The prodigal and the obedient sons

The shades of learning from the story of the prodigal son are probably never ending as each reader questions the meaning of this story (Luke 15:11-32), applies certain portions to his or her own life - or even to the lives of others, but one thing is certain: a son who, for all practical purposes, should have been second best in any version of the story, has returned home and has received more attention and outward love and welcome than he deserved. One would think that the rule-follower, the obedient child, the loyal child who stayed behind and did and became all that a parent could hope, would always be celebrated as the pride and joy of the family.

This morning I was reading N. T. Wright's The Challenge of Jesus, pages 41 and 42, and these were my thoughts:

There was Jesus, standing in the flesh, emitting the love of God all over the place. It was obvious to some that Jesus was Truth in a way that they had never seen or heard Truth. He drew people to himself, people who had fallen away from the old ways, people who had become outcasts in the special family who called themselves God's chosen people.

And here is this person, the prodigal, the wayward person, the person who had first outcast himself for some reason, and who had then become the outcast of his family, and he heard the Truth, and it touched his very soul. He is so drawn to the Truth that he couldn't help himself. He says, "Here I am. I will follow you no matter what. I hear your voice, I recognize it as the greatest home I could ever want, and I want to be near you always."

And the Truth says back to him: "Come to me. I welcome you back. I have missed you. Every richness I have is yours just for being here. Come and let me embrace you."

And the faithful other son, who thinks he had it figured out all the time because he knew the rules and followed them, says: "But what about me? I'm the one who was here all the time, who never left you, who did everything you said and followed all the rules you taught me."

And the Truth says something back to him, something like this: "Yes, but you didn't follow me. You blindly put your eyes on the rules and you quit looking at me. Don't you see? The rules are how I want you to live, but I never intended for you to substitute the rules for your devotion to me. I never intended to send you off and tell you to be on your own, taking my rule book with you as your God. This wasn't some test of your initiative. The rules give you guidance, that's true. But you don't know when and how to apply them. You need me to tell you how to use them, what they really mean. I love you. I want you to love me, and let me teach you, step by step, day by day, hour by hour, moment by moment, how to use the guidance I gave you, how to use it to love others and how to love me."

The rules are good. There's no question about that. But the Rule Giver? He's supreme. Only he knows the real truth, the truth about how to use those rules for the benefit of everyone, how to be the light, the salt, how to live. The rules will never go away and they're right, but I need the Truth to tell me how to use them, how to live them.

I want to be the prodigal. I want to know every day how much I need God. I want to long for Him, to respond to Him, to run to Him when I hear his voice and his Truth.

Let it be so, Lord. Let it be so.

Jeremiah - Some Thoughts About Patriotism

Some quotes from Paul Johnson's *** A History of the Jews:

For Jeremiah was saying that the destruction of the kingdom did not matter. Israel was still the chosen of the Lord. It could perform the mission given to it by God just as well in exile and dispersal as within the confines of its petty nation-state. Page 77

Jeremiah was the first to perceive the possibility that powerlessness and goodness were somehow linked, and that alien rule could be preferable to self-rule. He comes close to the notion that the state itself was inherently evil. Page 84

I find myself thinking, "But not yet, Lord, not yet."

I don't usually think of myself as more than moderately patriotic - patriotic, yes, but not overtly so. In my shallow little mind, I often think of myself more as a God-fearing (Christian) American than as a patriotic being. Yet, when I think of Jeremiah's mission, to prepare his nation for exile because he believes it is going to be taken over by a foreign power, and I read the brief explanation given by Paul Johnson, I find that I am, all of a sudden, more patriotic than I thought.

It's good to be an American. Although we grunt and grumble, we fuss and fume, our politics have a foul odor, and we think we have it bad, we live in a land where we can not only think and do what we want, we generally get by with it. We are free to be however we want to be. We are free to come and go, to choose our associations, to believe or not believe, to praise or criticize, to marry or not, to raise our families or not ... As a rule, we are not afraid that someone is hiding in every shadow, that our neighbor is reporting our every move to the authorities, that our every coming in or going out is being monitored and puts us in danger.

Our country and our lives in this country provide us with a freedom unmatched anywhere on the earth. We are, in the words of those of us who who are God-fearers, blessed.

So I find I am patriotic to my core. Being an American is something I've always known and take for granted. It is very much part of the foundation of who I am. I find myself singing:

America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!

Jeremiah's message is good advice, it is meaningful, and I know it is true. But my deepest prayer at this moment is that it's not something we need to know, that God will preserve this wonderful country and protect us against our foes - even when one of our foes may be ourselves.

God Bless America,
Land that I love.
Stand beside her, and guide her
Thru the night with a light from above.

*** I have thoroughly enjoyed two of Paul Johnson's books: A History of the Jews and A History of Christianity. I grin ear to ear, though, when I read his Wikipedia bio (I linked to this site in the first line of this post). Oh, there's so much about his life that I wouldn't applaud, so much of his politics that are contrary to mine, so much about him that gives me pause for thought; but I really do enjoy his writings. God can use any of us for his purposes - Paul Johnson, Jeremiah, that person I don't care for in the super market, me. The whole of it is so much bigger than the sum of its parts - you and me.

Reflections on Job - 3 - How we talk to each other in the name of love

Job was in unimaginable pain. He tragically lost his sons and daughters and his livelihood in almost one swoop, and then he became very ill with some kind of pox that created boils over all his skin. How could he bear it? Even his wife becomes sick of him because of all the tragedy that has happened to him. "Curse God and die!" she said to him.

