Reckless Grace - #5

The Parable of the Two Lost Sons is split into two Acts. We saw in Act 1 the shocking display of love from the father, both in giving the rebellious younger son the inheritance due at the father's death and also receiving this son back into the home with open arms. "Grace to spare" is Tim Keller's summation of these events, which is a neat way of putting it.

And so we come to Act 2, where we finally meet the other son mentioned at the beginning of the story. As all of the events at the end of Act 1 unfold -- the stunning welcome home followed by the throwing of a huge party --we read the eldest son was in the field, no doubt working. He heard the rambunctious goings on from afar and so asked one of the servants what was happening. The servant informs him of two things: his brother has returned, and his father has decided to celebrate as a result. Now the elder brother is faced with a decision, and much like his younger brother he decides to disgrace his father.

As I've noted before, this parable is really about the father. The elder brother doesn't refuse to join the party because he has no respect or love for his once stray brother (though that is surely implied). It is the father who has angered him. Why? Because the father has grace to spare.

The climactic moment in this parable is the father running out to his youngest son and lavishing upon him all sorts of unconditional love. Here is the moment when the father's heart is revealed, and it is a heart that bleeds forgiveness and grace. This is the central image of the story, and we have initially seen it through the eyes of an exile who has been reinstated into the family. This is grace, and it looks good from this point of view.

But there is a second lens which we must now look through. In the second Act we are given a new pair of eyes through which we must see things. We see the same image -- that of a father celebrating the return of his rebel son -- but this time anger is the dominant motif. The eldest son is furious with his father's shameless display of grace. Through him we see grace as something which doesn't make any sense. His father tries to usher him into the party, but the son replies,

"Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!"

In other words, "I've earned a celebration, whereas this son of yours hasn't. What you're doing isn't fair!"

Judaism as a religion was not built on what we might describe as "works righteousness". The Pharisees Jesus was addressing would have known this. They would have known that God led the children of Israel out of Egypt before He ever gave them the Ten Commandments. Contrary to the vibe I get from Keller, I can't quite commit to the idea that Jesus is here addressing people who think a relationship with God is earned, though the application can surely be made, especially given the eldest son's words and the fact that the story finishes with him still outside the party.

However, we must not overlook the (once again) shocking statement by the father:

"Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours."

His eldest son disgraces him by refusing to join the celebration, yet the father still speaks so tenderly to his beloved son. His hard heart seemingly has not cost him anything. He still has his relationship with the father ("Son, you are always with me", and he still has his inheritance ("all that is mine is yours"). But to go back to that central image again, the father has shown both his sons a fresh portrait of himself. Though they were both with him (one for longer than the other) neither son really knew who their father was. But because of this stunning welcome home the youngest son has now seen his father for who he really is, and can't help but celebrate. The elder brother has also seen, but he now faces a choice: put away the distorted images of his father which he has held for so long and join the party, or turn away from the father's heart and refuse to celebrate the embracing grace.

I have only dipped my feet into Keller's wonderful little book, but I hope you have gained something of a renewed insight into the father heart of the One Christians call "God"; the prodigal God who has grace to spare.

But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. - Luke 15:20

Reckless Grace - #3

If we are aware of nothing else in this parable right now, we should be aware of this: the father had two sons. Keller therefore renames the story The Parable of the Two Lost Sons. Whether this new title is appropriate or not is a discussion for another time, but it helps to hammer home a crucial point.

The story is split into two acts, the first zeroing in on the younger son and his father, the second concentrating on the elder son and his father. The presence of the father throughout the story leads me to believe that first and foremost it is a story about the father. Just as the previous parable wasn't about coins but about a persistent woman's joy in finding one, so this parable too is about a father's joy in finding his lost son. The two sons act as two different lenses through which we as imaginers of this story can see the father. It is of course the same father, but each son interprets his actions quite differently.

Act 1 chronicles the younger son's journey towards really seeing his father. It begins with the son asking the father for his inheritance. He was entitled to one third of what the father had, but this transaction occurred only after the father had passed away. Therefore, in effect the son was wishing his father dead. He wanted out of the father/son relationship now, desiring instead the material gains the death of this relationship promised.

