a father and his sons (part 3)

In my last two posts I talked about the story Jesus tells in Luke 15 about a son who runs away, wastes all his money and then comes home.

A father who is very generous and throws a huge party.

And a jealous older brother.

So when the older brother comes home from working in the field to find this big party being thrown for his younger brother he refuses to go in.

So his loving father comes out to plead with him. He basically tells him that he loves him just as much as the younger brother and that if he wanted a big party he could have asked for one at any time. He is after all a very generous man.

At this point in the story Rob Bell says in his book Drops Like Stars,

"The older brother then has a moment of profound enlightenment. He puts his arm around his father and says, "you're right, Dad. I'm sorry I've been such an ass. Can I get you a beer?"

... wait what?

Now, of course we know that he is joking. That isn't how the story ends is it?

The father goes out to plead with his son, he gives his speech and that's it.

We don't get to see what happens next.

It ends with a cliff hanger.

If this were a movie I would be really annoyed.

I can almost imagine his disciples being like, "How is Jesus ever going to start a movement telling stories like this?"

This story doesn't wrap up nice and neatly...

No condensed summary...

No three points of application all beginning with the same letter...

It just sits there... unresolved.

The most troubling thing about this story is not what it says. But what it refuses to say...

As I said in the last post I feel like I can really relate to the older brother in this story. But because Jesus leaves this story open ended it demands something of me. This story demands that I ask the question: what kind of son am I going to be.

Just like the older brother the choice lies before me. It happens every day.

I can choose to participate in what God is doing or I can be selfish, insecure and judgmental.

I enter into this story and I live in it on a daily basis... and every time I decide how this story ends.

Grace & Peace

a father and his sons (part 2)

In my last post I looked at the story that Jesus tells in Luke 15, and building off the posts about the same story at my friend's Josh's blog, how the younger son thought about himself and his father. In this post I want to look at the older son. But before I go forward I want to go backward.


At the beginning of chapter 15 the writer of Luke sets the scene for us:


"All the tax collectors and sinners were gathering around Jesus to listen to him. The Pharisees and legal experts were grumbling, saying, 'This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.'"


Now if you are not familiar with these stories it's worth pointing out that the pharisees and legal experts are Jewish religious leaders who, while very devoted to God, seem to miss the point of Jesus' life and teachings...


a lot!


So when they see that Jesus is hanging out with tax collectors and sinners (think of them as the equivalent of people that no one really likes - like modern day... well tax collectors and sinners I guess.) they get upset. 


Why?


Because "those" people are bad...


Something is wrong with them...


They are trash.


In the last post i looked at how some people view everyone as trash. In this post we will look at how some people only think that "those" kinds of people are trash.


"Those" people are the ones that are different than us. They don't live the way that we live.


If God loves us he can't love them...


right?


A few months ago I was walking with a friend one night near downtown.


As we were walking we passed some girls who were all dolled up with make up, short skirts and high heels. As they passed by us my friend cleared her throat rather loudly and then said, "I don't know why some girls have to dress like that to get attention."


The girls turned and looked at us since they obviously heard her. I could tell that they were not thrilled about being judged so harshly but after a second they just kept walking.


I was a little embarrassed and pretty angry but mostly disappointed.


We didn't even know these girls, and yet my friend acted like she had them all figured out.

Was she trying to shame them into changing the way they dressed?

Why did she think she had the right to look down on people just because she never dressed like that but they did?


It almost seemed like she saw the way those girls were dressed and she assumed they were trash.


That's what the pharisees and legal experts did.


They assumed that people who didn't live up to their standards were just trash.


So Jesus sees what they are saying. And he calls them out on it.


He tells a couple of stories about including the outsiders as insiders and those who were lost being found and how in his eyes this radical inclusion is cause for throwing a party.


Then after he tells the story about the younger brother he gets to the older brother:


"Now his older son was in the field. Coming in from the field, he approached the house and heard music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what was going on. The servant replied, ‘Your brother has arrived, and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he received his son back safe and sound.’ Then the older son was furious and didn’t want to enter in, but his father came out and begged him. He answered his father, ‘Look, I’ve served you all these years, and I never disobeyed your instruction. Yet you’ve never given me as much as a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours returned, after gobbling up your estate on prostitutes, you slaughtered the fattened calf for him.’" 


In his post Josh pointed out how the older brother thinks about the younger one. He doesn't even refer to him as his brother but as "this son of yours".

He's just like the pharisees and legal experts. He thinks that because of the way his younger brother lived that he is trash.

What a horrible way to think about your own brother!

But the reality is his incorrect view about his brother actually stems from his view of his father.

He says, "I've served you all these years".

As Josh points out he sees his father basically as a slave driver. He sees himself as a mere servant.

What a horrible way to think about your own father!

He thinks that because he has served his father that he has earned his father's affection. He sees his father as someone who only loves those who have earned it.

But I think his incorrect view of his father goes even deeper than that.

He's upset because his father killed the fattened calf for his brother and he complains that he never even got a goat.

When Josh, a few other guys and I were talking about this one night in a bar we discussed how the fattened calf was a big meal.

Along with bread and vegetables that would have been included in this feast that would have been way too much for three people. That much food would be enough to feed the whole village.

The whole village is at this party?

With all the music, wine and people at this party it's safe to say that this father knows how to throw down.

He seems to be a very generous man.

But the older brother doesn't see him that way. He says my friends and I never even got a goat.

A goat?

The fattened calf was juicy, meaty and great for throwing a feast. A goat was much tougher, gamier and didn't have nearly as much meat on it.