Three of Job's friends (presumably his very closest friends) came to mourn with him over these deeply personal tragedies. For seven days and nights they sat quietly and mourned with him.

Finally, Job cried: "Oh, why was I ever born?" And then the friendships take on a new character.

How often have I seen or experienced the Job scenario, either as Job or as one of Job's friends? Here's the way I see it:

We have four friends, one of whom is really in trouble.

At first, the non-troubled friends console the troubled friend. We sit together, quietly.

After sitting together so long, the troubled friend manages to speak. "Oh, I am so miserable, I wish I could die." Things begin to escalate from here.

We start with "You have helped so many..." and end with "You must have done something terribly wrong or God wouldn't be putting this trouble on you."

The focus begins with the troubled friend and ends with each non-troubled friend besting the advice of the others. The focus is no longer on Job. It's on how wise we we are and how we each understand God better than the others.

Oh, that we would learn to keep silent, except for prayer.

Oh, that we would not have this need to best each other.

Oh, that we would remember that we are all in the same boat, no matter how smart we are.

Oh, that we would remember that God is God, and that we are not.

But back to the main point: All these conversations started with a simple gesture of love. Three of us came to the fourth because the fourth was in trouble and we three cared about our friend. And then things escalated. It happens. It happens all the time.

Is it better that it happened than if it hadn't? Maybe so. Maybe this is the way it is. Maybe this is the way it has to be. Job did have the companionship of his friends. He wasn't humanly alone. Because of his friends, perhaps, Job came to a better understanding of how deep his faith was. Job was able to witness to his great faith in God, to speak the words in his heart that maybe he didn't even know were there. Job's values were certainly clarified during this time.

God bless us, and bless our friends. We don't know how to do it well. Only God can make sense of it. Only God knows what good will come of it. Only God can make good of it all - to our benefit, even. God have mercy on us. God has mercy on us.

Reflections on Job - 2 - Praying for my children and grandchildren

During this reading of Job, I have the advantage of having read it a number of times before and all the dialog is filtered through my previous knowledge.

This time around, right off the bat I'm touched by this passage:

His sons used to go and hold a feast in the house of each one on his day (birthday), and they would send and invite their three sisters to eat and drink with them. When the days of feasting had completed their cycle, Job would send and consecrate them, rising up early in the morning and offering burnt offerings according to the number of them all; for Job said, 'Perhaps my sons have sinned and cursed God in their hearts.' (Job 1: 4-5, NASB)

During my study, these two verses kept calling me back.

Job wanted to make sure his son's sins were covered just in case they had cursed God in their hearts. A few points call themselves to me:

• Job loved his children. Although the Bible tells of his prayer for his sons, had Job lived in these days, I'm sure he would have prayed for his daughters as well.
• Job loved his children very much. He was their father, their patriarch, and he was responsible for them as such. They were blessings God had given him. Above all things, Job loved and trusted God.
• The sons would invite the three sisters to celebrate with them. In this, we see siblings who take care of each other, who are still considered a family unit even though they are grown and have separate lives of their own.
• And the big point, the one that kept calling me back: Job prayed for forgiveness for his sons, just in case.

My prayers for my children usually go something like this:

- Make them strong

- Make them happy

- Keep them healthy

- Keep them safe

- Keep them on the right path

- Help them find a job, a house, a good neighborhood, good moral and upright friends, etc

But it's not my usual prayer to ask God to forgive them ... especially not just in case.

Job 1:4-5 has enriched my life forever. My morning prayers for my daughter and her family now will be more like this:

Dear Lord, Keep them healthy and strong in you. Keep them together so they can support each other spiritually and emotionally as they grow older. Keep them safe. Protect them in their jobs, whether at school or at work. Give them good friends who know You, and give them a happy life. Forgive them for any sins they may have committed against you. Keep them in the faith.

Reflections on Job - 1 - Overview

Job tells a story of universal personal pain. Everyone experiences pain, but our responses to it vary. Job's response is one I always want to remember, because Job knew God was there and he never forgot it.

I just purchased a new Bible - the 1999 NASB version (replacing an earlier version) coupled with Zondervan Study Notes. The NASB and the NLT are my all-time favorite versions of the Bible: The NASB because it is a traditional word-for-word translation in modern language and the NLT because it is a word-for-word and then a thought-by-thought translation in my language. My NLT version is the Life Application version, a version I fell in love with from the first words I read. I have used it almost exclusively since I first purchased it, not long after it was originally published. Only recently have I begun to long for my old friend, the NASB, and now I use them side by side,

The NASB-Zondervan ends Job with this explanation:

Despite Job's mistakes in word and attitude while he suffered, he is now commended and the counselors are rebuked. Why? Because even in his rage, even when he challenged God, he was determined to speak honestly before him. The counselors, on the other hand, mouthed many correct and often beautiful creedal statements, but without living knowledge of the God they claimed to honor. Job spoke to God; they only spoke about God...

The words that spoke most loudly to me are in bold. Oh, that I should remember this always. The difference tells what one's relationship to God represents - a God who knows us versus a God we only know about.

Lord, however I perceive my pain, whatever I perceive my pain is, teach me to bring it to you directly - not to my friends, not to my inner self, but let me bring it to you and keep my eyes on you. Teach me to be more like Job.