A conversation in a bar and a Timothy Keller book provoked my good friend Josh to write a short series of posts on a story from Luke 15 (click here to read the story) on his blog Covered in His dust.
In his posts, "A story that blows my mind pt. 1 & pt. 2", Josh does a great job explaining what i think is at the heart of this story. But I think this story is deep and layered with all sorts of implications and I want to explore it a little more. I would recommend you read his posts first and view these posts as a continuation of the discussion.
In his posts Josh looks first at the younger brother and then in the second post he looks at the older brother. I will follow that same pattern.
So now the younger brother.
The younger brother is reckless and more than a little ungrateful.
He asks his father for his portion of the inheritance and he runs off with it.
Then he wastes all his money, a famine hits and he is lonely, broke and starving. In other words he screwed up.
Big time...
And he knows it.
Now at this point of the story I am interested in the way the younger brother looks at himself.
He says, "I will get up and go to my father, and say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son. Take me on as one of your hired hands.' So he got up and went to his father."
First he says, "I have sinned" which is his way of saying I screwed up.
Then he says, "I no longer deserve to be called your son.Take me on as one of your hired hands."
He thinks because he messed up that he is not worthy of his father's love.
He sees himself as worthless.
He sees himself as trash.
Now in the traditional reading of this story that I was taught the younger brother represents the lost sinners who are not a part of the church. But to me the younger brother reminds me way too much of what I've heard in way too many churches and from way too many Christians.
It's the idea that because of the ways we mess up and because of our brokenness we are fundamentally bad.
We are as one good friend of mine put it "trash in the sight of God".
I even had one preacher tell me that we are so repulsive to God that if it weren't for Jesus he couldn't even stand to look at us. (I kid you not...)
Which makes me think if that's his idea of "good news" I'd hate to hear his bad news.
This is why a lot of the atonement theories I heard growing up don't make sense to me. I was basically taught that on the cross Jesus had to die to protect us from the wrath of his very angry Father.
Apparently we are so repulsive to God that he wants nothing more than to torture us for all eternity?
Apparently Jesus and God are not even on the same team here?
All of this reminds me of a story from my childhood.
When I was very young my grandmother gave me a white teddy bear and I named it snowy.
I loved snowy and I took it everywhere I went (to this day snowy sits on my bookshelf in my apartment).
I remember one time snowy got a tear in it's arm and some of the cotton was starting to fall out. I was not happy about this to say the least.
Snowy was broken.
So it became worthless trash to me and I threw it away...
Actually that's not what happened at all. I was sad that snowy was broken but I still loved my teddy bear. So i took it to my mom. My mom put the cotton back in and sewed up the tear.
I tell you this story because my view of snowy did not fundamentally change because it was broken. Because it was broken I wanted to fix it.
No matter how broken my teddy bear was in my eyes it was never worthless trash...
So back to the story.
What's most compelling to me is not how the youngest son sees himself or he thinks the father sees him, it's how the father actually does see him.
As the younger son is coming to his father here is what happens:
"While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion. His father ran to him, hugged him, and kissed him. Then his son said, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him! Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet! Fetch the fattened calf and slaughter it. We must celebrate with feasting because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life! He was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate."
The Father doesn't even let him finish the little speech that he prepared.
Why?
Because the Father simply will not have that kind of talk coming from his beloved child. Even though the son thinks his Father will see him as trash the father doesn't. One of the very first things he does is to call him son. He doesn't seem very angry.
I mean imagine the kind of joy and longing it would take to provoke a grown man to take off running down the driveway to greet someone.
Even though his son had hurt him deeply by leaving he still considered him to be his son. His view of his son did not fundamentally change from love to repulsion simply because he was a messed up kid.
When Jesus tells this story he is inviting us to compare God to a loving father. So what kind of father would be repulsed by their child because the child messed up?
When God created the first people he called them good. Now according to the story those people messed up big time. Did things change when that happened? Yes. Where there major consequences for their actions? Yes. Did God's view of them instantly fundamentally change from love to repulsion? Of course not!
What kind of father would do that?
For far too long a lot of the Church has preyed off of people's low self- esteem.
We've told people that they were trash. Which to me seems very dangerous.
It's no wonder the Church has had such a checkered past ranging from apathy towards injustice to violence and abuse. Why wouldn't it with such a low view of humanity?
And we say that somehow this low view of humanity brings glory to God?
If God created us then isn't us calling human beings trash or totally depraved kind of like telling an artist that you think his artwork is garbage and expecting him to take it as a compliment?
That's just ridiculous...
Which is why I think it's time for our view of humanity to be redeemed.
We have to learn to see ourselves and others the way that God sees us.
Are we broken? Yes, of course. Any one can see that the way people steal from, rape, abuse and kill other people is messed up.
But we are worth fixing!
And you don't fix trash... it's not worth fixing.
That's why Jesus talks about God restoring all of creation- because God loves and values all of creation so much that he wants to make things right.
Grace & Peace
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