for her children. While I do remember the last couple of years of her life and the struggle it was, I can look back on it thankful that the Father carried me through that with the same loving arms with which he carried Mom home.
I believe that I will see my mom someday, and we will never have to part in tears again.
Blast From the Past: The Prodigal Son – Becoming the Father
In The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen writes that the challenge for him is to become the father. It is a challenge that is full of difficulties. When we look again at the Father in our own stories, we can see how daunting it is.
Our Father is gracious and loving without condition. He gives us many good gifts, but the most important gift he gives is himself. The Father is reckless in giving himself to us. Jesus, who is the image of the Father, gave his very life for us, pouring out his blood for our salvation. We are granted grace and mercy without measure from an eternal, inexhaustible love. There is nothing our Father wouldn’t do for our good.
As children of God, we are called to be like him. When I look in a mirror, I see my dad. The eyes, the facial features, the hair (or lack thereof), the voice, all show whose son I am. The same is to be true of those who are children of the heavenly Father. As God is loving and compassionate, so we are to be loving and compassionate. As God is gracious and merciful, so we are to be gracious and merciful. As God gives himself, so we are to give ourselves. You get the idea.
In my late twenties my life changed as I became a father. Even though I was still a son, I was now a person with a child. That brought a change in responsibilities, and a change in perspective. As we mature in Christ, we are to leave both the prodigal and the elder son behind. We are still in need of fathering from God, but our vocation changes. We are now called to be the father. As I look at the father in the story, I see some things that will be true as we become the father. Nouwen states that the three ways to compassionate fatherhood are grief, forgiveness, and generosity.
We grieve over those who have left home, we grieve over the injustice and abuse in the world, and we grieve over our own weakness. One aspect of grieving is realizing that we cannot save the one who has wandered away. The father in the story didn’t go after his son, but he watched and waited for him to return. So it is with us. Many times, all we can do is pray that God will turn the prodigal around. We can not go into the far country and drag them back. All we can do is wait and be ready to welcome them home.
This grieving makes us sensitive to others who are hurting, and the sensitivity leads us to forgive those who wrong us. As the father did, we forgive without question any and all who return. As Jesus said, we forgive, and forgive, and forgive, and forgive, and so on. True forgiveness also reconciles. The father didn’t say to the prodigal, “I forgive you, but I think I’ll just keep you on as a servant.” He accepted him back as his beloved son. No strings attached.
The third way to compassionate fatherhood is generosity. The father spared nothing to celebrate his son’s return. He gave the best of everything, including himself. We are called to give ourselves to others in the same way. Yes, we may get hurt. I’m sure the father was hurt when the elder son refused to join the party, and I would guess the younger son wasn’t perfect after he was restored. He may well have cause his father more pain. We are to remember the hurt we have caused our Father and the grace he gives us regardless, and do the same for others.
May the Father enable us to be as gracious, loving, and compassionate to others as he is to us.
Blast From the Past: The Prodigal Son – The Younger Son
Blast From the Past: The Prodigal Son – The Elder Son
Blast From the Past: The Prodigal Son – The Father
Blast From the Past: The Prodigal Son – The Father
The story in Luke 15 is popularly named for the prodigal son, but it could be titled, “The Story of the Prodigal Father.” Prodigal means recklessly extravagant, and I think that describes the actions of the father in the story. Jesus told this story in response to the criticism that he ate and drank with sinners. It is a picture of God’s extravagant love toward repentant sinners.
The father granted the younger son’s request, even though it was a slap in the face. As a father, I can begin to imagine the grief he felt as his son rejected him and everything he stood for. Rather than writing the son off as a lost cause, the story seems to indicate that the father was constantly looking for him to return. In spite of his grief he kept hoping. When the prodigal returned, the father saw him coming in the distance and ran to meet him. Imagine this dignified man running out to greet his son. In those days, one who did what the son had done would be met by the village elders if he returned and officially banished. The father was not only overjoyed to see his son, he was also protecting him.
Before the son could get his speech out, his father told the servants to prepare for a huge blowout party. He covered the son’s rag’s with a luxurious robe, put good sandals on his feet, and a ring on his finger. All of these were things a beloved son would wear, not a servant. There were no words of disapproval or recrimination, only grace and compassion. When the elder brother acted like a jerk and refused to join the party, the father went to him with grace, reminding him that he was also a beloved son. Again, there were no harsh words from the father.
We have the same kind of Father. When we wander away from him, forgetting who we are, he is waiting patiently for us to return. He knows we will return because his Spirit draws us. We are told in Scripture that God’s kindness leads us to repentance. He doesn’t force us back and hold us against our will. It’s grace and love that brings us to him, and it’s grace and love that keeps us home. In the same way, when we think we somehow have to perform to cause the Father to love us more, or think our good deeds mean we are better than our brothers, the Father calls us to remember that he loves us because he loves us. He doesn’t love us any less when we screw up, and he doesn’t love us any more when we do good things.
