The Prodigal Son Continues

"Dream God's dream Holy Spirit help us dream of a world where there is justice and where everyone is free. To build and grow and love and to simply have enough.  The world will change when we dream God's dream."

This refrain keep going through my mind the last day or so.  It is a song that was introduced to me about ten years ago.  The song, in total, sends a powerful message to the world today. 

In a world where there is so much hatred and tension and waring the parable of the Prodigal Son is a perfect example how the world is suppose to be.  

Which is not at all like the world we live in.

The parable is about what God meant the world to be like.  

Jesus uses this story to tell us the truth about human tendency to move away from Gods intention.  To rather seek immediate gratification at any cost. Even if you break your father's -- and most certianly your mother's --  heart in the doing.

Even if you break the social custom and religious rules.

Even if you leave your brother to do your part of the family business.

You just disregard it all for your own happiness and gratification.  

And the only one who seems to be bothered about it all is your older brother. Who react in the typical manner of any human ego.  Who calls for "fairness."

The real world spelled out in one little story with so many implications.

The focus of this dream is the father's action.

God's dream was alive right smack in the middle of it all the messiness.

Just like God's dream is living right smack in the middle of all the crap we face every minute of each day right here in the year 2022.

I share with you Michael B. Curry"s word about the dream in his commentary:

"As this story unfolds, it is clear that the parable is more about the determined, compassion, infinite providence of God than it is about the ways of God's prodigal children." 

Such a vision of the vastness and depth of the love, grace, compassion and justice of God lies behind Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son.  This parable points to God’s deepest desire, greatest yearning, and passionate dream for all pf God’s children and the whole of God’s creation…..It is God’s dream to renew, reconcile, repair, and restore the creation;  that is the magnetic power in the parable of the Prodigal Son pulling the prodigal back home.....(Feasting on the Word, Year C Vol. 2)

I believe that God is constantly moving about in our world situations today making the changes needed.

But our simple -- limited -- mind are not able to take it all in.

The best news is God understands us and loves us despite ourselves.

The True Meaning of The Prodigal Son

 The Gospel for Sunday was Jesus story of the prodigal son. A story that has long been intriguing to we who desire to follow Jesus’ way of living.

At first reading, it is a story about an ungrateful, younger, son who wastefully squanders his share of his inheritance on loose women and loose living.

People often just hear the part about the attitudes and action of the two sons. 

We tend to get wrapped up in the fairness of what has happened.

The younger son, who wasted away his father’s hard earned fortune , gets the fine robe, ring and extravagant party.

The older son, who has stayed faithful to his father; and work hard all his life to do everything ‘right,’  seems to get basically nothing for his faithfulness.

Most people would see that as not fair.  Right?

We need to remember this is a story told about an ancient culture that lived by an entirely different set of rules.

First of all, if a son asked a father for his inheritance, while his father is still alive, was like saying I wish you dead so I can have what is due me.   It would have been seen as disrespectful and totally unacceptable.  And culturally not right.

An action that could have, according to traditions, gotten him stone to death.

Secondly a father would never had acted like this father did if the son decided to return to the home.  The son had broken too many rule not to deserve harsh consequence. But more to the point, would not have been welcome back into the family.

Beside the family feelings, there also would have been the shame and unacceptable behavior of the father upon the son’s return.  An attitude and behavior, totally against cultural traditions.

The point being missed, when we just focus on the sons, is the father’s actions and feelings.

How many father do you know who would have left the younger son actions uncensored?

How many fathers, do you know who, would have just handed the son half of his hard earned fortune? 

Let a lone thrown him an extravagant party upon his return; regardless of the breach of traditions and unacceptable behavior.  When you think about how many cultural rules and traditions had been literally fractured by this son’s behavior.  Not to mention the father’s behavior and reactions.  

Just a simple reading of the parable at face value deletes the deeper, more crucial meaning of the message.

To quote Michael B. Curry:  "As this story unfolds, it is clear that the parable is more about the determined, compassion, infinite providence of God than it is about the ways of God's prodigal children."

More another time.

A Major Quandary

I woke up this morning fretting about how messed up the institutional church and the world has become.  How we have forgotten the main thing — Jesus call to love instead of the need to always to be right.

I started the day by praying: God take away all these negative feeling and thoughts.

Now sitting here with my coffee reading a commentary, on 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, I read these words written by Ralph C. Wood:

‘Karl Barth was once asked what he would say to Adolf Hitler if he had the chance to meet the monster who was destroying Europe…….Barth replied instead, that he would do nothing other than quote Romans 5:8  ‘While we still were sinners Christ dies for us.’  Only the  unparalleled mercy and forgiveness of God, the unstinted gladness and grace of the gospel, could have prompted the Fuhrer’s genuine repentance.” 

