Sitting in Sunday school, prim and proper in my cute dress and black patent Mary Janes, my teacher asked if any of us believed we were without sin. I remember, my heart bursting with 7-year-old pride and positivity, raising my hand.
I was immediately corrected on that point, but I had a niggling sense that I was fairly close to sinless. This childhood belief remained with me and became ingrained in my psyche. As I grew older, I developed a system of measuring the “good Christian” from the bad, and worked hard at always remaining in the “good” group. From this position I could walk around with my clipboard assessing everyone to see how they measured up. I was blinded to my faults but fully aware of everyone else’s. I had an elevated view of myself and had become like the elder son in the parable of the Prodigal.
This well-known story from the Bible about the ne’er do well son who returns home after living the high life and finds a loving father waiting for him, has, I fear, given us some bad ideas.
THE PROBLEM
The focus has always been on the waywardness of the younger son who left home to live life on his own terms. While it is true that he makes some questionable choices, he has also had the grit and determination to forge his own path and throw off the weight of the status quo which would dictate he carry on with the family business. Yes, I am aware that in the culture of the day, the youngest son’s request was the equivalent of wishing his father dead. He was rebellious, selfish, and lacking in wisdom, but he never pretended to be otherwise.
We call those who buck the system and question their parent’s ways of believing, prodigals. Attaching this moniker to a person comes with an implication that they are a disappointment or inferior to those who do not question and wrestle with their faith in God. Why is there a temptation to demean those who refuse to hang onto the coat tails of their family’s faith? Shouldn’t we be applauding them for taking the difficult road of blazing their own path, for questioning, weighing what they have been taught?
FAKE NEWS
Many of the problems we are facing in our society today have come because individuals have stopped questioning. They have relinquished their right to search for what is true and blindly follow the assertions made by others. Fake news is a real thing. This term refers to “falsified information created with the intent of misleading people. It aims to shape public opinion by eliciting an emotional and biased response that is divorced from facts but in alignment with a particular ideology or perspective.” [i] Social media platforms are used for the distribution of hatred, paranoia, and lies which too many receive as gospel truth. There seems to be a belief that if something is online it requires no analysis or criticism. Blindly following spiritual teachers also seems to be rampant. We have lost our ability to test the veracity of the words spoken by our leaders. This is far more harmful than the open rebellion and searching a prodigal has been charged with.
And as we consider this story from the Bible, why haven’t we paid attention to the other brother? The one who stayed home serving his father with his heart full of pride and a sense of entitlement? His refusal to come to the “welcome home” party of his brother speaks volumes as to the state of his heart. Outwardly he had acquiesced to the plans of his father, serving his dutifully for years, but was inwardly rebellious and resentful. He was living a lie.
Isn’t the greater problem the elder son? Fooling himself and those around him that he was more deserving of the love of his father.
Both sons are sinful and yet by highlighting the one who went away it appears that we only recognize and judge outward sins. We are fooled by the outer piousness of the elder brother. We have been taken in by his acts of service, outward obedience and prescribed behaviour. The outer image does not always reveal what is on the inside. I think of the verse: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but, on the inside, you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” (Matt. 23:27-28) Jesus was speaking of the Pharisees of his day, but he also prophetically describes many of our modern-day spiritual hucksters preaching repentance while living a lie.
PRIDE IS REVEALED
If I am being honest, I see myself reflected in the elder brother; always the dutiful daughter, serving in the church, and looking good on the outside. My life of faith was built on my ability to conform to a pattern of living which appeared pious. I am only lately discovering how much pride was hidden behind this carefully crafted persona.
I have also been as much of a squanderer of grace as a prodigal. I have been suspicious of the favour of God. It made no sense that God’s pardon and goodwill were available to me without having to earn them.
Even though I had committed myself to following Jesus, it was on the condition that I could work to attain God’s love, and serve my way into the Kingdom. So, I planned, strived, worried and became a workaholic in my attempt to earn approval from God and others. I imposed this same standard on others who claimed to follow Jesus, and became the judgmental and entitled elder brother.
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THE MAIN THING
The real point of the story is the Father. He pointed fingers at neither son but rather opened his arms to both. The embrace and welcome were given even before a confession or reformation of their ways. The Father’s love was primed and waiting to be given away. These words from the story “but while he was still a long way off” suggest that the Father was continually scanning the horizon for the arrival of his son. This was not a soft indulgent love which ignores all failings, but rather a love which has already forgiven and has only the wholeness of his offspring in mind. According to one scholar, the father ran to embrace his son not only to show his love, but also to save him before his community shunned and drove him away. At the time “if a Jewish son lost his inheritance among Gentiles, and then returned home, the community would perform a ceremony, called the kezazah. They would break a large pot in front of him and yell, “You are now cut off from your people!” The community would totally reject him”[ii]. So, the father ran in an effort to get to him first with his offer of compassion rather than judgement, which paved the way for the son to be embraced by his community as well. This same love and favour had been available to the elder son each day, but his striving and pride had blinded him to it.
It matters not if we are the one who has spent it all, far away from the reach of the father, or if we are the one puffed with pride believing we are better than our brother, or even a combination of both, what is clear is that no one is beyond the love of the Father. He sees each one through eyes filled with love, welcomes us with open arms, clothes us in the finest of garments, puts a ring on our finger signifying our place in the family, and throws a party.
[i] https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/fake-news-in-canada
[ii] http://magazine.biola.edu/article/10-summer/the-prodigal-sons-father-shouldnt-have-run/