Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all
gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law
muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Then Jesus told them
this parable: “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t
he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until
he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and
goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice
with me; I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there
will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over
ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent. Or suppose a woman has
ten silver coins and loses one. Doesn’t she light a lamp, sweep the house and
search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her
friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost
coin.’ In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the
angels of God over one sinner who repents. (Luke
15:1-10)
Luke
tells us that Jesus told not one, but actually three, separate parables to the
Pharisees and the scribes, or teachers, that day who were complaining about the
fact that not only did Jesus welcome “sinners,” but he ate with them, too. The
first parable is called the Parable of the Lost Sheep, and it’s the story of a
man who was tending a flock of one hundred sheep when one goes wandering off. Maybe
it was just a matter of sheep-inattentiveness. However, instead of simply writing
the sheep off as a loss, the shepherd went searching until he found that lost
sheep. And after finding it, he called everyone around to “Rejoice with me, for
I have found my lost sheep.” (Verse 6)
The
second parable is called the Parable of the Lost Coin. In this story, a woman
has ten silver coins in her house but somehow manages to lose one of them. Maybe
it was just a matter of being a little careless. But, like the shepherd, she’s
not going to write it off as a loss either. So she “lights a lamp, sweeps the
whole house, and searches diligently until she finds it.” (Verse 8) And when
she does, just like the shepherd, she calls her friends and neighbors over and
says, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost coin.” (She was probably happy
that her house was clean, too) The third story is The Parable of the Prodigal
Son, a story with which most of you are likely familiar.
There
are some obvious similarities in the three stories. For instance, in each
parable something is lost, i.e., a
sheep, a coin and a son. And, in each, the one who loses something gets it back,
i.e., the shepherd, the woman and the
father. And, finally, each of the narratives ends on a festive note, and we see
people rejoicing and celebrating when the lost have been found. But with all
their similarities, there’s one glaring difference between the last parable and
the first two. In the first two parables, the shepherd and the woman go out and
search frantically for the lost sheep and the lost coin. Nothing gets in the
way of these determined “searchers.” So, by the time we get to the last story,
and we hear about the deplorable conditions in which the younger son is living,
we kind of expect that someone will go out and search for him, too. But no one
does. It’s kind of surprising, maybe even a little disquieting, but I think it
was intentional.
You
see, by placing the three parables side-by-side-by-side, Jesus is inviting us
to think, and perhaps ask ourselves, “Shouldn’t someone have gone out looking
for that lost boy, just like in the first two parables?” (Probably) “But, if
so, who would that be? The father? The older brother, maybe? How about a search
party?” Of course, Jesus knew his Word like the back of his hand, and he knew
that at its very beginning (Genesis 4) it tells another story of an elder and
younger brother – Cain and Abel. And in that story, God tells the resentful and
proud older brother, “You are your
brother’s keeper.”
The
late Edmund Clowney, a one-time Escondido resident and professor at Westminster
Theological Seminary, recounted in a sermon he once gave the true life story of
Daniel Dawson, an Army Lieutenant, whose reconnaissance plane had been shot
down over the Vietcong jungle. When his older brother,
Donald, heard the report, he sold everything he had, left his wife with $20,
and went to Vietnam. When he arrived, he got his hands on some soldier’s gear and
wandered through the guerilla-controlled jungle, looking for his brother. He
carried leaflets with pictures of the plane, and offered a reward to anyone who
could provide him with news of the missing pilot. He became known as Anh toi phi-cong — the
brother of the pilot, or just “the brother.”
And
isn’t that what the older brother in the parable should have done? I mean, this
is what a true elder brother would have done, don’t you think? He would have
said something like, “Look, Dad, my younger brother was a fool for demanding his
inheritance and then simply disappearing. But it’s been months since we’ve
heard from him, and I’m getting a little concerned – just like you. Fact is, he’s
probably broke and in a gutter somewhere. So, I’m gonna go look for him and
when I find him, I’ll bring him back. And if his inheritance has been wasted,
as I expect, I’ll bring him back at my expense.” Wait. At the older brother’s
expense? Yes, at the brother’s expense.