The commentary went on to say: “We cannot see any person as anything other than a creature for whom Christ has died and risen,  and thus as one meant also to become “a new creation.” (p. 110 & 112 Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 2) 

And i remembered a morning, soon after 9/11, a woman walking out of worship, and instead of shaking my hand, she scolded me saying: “How can you preach about praying for your enemies after what has just happened?”

The thought of God loving those we see as “enemies.” or “evil,” or other than we approve of is appalling and just wrong.

And my mind asks:  How can we reconcile with Jesus’ request to be conduit of love, forgiveness, mercy and compassion?

I have no answer for this struggle.

Please Pray With Me

But now thus says the Lord,
   he who created you, O Jacob,
   he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
   I have called you by name, you are mine. 
² When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
   and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
   and the flame shall not consume you. 
³ For I am the Lord your God,
   the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.
I give Egypt as your ransom,
   Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. 
⁴ Because you are precious in my sight,
   and honoured, and I love you,
I give people in return for you,
   nations in exchange for your life. 
⁵ Do not fear, for I am with you;
   I will bring your offspring from the east,
   and from the west I will gather you; 
⁶ I will say to the north, ‘Give them up’,
   and to the south, ‘Do not withhold;
bring my sons from far away
   and my daughters from the end of the earth— 
⁷ everyone who is called by my name,
   whom I created for my glory,
   whom I formed and made.’ (Ia. 43)

 My mind does not rest these days. Without even listening to much news I know what is happening in the country of Ukraine.

First I am inviting all of you to put your needs, and frustration, about “high prices”  into a different perspective.  

Which would you rather have?  Higher price or being bombed and force to leave your home, family and friends? 

I know, there is a huge inconvenience to those on low incomes.  I realize that.  But there are not being terrified and bullied.  They are safe in a country that, in some small way, is sensitive to their plight.

So lets keep our inconveniences in perspective.

The next part of this outrageous event is so troubling to me that it is even happening.  I don’t understand, it is crushing — just awful.

This morning I sat and tried to find words, or thoughts, to talk to God about how I might pray about one man’s sick need for power — and yes possibility revenge.

What come to mind is the way God intervened for his people of the Old Testament. He went before them; and  prepared their way to safely so many times.

And so I asked for him to do the same for the Ukrainians today.  

I am inviting all of you, who read my blog, to pray for God’s intervention in this horrible invasion. 

Prayer is all we can do after all.

God's Plan Creates Harmony

 ⁵Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 

⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death—
   even death on a cross.(Phip.2)

Isaiah’s words in chapter 55 call us to be attentive to the wisdom of Philippines 2.

We are to understand life’s true direction by eliminating self-sufficiency. And instead aligning ourselves with God’s ways; and the power of God’s word. 

Aligning ourselves with God provides us with strong roots that grow deep in the earth of God’s kingdom.

In his commentary, in Feasting on the Word, Stephen L. Cook writes:

Isaiah “reveals a divine game plan for existence reflective of God’s unique way of working.  The word of God speaks to us of God’s personal , programmatic intention for us. Beyond being programmatic, the game plan of God’s for history is fail-safe. Like the sprouting of healthy crops after seasonable weather, the effectiveness of God’s word is assured.  God speaks words that work, on which we can base our lives with confidence….God’s word get results and achieves abundance. Like natural precipitation, it is fully effective apart  from human stress and strain…. God is directing history, and we should get with the program.” (p. 389 Year C, volume 1). 

¹² For you shall go out in joy,
   and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
   shall burst into song,
   and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

We are reading about the design for all of life in God’s creation. A life meant to stay close to the way that God intended us to live. 

A life style that produces harmony with God’s life-giving, life-sustaining intentions.  

Isaiah talks about the natural processes for healthy growth in nature. How the rain and snow provide all the earth needs to produce vegetation to sustain human and animal life. 

It is an analogy of how God provide for our needs.

Then there is an extraordinary metaphor of how we, humans, fit into the design: 

¹¹ so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
   it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
   and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

God’s word speak to us.  We in turn speak, and live out, that word in the environment we live in

In order for God's word to be fulfilled we are asked to live his word with every thought, feeling and breath out into the world around us.  So that, God's purpose will be accomplish.

When we desire to work out God's plan, then:

 all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. 
¹³ Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
   instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,
   for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. 

You see, in order for us to get with God's program we need to be willing to: 

Emptied ourselves, being humble and selfless before others in love, compassion, forgiveness and gentleness.

 That is:  "Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus."

Then and only then will we be able to live in joy and peace together.

¹⁰ For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
   and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
   giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
¹¹ so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
   it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
   and succeed in the thing for which I sent it. 

¹² For you shall go out in joy,
   and be led back in peace;
the mountains and the hills before you
   shall burst into song,
   and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.
¹³ Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress;
   instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle;
and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial,
   for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. (Is.55)