The father would have had every right to give his son nothing more than a sandal up the backside and proceed to disown him. The son's request was one of the utmost disrespect and contempt. But here in the opening verses of the paragraph we encounter the prodigality of the father, whose response is more shocking than the request. The father simply divides his livelihood (in the Greek the word is bios, meaning life) and gives to his younger son what should only be given after the father's death. The son makes a shocking demand, and the father replies, "As you wish". He tears his life apart for the love of his son, unwilling to retaliate in kind to the son's rejection. This is no eye-for-an-eye, but a turning of the other cheek. Jesus applies here to the father what he described in the Sermon on the Mount: costly love.

The next scene sees the son living it up in "a far country". He takes his father's very life and blows it through wasteful living, content to experience the fleeting pleasures bought with money instead of enjoying the love of the father which money cannot buy. His bank balance dries up eventually, and famine strikes the land. The son is an alien in this country, with no family to lean on for support. He turns to a citizen of the country and winds up feeding pigs to make ends meet. He is a long way from his father's house now, where even the servants go to bed with their stomachs full of food.

There in the pigsty we are told that "he came to himself" or "he came to his senses". Some see this is the moment of repentance or the moment when he finally saw the light. Keller doesn't explicitly address this issue, but I think there is slightly more to the son's return than we initially realise.

Reckless Grace - #2

^{Luke 15:11-31
11}Jesus continued: "There was a man who had two sons. ¹²The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them.

¹³"Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. ¹⁴After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. ¹⁵So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. ¹⁶He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

¹⁷"When he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! ¹⁸I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. ¹⁹I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' ²⁰So he got up and went to his father.
"But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

²¹"The son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'

²²"But the father said to his servants, 'Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. ²³Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. ²⁴For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' So they began to celebrate.

²⁵"Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ²⁷'Your brother has come,' he replied, 'and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.'

²⁸"The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. ²⁹But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. ³⁰But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'

³¹" 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. ³²But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.' "

As noted preiously, this parable is generally read with the wayward son as the primary point of contact, hence its popular title "The Prodigal Son". But a brief look at the setting in which Jesus told this story reveals that He had two primary points of contact in mind, with the elder son perhaps even being the more crucial one. Luke 15 begins,

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, "This man receives sinners and eats with them." So he told them this parable:

The parable about the two sons is the third in a series of parables which act as vindication for what Jesus is doing - dining with sinners. Though He is not obliged to justify His actions, He does so anyway through the telling of parables in the hopes of gaining a response not from the sinners (for they have already responded to Him favourably) but from the Pharisees who are incensed at His shenanigans.

And so the parable of the father and his two sons is aimed at the heart of the Pharisee. This is a heart which refuses to share in God's delight over sinners coming to have fellowship with Him. The message of the two preceding parables is that there is joy in heaven when that which is alienated from God is reconciled to Him. This is the same point made by Jesus in the third of these rapid-fire parables. God's heart is full of joy when the lost are found, with the underlying question being what is in your heart when you see sinners enjoying fellowship with God? As Keller says,

The parable of the two sons takes an extended look at the soul of the elder brother, and climaxes with a powerful plea for him to change his heart.

Since there are two sons, it is safe to say that there are two types of people who need to hear and respond to this parable. This first and most obvious type is those who have turned away from God and chosen to live life apart from Him. Those who have acted as if He doesn't exist and as if the world and its contents exist as objects to be used for ones self-gratification. The second type of people targeted are those who appear to have stuck with God their entire lives. Those who live a seemingly devout, religious, moral life. These people attend church, they have an exceedingly high opinion of Scripture, they are fervent in their prayer life, they are quick to sign-up for any church related activities, they are careful to obey God's commandments and feel obligated to aid others in doing likewise. These people may be elders in your church. No doubt they are held in high regard by the surrounding Christian community. The Christian faith is their life. But Jesus tells them that they need a radical change of heart. Though they may not appear so, they are standing outside as the party rages on inside the house. The God they thought they knew has exposed Himself as One full of unconditional love, One who delights in seeing broken people come to Him, and their hard hearts cannot tolerate it. It simply doesn't make any sense.