He doesn't have a big enough imagination.

He doesn't realize how generous his father really is.

Apparently he thinks his father is stingy.

But his father says, "Son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours."


Everything I have is yours...


Everything!


It's like the father is saying, "Who wants a goat? If you wanted the fattened calf I would have gladly given it to you. After all I gave your brother his entire inheritance simply because he asked for it.You didn't have to earn  a party from me, you could have just asked. I would have loved to thrown you a party."


The older brother thinks his younger brother is trash because the older brother doesn't understand the way the father sees his children.

Does it seem like the older brother may even be a little insecure about himself?

Is that why he is lashing out at his father and little brother?

This is the part of the story that really hits home for me.

I'm so much like the older brother.

I'm a pro at using other people's failures to feel good about myself.

At least I'm not as messed up as that person...

At least I don't do what he does...

At least I'm not as judgmental as that girl...

right?

I think maybe I have a hard time seeing others the way God sees them because I don't understand how God sees me. So i project my insecurities onto other people and I focus on their brokenness so I don't have to own up to my own. Because if I own up to my own then I am faced with a very startling question - could anyone, let alone God, love me?

It's hard sometimes to see past your own shortcomings isn't it?

Sometimes it's hard to accept love.

Grace & Peace

a father and his sons (part 1)

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

Book Review: "Evolving In Monkey Town" by Rachel Held Evans

How a girl who knew all the answers learned to ask the questions.

I know that I really like a book when I read the whole thing in one day. I picked up this book the other day and I couldn't put it down. 

Rachel grew up in Dayton, Tennessee - the home of the infamous Scopes Monkey Trial. She tells about growing up in a conservative evangelical home in the middle of the Bible belt, and how her education right up through college prepared her to have all the right answers in order to defend her faith and doctrine.

But then something changed.

She began to look past empty doctrinal statements to see people. The very people that her doctrines condemned. Rachel discovers the startling truth that it's easy to be condemning of people who are different then you as long as you can keep them at a safe distance, but once you start to get to know them or pay attention to them things start to change.

And suddenly all those tightly bound answers give way to questions.

This is a book about learning to be honest.

This is a book about learning to not be afraid of the hard questions.

I would highly recommend this book.

You can purchase a copy here:

http://www.amazon.com/Evolving-Monkey-Town-Answers-Questions/dp/0310293995

Higher Ways

"God's ways are higher than our ways".

This is a statement often used by Christians that I come in contact with whenever I bring up questions about God's goodness, mercy and justice.

For example when I bring up the question of how a God who claims to be loving can create some people to experience mostly torture and suffering during their lives on earth only to be faced with more torture and suffering for all of eternity simply because (if we are being honest) they were born in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Christian writer Rachel Held Evans calls it the "cosmic lottery" in her book Evolving in Monkey Town.

That doesn't sound like love to me.

And of course the response is usually along the lines of "Ah, but God's concept of love is different than our concept of love" and "God's ways are higher than our ways".

And I don't necessarily disagree with that,

but...

Why us the term "love" at all to describe God if it means something fundamentally different than what we think "love" means.

And why would "love" mean something fundamentally different when the word itself is defined in the Bible.

 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. (1 Corinthians 13, emphasis mine)

When we claim that God is love isn't this, then, how we should understand God. As one who is patient and kind. As one who is not easily angered. As one who does not delight in evil but rejoices in truth. As one who always protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres and never fails.

With that in mind let's go back to that phrase "God's ways are higher than our ways".

Let's look carefully at the passage in Isaiah that this quote comes from:

Seek the LORD while he may be found;
   call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways
   and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on them,
   and to our God, for he will freely pardon.
 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, 
   neither are your ways my ways,” 
            declares the LORD. 
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, 
   so are my ways higher than your ways 
   and my thoughts than your thoughts. 
 As the rain and the snow 
   come down from heaven, 
and do not return to it 
   without watering the earth 
and making it bud and flourish, 
   so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, 
 so is my word that goes out from my mouth: 
   It will not return to me empty, 
but will accomplish what I desire 
   and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. 
 You will go out in joy 
   and be led forth in peace; 
the mountains and hills 
   will burst into song before you, 
and all the trees of the field 
   will clap their hands. 
 Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper, 
   and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. 
This will be for the LORD’s renown, 
   for an everlasting sign, 
   that will endure forever.”
(Isaiah 55:6-13)

So it seems that God's ways of love, mercy and justice being higher than ours does not make them fundamentally diffirent than ours. In this passage the people often quote Isaiah speaks of God being more loving, forgiving and merciful than we can understand not more wrathful.

Because love isn't vengeful and it doesn't delight in evil. 

Because millions of people suffering eternally does not bring glory to God.

Because the gospel is good news for all creation, not terrible news for most of it.

Grace & Peace

the power of love...

Jesus' sacrifice on the cross teaches us that love has infinitely more power to change the world than hate, fear and violence.

Love can change the world!

Poetry: "Faithing the Truth" by Nick Ansel

Atheists claim that there is no God.

I think they're right.

If all we can see in the world is injustice, despair or boredom 

we are living in a world where God does not exist.

Atheists are simply facing reality.

Religion is wishful thinking.

But I'm not an atheist.

I just don't want to face reality. 

I want to change it.

It's up to us whether God exists or not.

If we live out God's justice and mercy

God becomes real.

Then the world of the atheist has to

make room for another world.

A world of compassion, hope and excitement.

This piece is a meditation on Jesus' words, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." It was given on a television program on BBC.