How do we miss in this story the picture of the Father that is not measuring by performance? Well, I can only speak from the perspective of someone shaped by our American culture, but I think it comes close to answering that question for us. Our culture teaches us that it is all about performance. Perform and you are good....don't perform and you are bad. I really think the truth is as simple as all cultures do the same. It's human nature. Maybe it is caused by the fact that we are left trying to figure out good and evil?
I've been a successful performer all of my life in just about everything I set out to do. I see more clearly today than ever that it means nothing. I'm not joking either. It means nothing.
I believe this Father is after one thing and it is all that matters. To set us free. Without that, nothing else matters. Whether it is a pile of so called successes or a pile of so called failures.
When the younger son took the money and headed off the farm to live it up and the older son stayed on the farm thinking he was making better choices, the reality was, one wasn't making a better choice than the other. That is, in the thing that matters. Doesn't the Father's treatment of them both prove that? This story never makes sense to those who are measuring by performance. The world and those that live according to the world's standards know nothing but pointing out the good ones and praising them, and pointing out the bad ones and punishing them.
Father clearly is after freedom.
The best the world can do is praise conformity and punish non conformity.
Question is, who do we trust?
Falsehood has an infinity of combinations,
But truth has only one mode of being.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
6 comments:
Who do we trust, indeed. And what a lifetime it takes of learning to trust him. But gee, what a ride, huh ?? :D
Excellent Rousseau quote.
"And what a lifetime it takes of learning to trust him. But gee, what a ride, huh ??"
Sue, it is about a lifetime isn't it? And nothing is wasted. My days spent as a prodigal and my days spent as the arrogant conformist have all been woven into it. And for the past 17 years as a father myself...my loving and less than loving moments get worked into it somehow also.
Humbling and amazing and certainly a wild ride. Learning to trust.
Hi Kent,
Two things stood out to me like neon signs, these two quotes..
"I believe this Father is after one thing and it is all that matters. To set us free."
"Father clearly is after freedom."
When you have time, I would love to hear how you see/define freedom?
I know this questions seems to fly in the face of what you have so clearly laid out here in your cool story, BUT, if you would be kind enough to humor me in my wonderings.
Rich
Rich, the minute I read your question my immediate thought was: "How can I possibly explain this?"
I do think your question is one of the most important questions to continually keep before us.
I can only speak of what I am seeing today. Tomorrow I might explain this differently. And in what I just said seems to contain the explaination of what I am seeing as the freedom of God. It's living in the moment, free of any kind of moral or ethical principles or rules...free to respond to what Father would ask of me. If I am operating out of anything that is set and fixed, I am not free. I am bound by law.
I'm seeing God's freedom being nothing other than the law of love. And it is only from Him that his unconditional love flows.
I am still, as we all are, being set free. It is a journey unto freedom. Jesus was the only one who has walked this earth completely free. He never grabbed for anything or any power that his Father hadn't given him. He also was the only one that lived fully dependent on his father and in turn was absolutely free. Crazy paradox isn't it. Jesus was completely free and never made a descision according to his own will. But he could have. He walked the earth as a man just like you and I.
The story mentioned in this post I think represents a freedom God has given his children. Freedom to choose. But man's alienation from God leaves us in a mess. Jesus, in the desert being tempted by satan, to me is a perfect example of the two different freedoms we face. Is it not the difference between the freedom to choose and the freedom to trust?
Jesus was completely at rest and at peace with what was true. All that mattered was that Father was trust worthy. Jesus put no trust in anything else. Not money, not worldy power, not defense of himself, nor status and position. The history of alienated man seems to me to be about all of those things. We are left free to choose, Father extends that to us....but we are not free as long as we attempt to live independently. Dress it up how ever we like and it still isn't freedom.
Jesus was free to respond to whom ever was in front of him with unconditional love. To the oppressed and oppressor alike. To the religionist or secularist in the same way. He healed the ear of the soldier that came to arrest him as quickly as anyone else. He gave the money bag to Judas knowing what Judas was going to do with it. He was follwing what he saw his father asking him to do, not any law or principle.
Following priciples and rules (Law) will never get us there. Jesus and the things he did were all over the map...sometimes in stark contrast to what he had just done the moment before. Or at least it looked that way when we try to look at this through principles. If we look at what Jesus did from the stand point of freedom and the law of love, now that paints a different coherent story. Very disorienting though for the one operating by law or religious principles.
That looks like freedom to me today. It is about what Father is doing and it is always about setting someone free. Not setting the world right, setting someone free. And we all are unique and because of that, the dynamics of every situation are unique. Freedom as Jesus lived in, totally dependent on his Father and what he is doing is the only way to take those unique dynamics into account. God sees those dynamics of each of his children perfectly and knows what it will take for that individual's chains to be broken. If we are finding this freedom in Christ we then can participate in the redemption of the other, with God.
For me, this is why Christianity in so many cases hurts and deepens the alienation. Religion just can't allow this kind of freedom that Jesus paints a picture of in this parable. But it is the way unto freedom that God has opened up. Law and conformity to law will never produce it.
Sorry that turned out to be so long. I couldn't seem to do it in a short explaination.
Rich, isn't one of the greatest outcomes of this freedom when we come to understand that nothing we can do really has the power to change anything.....and yet Father invites us to do it anyway? Unless God breathes on our words that we speak to another and our acts of kindness to another or even obedience to him...etc., they have no real power to change anything. Apart from him I am nothing.
My acts of obedience and my acts of rebellion are just the exercise of the freedom he gives me to choose. But if father so chooses to use any of that (and he does), once I come to understand that none of it has anything to do with me being good enough or bright enough, it really leaves me with nothing to boast in does it?
It strips me of everything and I am left with nothing at all but him. That freedom changes everthing.
One last thing I forgot to say.
Thanks for the question Rich. I have been totally alone all day today, just me, Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu and the question inspired some rich thinking. Our brother Jacques Ellul was a part of the day also and what I was in the process of reading of his played right into all of this. Pretty cool how that stuff works.
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