Most of us have probably fitted into at least one of these types over the course of our life. We try the do-it-yourself approach to life, or we try the devout approach. The problem with the church today is that do-it-yourself people aren't being called to join a feast of celebration. Do-it-yourself people are being told that they need to become devout people. Or more subtly, they are shown that they need to become devout, and so they either run away from the church, or worse, they join in not with a celebration but with a ritual, where the God worshiped is not a loving Father but a legalist.

The simple fact portrayed in the gospels is that Jesus was a foe to most of the religious people of His day while He was a friend to sinners. The "elder brothers" grumbled because of His behaviour, the "younger brothers" gathered around Him with joy, eager to hear Him (Lk. 15:1). Is this reflected in the modern church? What kind of people are attracted to what should be a community of celebration? Keller boldly states that,

If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we'd like to think.

Do we know the God that Jesus knew so well? No matter which son we feel resonates with us, it is the same father who throws the party. The task of a Christian is not to label people as irreligious or religious, but to be a faithful witness to the God revealed by Jesus; the God of reckless grace.

Reckless Grace - #1

As promised, we will be taking a whistle-stop tour through Timothy Keller's short book The Prodigal God. The author describes it as a book which thrashes out the essentials of the Christian faith, and can serve as an introduction to Christianity.

Some people who read this blog probably think they have as much of a grasp of the Christian faith as they need, or at least are very in tune with the basics. This includes me (and yes, I read this blog, but unlike you I'm not afraid to say it!). However, as Keller points out, the minute you think you've grasped the good news of the Christian faith is the minute you've misunderstood it or underestimated it.

My rather weak analogy for this is the concept of infinity in mathematics. When you first encounter its curvy shape you are in awe, left scratching your head in puzzlement. But as you begin to draw it yourself and use it in your equations you get a feel for what it represents. Infinity becomes like just another number; you think you've grasped its concept. and the puzzlement and wonder is no longer there. But as soon as you think you "get" infinity, you have lost sight of its essence, its essence being its limitlessness and ungraspableness. You only begin to get infinity when you realise that you'll never completely get it.

So it is with the gospel. As a Christian I think I get it, and now the ball is in my court. But such thinking signifies that I don't really get it at all, for if I truly got it I would realise that I can never fully get my head around this astoundingly good news and am in need of its message being constantly impressed on my mind and heart.

One of the issues highlighted by Michael Horton in his book Christless Christianity is that the modern church tends to "assume the gospel". We call out from the pews, "OK, we get the good news. What next? What can we do?" Keller's book is an attempt to recapture the stunning message of the gospel, so that those of us sitting in church buildings desire to say, "What good news! Tell it to us again".

The parable commonly known as the Prodigal Son is the passage used to unearth the heart of the Christian faith. It's a simple story involving a father and his two sons. That's right - two sons. "There was a man who had two sons" is Jesus' opening line in the short story, and so as Keller opines, it is not right to single out just one of the sons for special focus. This parable is as much about the elder son as it is the younger, and it tells us as much about the father as it does his sons. We therefore reduce the parable's full force if we eliminate any one of the main characters from it.

The word "prodigal" from the popular title for the parable is also misunderstood. Based on the actions of the younger son we tend to think of it as meaning "wayward" or "rebellious", but the true definition of the word is "recklessly spendthrift". It is an adjective to describe someone given to lavish expenditure. This is certainly true of the son in the story who blew his money on exotic prostitutes, but it is also true of the father. See how he welcomes his son home with a huge party, refusing to count his sins against him but instead showering him with fatherly love.

The father represents God, hence the title of the book The Prodigal God. In this story we get a glimpse into the heart of God, a heart prone to -- even characterised by -- unbridled love. Jesus paints a picture of God the Father in which madcap expenditure of unconditional love is the motif. The good news that Jesus is Lord flows out of this heart, this Father-heart of love. We can never plumb its depths, but we must never stop. As Keller puts it,

God's reckless grace it our greatest hope.

This series will attempt to encounter that grace.