You
see, the father had divided his property between the two boys before the
younger one left town. Everything had been divvied up. The younger brother had
gotten his share and, we know from the story, his share was completely gone. So,
when the father says to the older brother, “My son, everything I have is
yours,” he’s not kidding. It’s the literal truth. Every penny that remained of
the family estate now belonged to the older brother – every robe, every ring, every
sandal, every fattened calf was the older brother’s by right.
It’s
tempting to believe that the restoration of the younger brother didn’t involve
a cost. We get there by pointing out the fact that the younger brother wanted
to make restitution, but his father wouldn’t let him. So, we conclude, his
acceptance back into the family was without cost. And we use this conclusion to
support the proposition that forgiveness and love should always be free and
unconditional. But that’s an oversimplification. For instance, if someone breaks
your cell phone, you could demand that they buy you a new one. The alternative,
of course, is to forgive them and pay for the replacement yourself, or simply go
without your cell phone. Right. But now imagine something more serious –
someone has maliciously damaged your reputation. Again, like the phone
scenario, you have two options. The first would be to make that person pay by
going to others who know him and then ruining his name as a way of restoring your
own. On the other hand, you could forgive him and take on the much more
difficult task of attempting to set the record straight without vilifying him
in the process. The forgiveness is free and unconditional to the perpetrator,
but it’s costly to you.
Mercy
and forgiveness must be free and unmerited to the wrongdoer, because if the
wrongdoer has to do something to merit it, then it’s not mercy. But forgiveness
always comes at a cost to the one who forgives. And while the parable of the
prodigal son showed us how free the father’s forgiveness was, it also gives us
insight into its costliness. You see, the younger brother’s restoration was
free to him, but it came at an enormous cost to the older brother because the father
could not reinstate him except at the expense of his older son. There was no
other way.
But
Jesus doesn’t put a true elder brother in the story, does he? One who was willing
to pay whatever it cost to go on a search and rescue mission looking for his derelict,
younger brother. The younger son gets a Pharisee for an older brother, instead.
And maybe that’s why the parable leaves us hanging – we’re never told what the
elder brother eventually decided. But by putting a flawed elder brother in the
story, Jesus is inviting us to imagine what a true older brother would’ve done,
or what he’d look like. In other words, to get us to think of the kind of
brother we need. We need one who doesn’t just go to the next country to find
us, but one who’ll move heaven and earth to do so. We need a brother who is
willing to pay not just money, but the cost of his own life to bring us into
God’s family. We’ve all rebelled against God. And it doesn’t matter if you’re a
“younger brother” or an “older brother,” because we all deserve rejection.
One
of the points of the parable is that forgiveness isn’t free. It always involves
a price. Someone has to pay. Again, there was no way for the younger brother to
return to the family unless the older brother paid the price, himself. And
Jesus, our true “older brother,” paid for our redemption with his life – on a
cross. We need to soften our hearts and be moved by the sight of what it cost
to bring us home. Jesus emptied himself of his glory and became a servant.
(Phil. 2:5-9) He laid aside the omnipotence of his being and, at the cost of
his life, paid the debt for our sin and purchased us the only place our hearts
can truly find rest – in his Father’s house. And once we begin to comprehend
this staggering truth, it can transform us from the inside out because why
wouldn’t you want to offer yourself to someone like that?
So,
here’s the dilemma: we either turn from God and pursue our heart’s desires,
like the younger brother, or we repress our desires and perform our moral obligations,
like the older brother. But the sacrificial, costly love of Jesus on the cross
changes all of that. Because when we see the beauty of what Jesus has done for
us, it attracts us to him. We realize that the love we’ve been seeking in other
things is really in Jesus. It also eliminates our fear, because if the Lord of
the universe loves us enough to die for us, then what do we have to fear? We will never stop being younger brothers or
elder brothers until we acknowledge our need for him, and then rest in faith
and gaze with awe at the work of our true elder brother, Jesus Christ. Then, we
won’t need religion, because we’ll have a relationship, instead.
Grace,
Randy
No comments:
Post a Comment