Sometimes we forget who our Father is, and who we are as his children. God calls us back to him, not as a servant. He calls us back, not as someone who has earned his love. No, the Father calls us to return home, remembering that we are his beloved children. He is ready to welcome us with open arms and celebrate our return.
Blast From the Past: The Prodigal Son – The Elder Son
The first post in this series looked at the main character in the story of the prodigal son; the younger son who had gone off with his inheritance and wasted it, and then came back. This post looks at the older son.
When the prodigal son returned home, there was one person who was conspicuously absent. The elder son was out in the fields, working as he had for years. In contrast to his younger brother, the older son had stayed home, working hard and obeying his father.
When he came in from another hard day’s work, the elder brother saw all the lights on in the house, heard the music and laughter, and noticed the activity of the servants. In answer to his questions, a servant replied that the younger son had returned and the father was welcoming him home with a huge party. The older son didn’t think this was such a good idea. In fact, he was pretty ticked off and refused to go into the house and join the festivities.
When the father came out to ask his oldest son to join them, he refused. He complained that during all the years he had spent doing everything the father had wanted, being the dutiful son, he had never even received one single goat to have a cookout with his friends. “On top of that, this son of yours has wasted his inheritance on wild parties and whores, and you’ve killed the fattened calf for him?”
How many of us have, at one or more times in our lives, been upset because grace has been shown to an individual who is a “worse sinner” than we are? (I see that hand. It’s mine) We just can’t believe that they got away with it! Our attitude is often the same as that of the Americans who rejoiced when Osama Bin-Laden was killed. That so-and-so got what he deserved. We want justice (usually meaning what the other person deserves) when it comes to others, yet many times we would prefer that mercy be shown to us. Sometimes, while the angels in heaven are rejoicing over one sinner who has repented, we are taking a wait and see attitude. After all, we don’t want to be played for a fool.
Sometimes we are like the elder brother when we think that because we have been good little boys and girls, God owes us. We wonder why God doesn’t answer our requests, because after all, we’ve been faithful in church, we’ve served others, we’ve had faith and claimed that answer, whatever. Then, when God doesn’t “come through” for us, we start looking around for answers. Maybe I didn’t have enough faith. Maybe I didn’t pray hard enough. Maybe I need to search my heart and see if there’s a sin I forgot to confess. Or, we begin to doubt the goodness of God toward us. “If God really loves me, why didn’t he give me what I want.”
Like the prodigal, the elder brother forgot who we was. Even though he had never left the property, he too had left home. He had forgotten the character of his father. The father was obviously a kind, loving, and generous man. He was full of grace and mercy, and wanted the best for his sons. He was quick to forgive, and to let past offenses stay in the past. Interestingly, that sounds a whole lot like our Father. He is slow to anger, and quick to forgive. He doesn’t dredge up our past and hold it against us. He loves his children with an everlasting love, and his heart is good to us.
We can not earn the grace of our Father. It is his to give freely, and his alone. We are not to look on others and complain when they don’t “get what they deserve.” Most of the time we don’t know how God is working in another individuals life. To paraphrase Aslan, God is not telling us their story, he is only telling us ours. Judging whether or not a person should receive grace is way above our pay grade. We are called to rejoice when others rejoice. Kind of like the angels.
We have all been the elder brother in some way or another. Our Abba is calling us to join the party.
Blast From the Past: The Prodigal Son – The Younger Son
This was first posted back in 2011. There are a couple of minor edits.
Today, I’m starting a four part series on the story of the Prodigal Son. The story of the prodigal is a story of God’s grace to his wayward children when they come home. It is also a story with a number of layers that speak to us in different ways at different times in our lives. Henri Nouwen wrote a book titled, The Return of the Prodigal Son, based on his reflections on a painting by Rembrandt. My ramblings come largely from reading this book.
The first person we encounter in the story is the younger son. This son comes to his father and asks for his part of the inheritance that would come to him after his father dies. This is more than just a request to get money due him earlier than he would normally receive it. The ones who heard this story would have been outraged at the attitude of the younger son. In effect, he was saying to his father, “I reject you and everything you stand for, your culture, your religion, everything. I wish you were dead!” In a culture where rebellious children could be stoned to death, this was a dangerous and devastating statement for the son to make and for the father to hear. The father however, decided to give his son what he asked for. He handed over the money and said goodbye. As a father, I can imagine the heartbreak he went through as one of his sons turned his back on everything and left.
