This week’s passage from Luke
15 is considered to be one long teaching moment by Jesus. It’s helpful to
remember that in the Greek, there are no punctuation marks. No periods, commas,
and exclamation points. In order to translate a passage in Greek, the entirety
of the text must be taken into consideration. The prodigal son is one of the
more fully developed parables that Jesus told. Many who don’t belong to the
Christian faith know and use the teachings of this parable.
None of the characters are
two-dimensional. All three express strong emotions in such a way that they
invite readers to connect with them. From the perspective of the elder son,
it’s the story of how he is steadfast and faithful while his feckless, prodigal
brother squanders a fortune and is then welcomed home. From the perspective of
the younger son, it’s the story of how he foolishly asks for, receives, and
then wastes his inheritance on dissolute living. Chastened and nearly starving,
he realizes his father’s servants are better off than he is, and so he
formulates an apology and returns.
From the perspective of the
father, this is a story about losing a son and, in fact, regarding that boy as
dead. It was very unusual that a son would ask for his inheritance before his
father died, yet even knowing that this was not a wise choice on his son’s
part, the father acquiesces. In giving the inheritance to his son, the father
shows surprising disregard for his own rights and honour.
The drama of this story takes
off when the younger son practices his apology over and over. In it, he
confesses his sin and recognises that he has forfeited his position as son.
When the father sees his son across a field, he runs to meet him and we get a
sense of hurried excitement. Some theologians wonder if the father is running
to protect his son from scorn from his village. The father never seems to judge
the sincerity of the younger son’s confession and never waits for explanation.
Instead, he orders slaves to “put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
And get the fatted calf and kill it.”
Though honour and reputation
were valuable commodities, the father again seems to care little for his own
honour that was likely damaged through this incident. His joy is palpable. And
later, when confronted by the angry, hurt elder son, the father responds with
compassion. He calls his elder son teknon, which means child. It is a form of
affection that affirms their relationship. The father pleads with the elder
son. He reminds him of their bond as parent and child, saying to him, you are
always with me, and everything I have is yours.” He tries to persuade him to
accept his younger brother, “this brother of yours.” In the end, we don’t know
what the elder son chooses to do. Neither do we know what happened to the
younger son. To be forgiven can catch us at our most vulnerable state. We have
no ground to stand on; we simply accept.
Through
this parable we can see that the church is to be a means of grace and a herald
of truth—not either/or. We Christians
often can’t seem to decide whether we are a museum for the saints or a hospital
for sinners.” Many Ministers would say that their fears about choosing one of these
options should not, perhaps, form competing visions for local church life, but
sadly they often do. The kingdom Jesus proclaimed is the same kingdom of God he
enacted, and it is the same kingdom to which he summons the church.
The
church is to proclaim and practice reconciliation, that being the essence of
the kingdom: the reconciliation of all of us to God and the reconciliation of
each of us to the other, and neither the proclamation nor the practice of
reconciliation can finally exist without the other. Either emphasis, without
the counterweight of the other, leads to ruin. The “hospital for sinners” model
can leave believers awash in what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace,”
namely, “grace as a doctrine, a principle, a system.
It
means forgiveness of sins proclaimed as a general truth, the love of God taught
as the Christian ‘conception’ of God . . . the justification of sin without the
justification of the sinner” The “museum of saints” model, on the other hand,
can chill non-believers and even the faithful with a cold and impassive
shoulder. An austere, compassionless rendering of the gospel leaves people
knowing that they are not righteous but also not necessarily that they are
forgiven.
In
either view, what might be called true doctrine and true community seem
independent of each other. For Saint
Paul , however, authentic community and particular
doctrinal confessions of the gospel are interdependent. The church is not a
group of volunteers who have chosen Christ, but saints chosen by Christ—called
and given identity through a particular confession and hope: truth and grace;
ministry and message; not one without the other.
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