We are continuing in our summer sermon topic: “Ask Us Anything,” Today we are combing two questions:
1.Can you give examples of what happens when we don’t do what God commands and how he forgives us when we repent?
2.Please speak more about the Prodigal Son. Grace not by actions. Grace by love.
The Return of the Prodigal Son is my favorite parable because it summarizes the power of God’s grace and the road that leads to it. This is why I’ve combined these two questions, because the Prodigal Son answers the question of what happens when we don’t follow God’s commands and the question of what God’s forgiveness looks like when we repent.
Before we get into these questions, let’s clarify what God commands. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus summarized the law in this way:
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”-Mark 12:30-31.
Notice that the first command is to love God with all of your heart, soul, mind and strength. When we do that we are able to love our neighbors and ourselves.
In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the younger son first gets into trouble when he stops loving his father. In asking his father to give him his inheritance, the younger son is effectively saying: “I wish you were dead.” He doesn’t care about his father or his brother. He doesn’t care that his actions deeply hurt his father or the rest of the family. He just wants to live life on his terms without a care for anyone else. In the end, this does not serve him well. He spends all of his inheritance and ends up living in poverty. The irony is that in being just about himself, the younger son ends up losing himself completely.
The same happens for the older son. He is angry at his father for throwing a party for his younger brother who was nowhere near as responsible and dutiful as the older brother. The older brother yells at his father: “I’ve been slaving away for you doing everything right and you never threw a party like this for me!” His father gently tells him: “Son, you are always with me and all that I have is yours.” The older brother was so focused on being the obedient son in order to obtain his inheritance that he, too, lost sight of his dad. He lost sight that everything the father had actually belonged to him, too. He failed to see the love of his father just as much as his younger brother did.
Really, this is a parable of two sons who were so focused on themselves they lost sight of the love their father had for them. If they had only looked beyond themselves to see the love of their father the younger son would not have felt the need to pursue a life of independence. If the older son hadn’t been so focused on being the perfect son to be worthy of this father’s love, he would’ve seen that his father already loved him as he was.
This is why Jesus emphasizes loving God with all our mind, soul and strength, otherwise we will go to other things or rely on ourselves to try to find the love and wholeness that is already available to us in Jesus Christ.
When we fail to love God we are in danger of turning into the younger son, who is drawn to what appears to be a shiny, exciting, and carefree life while turning our backs on those who love us.
When we fail to love God we are also in danger of becoming like the older son, who tries to be the perfect Christian that falsely believes we have to make ourselves worthy of Christ’s love. Ironically we become just as self-centered as the younger son who sought the party life.
In both sons we see how sin starts when we lose sight of the one who loves us most. In both sons we see the consequences of turning away from God – we lose sight of others and we lose sight of ourselves. As a result of sin, we not only hurt ourselves, but we hurt others as well.
The younger son broke his father’s heart by effectively wishing him dead when he asked for his inheritance. The older son also broke his father’s heart by accusing him of taking advantage of his dutiful nature. In addition both brothers weren’t thinking of how their actions hurt the other.
In our passage from Ezekiel, the prophet Ezekiel calls out the King Jehoiachin and Zedekiah for turning away from God to focus on building their own power. In doing so, the rest of Israel suffered. A consequence of the king’s sin was that the very people they were called to protect were harmed. Our sin does not affect just us.
There’s also the notion of corporate sin. I don’t mean the sins of corporations as in businesses, but sins committed by an entire community or nation.
When Matt and I lived in Scotland for a year in 2006, we were struck by how every small village and town had a memorial for the young men they lost in both world wars. There was still some animosity between Germany, the UK and the rest of Europe. While we lived there we became friends with a couple, Johannes and Hilke. They were newlyweds like us, and we met them through Matt’s Master’s program at the University of Edinburgh. One day, we invited Johannes and Hilke to our flat, and we thought it would be nice for them to meet the pastor I was working with who lived just up the road. The pastor I worked with is one of the warmest and welcoming people I’ve ever met. But when he found out that Johannes and Hilke were German, his entire demeanor changed. He smiled less. He stared more intently. A wall was put up. Afterward I felt like I had to apologize to Johannes and Hilke. I explained that the pastor I worked with must’ve been in a bad mood, he’s usually much friendlier. But they stopped me and shared that they get treated like this a lot because they are German. It hurts, but they also understand and they too carry shame for the atrocities their country committed.
Even decades later, the trauma and pain inflicted by Germany and their allies still lingered on in the people of Europe and the UK. The consequences of Germany’s sin is that while many years have passed, there remains great distrust between these nations. I know there has been and continues to be healing, but it is also not an easy path.
The reason for why it is a difficult path is because those who have done wrong to others have to admit their wrong. Admit how their sin affected not just themselves, but also God and others.
We are told that the younger son had an epiphany as he was tempted to eat the same food as the pigs he was tending because he was poor, hungry and at rock bottom. He realized just how good he had it back at his father’s house and so he makes a decision to go back home. He’s realistic, however, in that he doesn’t expect his father to welcome him home with open arms. He’s prepared to be a hired hand in his father’s household as he knows he doesn’t deserve to be a part of the family again, due to the way he abandoned the family.
He is repentant. And when he admits the wrong he’s done he’s ready to make a change.
Grace does require action, action not to receive grace, but action to live out of God’s grace.
The younger son is a changed person after he acknowledges and accepts the wrong he has done and the hurt he has caused. I love how in Rembrandt’s portrait of the Prodigal Son we see how humble and sorry this younger son is.
But look at the older bother. He is rigid and has a look of judgment and disapproval. He has not changed because he has yet to admit his wrong. He is still focused on himself when he lashes out at his father for not acknowledging him for being a dutiful son. The father also lovingly embraces his older son, assuring him of his love. Neither the older son or the younger son deserve how quickly their father forgives them and assures them both of his love for them.
The difference is that the younger son is repentant. He has admitted his sin against his father and how he hurt not only himself, but his father as well when he chose to abandon him.
We don’t know what the older dutiful son chose to do. The parable ends on a cliffhanger. Does he continue to resent his father and his younger brother? Or does he accept the sin he has committed for being so self-centered that he failed to see the love of his father that was right in front him? One could ask who is really the prodigal son of the two brothers? Which one truly turned away from their father?
In this parable, Jesus is comparing the religious elites to the older brother. Sin comes in all kinds of forms. It can even look Christian. We claim to be following God, but like the older brother we only follow God because there’s something in it for us. So really our choice to follow God is more about us than it is about God.
If we’ve truly admitted our sin and turned back to God just like the younger son, then we too will be changed people. People who are better able to love God, our neighbor, and ourselves.
But just like the two sons we can’t do this on our own. The father in this parable had to convince both sons that they were indeed loved and were at home. Even while the younger son believed he didn’t deserve it and the older son felt like he still had to prove himself. It was their father who helped them see they rightly belonged to him and they could both be confident of his love for them.
Whether you identify more with the younger son or the older one, or perhaps a combination of the two, when we are honest with God about being more focused on ourselves, we are more ready to receive and be transformed by God’s love. For only God’s love can truly do that in any of us.