The younger son went off to a “distant country,” where he squandered his inheritance on parties and whores. He was completely deaf to the voice that would have reminded him of his father’s love and of what he had been taught. In short, he forgot who he was. I would imagine that most of us can see ourselves in the younger son in some way. Some may have wandered into a life of dissipation and come out of it. Others may have experimented with some things but not gone all the way in. In my own life, I was drawn in to things that were not good for me, although I never wandered completely away. Of course, there are some out there who would consider me a prodigal today.
There is another way to be the younger son, a way that many, many more have fallen into. That is the way of forgetting whose child we are and trying to get our identity from other things or other people. That is the way I most identify with the prodigal. Whether it’s from a job, a skill, a style, or a group of people, we try to prove our worth by other things than what our Father says. Our culture says that what is important is how you dress, what job you have, what kind of car you drive, how much money you make, or what group you hang out with. Unfortunately, those things become like the husks the prodigal wished to eat while feeding the pigs. Trying to find our worth and identity in any thing of this world is a futile exercise, leading to emptiness.
Fortunately for the prodigal, he did come to his senses and remember who he was. I can see him slapping himself on the forehead, and saying, “What am I doing here? I’m not a pig farmer! I’m a son of a father who has a lot of money and food! Why am I starving here?” So, after coming to his senses he returned home. He still didn’t completely remember who we was though. Or better, he didn’t understand completely the kind of person his father was. His plan was to go home and convince his father to give him a job. He didn’t believe his father would accept him back as a son. We sometimes also forget who we are dealing with when we go to our Father. We believe the lies that we can’t be his child if we do certain things, or that we have to do something to get ourselves back into his good graces. We feel we have to “get right with God.” We forget that our Father loves us and always accepts us.
The son returns and finds himself in the midst of a homecoming better than he could have imagined. He can’t get his prepared speech out before his father welcomes him back and throws the biggest party the neighborhood has ever seen. So it is when we come to our senses and remember who we are. We are beloved children of the Creator of the universe. He is pleased with us, and there is absolutely nothing we can do to cause his love to decrease, and nothing we can do to increase his love. He holds us in his hands and nothing can pull us out. Period.
Remember who you are. If you’ve forgotten, your Father is looking for your return so he can lavish his grace and love on you.
Matthew 7:24-27: What Are You Building On?
Today we looked at Jesus’ words about following him.
Matthew 6:25-34: Dealing with Worry
This week we talked about Jesus’ command to not worry. It’s something most of us struggle with.
Matthew 5:43-48: Love Your Enemies
In our gathering yesterday, we looked at Jesus’ command to love our enemies.
Eastertide Thoughts
It has been one week since those of us in the western church celebrated Easter. The Orthodox tradition will celebrate Easter on May 2 this year. Eastertide is the period between Easter Sunday and Pentecost, so the celebration continues in many churches for a full 50 days. Personally, I think that’s a good idea.
This year, I’ve been doing much more thinking about the importance of Easter to those of us who follow the One who was raised from the dead. I think a 50 day celebration of the event that changed history is something that should be practiced much more than it is now.
This has been a momentous year for many of us, with a lot of things happening that caused us to think about what is really important and about the brevity of our lives here on this earth. A little over a year ago, I had a heart attack. Within a couple of weeks, everything was locked down because of a deadly virus. We didn’t get to celebrate Easter in person last year. We didn’t get to do a whole lot of anything in person last year.
We saw the number of cases and deaths grow as the year went on, and very few of us didn’t at least know someone who caught the virus. Add to this what seemed to be the death of reason and understanding in the civil discourse in this country, and the year looked more bleak as it dragged on. We made it to the end of the year, but the future looked very uncertain.
In some ways the future is looking better. In other ways, there is still turmoil and uncertainty. Personally, my health is much better now, but there are things that have happened to keep the realities of life in a broken world in the forefront. From friends and neighbors who have cancer to friends whose parents have fallen ill, from families that are broken to our small town reeling from a senseless murder and suicide, there is much to make one wonder if there really are any answers.
There are many questions that we may never have answered fully. There are some that may not be answered at all. That is why Eastertide this year has become meaningful to me. I believe that Easter is the answer. We may not have all the details filled in for us, but Easter means that death has been brought down, had all its teeth kicked out, and ground into the dust in defeat.
Because King Jesus rose from the dead and inaugurated his kingdom, I know that my friends with cancer will unltimately be healed and will live in the new creation. I know that there will be peace on earth and the swords will be beaten into plowshares, and there will be no war. I know that there will be no hatred or murder, no struggle over possessions, or arguments over ideas. There will be no cancer, heart trouble, Alzheimer’s or Huntington’s Disease. Every tear will be wiped away and everything sad will become untrue.
Let us rejoice and feast! Break out the champagne! There is nothing worth celebrating more than the fact that death has lost its sting, and the grave has no victory. It is not the end yet, but it will be all right in the end. Hallelujah! Christ is risen!