110925 Prodigal God 6: What's Your Story?

I like how Rob Bell treats the story of the Prodigal Son in his book, Love Wins.  Timothy Keller, as Bell noted, provided some great insight for Love Wins.  In fact, I first learned of Keller’s Prodigal God from one of Bell’s footnotes.  Read Bell’s book.  I’ll be glad you did, and you might be, too.

Bell notes that both the younger and older sons have their stories that they have been living and creating.  The younger brother sewing his wild oats, and the older brother sewing bitter herbs.  But when each brother was sought out by their father, they were each given an invitation to adopt a new story for their lives and start living by that new script.

The younger son was given the opportunity to leave behind his story of hedonism’s surprising pain and embrace a story where he becomes a son again, fully restored.

The older son was given the opportunity to leave behind his story of self-righteous indignation and embrace a story where he begins to live with and enjoy more than he always wanted.

That Jesus included such a proviso in his story is no surprise, since he lived the story during his ministry.  Dramatic, younger brother stories were commonplace for Jesus in his ministry.  Remember that Jesus was well known for attracting all sorts of “sinners” during his ministry.  With the brief amount of history we have of Jesus, we know that several of these types came to hear Jesus: tax collectors, adulterers, sexually immoral folks.  We also know that other dramatic characters were part of Jesus’ story: lepers, blind people, disabled persons, and all manner of ill folks came to Jesus.  As each heard Jesus’ message and received healing in various forms, they were invited to adopt a new story for themselves.  They no longer needed to live by their sin- or disease-laden identity.  They could trade up to a better story, where they were deeply loved and valued by God, and given God’s presence to help them go beyond their former scripts’ parameters.

Older brother types also received the same invitation.  Very moral, highly religious self-righteous types also came to hear Jesus (even if simply to try and trip him up).  They received the same invitation to trade up on their stories, leaving behind their desire to control others and God, and discover the freedom and love that grace affords.  Recall that the Prodigal God parable was itself such an invitation to leave their limited and limiting stories in the past and embrace a much lovelier future.

Regular folks, too, were given the invitation.  Most of the disciples fit in this category.  They were, for the most part, pretty good people with pretty normal stories.  And yet when Jesus invited them to “follow me” they were challenged to evaluate which story they were going to pursue: their predictable, familiar story or the enticing one offered by Jesus.

Read the rest of the Bible and you will discover that Jesus was simply doing what God has always done: ask people to adopt a new story driven by a God-centered plot.  The new story is always challenging, but also always an improvement over whatever existing story there might be.  God’s story is also better for the betterment of the world and its inhabitants, too – a shift away from our typically egocentric tales.

So, what does this look like in today’s world?

Adopting means identifying yourself more and more with who we are and can become as children of God.  We acknowledge how we have been formed  by our families, but we no longer limit ourselves by the bad or good script we've been handed.  In this way, we are not in denial about how we have been shaped.  We acknowledge the good and the bad, and in so doing God sheds contrast on what identifying with him means.  It is always better, but rarely easy to adopt.

The invitation to embrace God’s story is always present, which is a good thing, since we regularly run into the limitations of our current script.  Sometimes the difficulty is how we are read by others.  It takes a while for people to let go of their preconceived expectations of us based on our old scripts.  They will unwittingly assume we will be who we have been, which means we will experience pressure to stay in our old character roles.  It will be easier, in fact, to stay the same.  But we must not if we want to experience the party the Father is throwing.  Better isn't always easier...

Are you aware of the invitation that is before you?

I know I haven’t been aware of the invitation if I never ask myself what God’s story line might be as I make life decisions, big and small.  How do I manage my schedule?  How do I allocate the funds at my disposal?  How do I direct my thought-life?  How do I steward my personal health?  How do I handle stress?  How do I love people who are important to me?  How do I love people I don’t particularly want to hang out with?  How do I decide what qualifies as a job well done in my line of work?  How do I pray and what do I pray about?  How do I determine my major life goals?  How do I sort out what media I will allow into my life and what I will intentionally shut out?  If I never even think about how God might weigh in on these questions (and every life question), I am very likely not embracing the invitation to the fullest extent.

To accept the invitation is to be present at the party, to be involved in the relationship, to allow the relationship to guide all of our direction questions because we have learned to trust that God's wisdom is worth heeding. and relationship with God is the very source of life.

The younger brother, wrecked by the life choices he had made, welcomed the invitation with humility.

The older brother, also wrecked by the life choices he had made (even if he couldn’t see it), was given the invitation as well.  We don’t know what he chose.  All we know is that the invitation was given.

How are you responding to the invitation God is extending to you?  Are you ready to trade up your story?

110918 Prodigal God 5: How It Should Have Ended

Maybe I was too hard on older brothers.  Elder brotherliness offers a lot of positives that we shouldn't overlook.  For one thing, older brothers, like the one in the Prodigal story we've been looking at from Luke 15, are disciplined.  When older brothers are in charge, there's no real chance of those under their care becoming soft.  Older brothers run a tight ship, and know that accommodating certain behavior could sink everything they've worked for.  That kind of discipline keeps everybody in line.  Older brothers are efficient, faithful workers, and expect the same of others.  You can count on them to get the job done.  That's a good quality.  Elder brother's don't get treated like doormats.  They are tough cookies.  They don't get ripped off.  If they are in charge of your stuff, you can rest knowing no foxes are going to get into the hen house.  And when things do go wrong, or people go wrong, you can count on swift justice being served.  People are held accountable, which raises the bar of performance.  This is a sought-after quality in leadership circles, and certainly commands respect.

On the other hand, especially since we're talking about God and the faith in the Prodigal story, elder brothers are deadly to the Great Commission - the lat command, so to speak, of Jesus.  He told his disciples to do make disciples of all people everywhere, teaching them to obey everything Jesus had commanded.  Obedience is a top priority for older brothers, so how could they struggle with - let alone be a detriment to - the Great Commission?  When asked what was the most important laws of God to follow, Jesus gave not one, but two which, if followed, satisfied all the rest.  Just two rules to master in order to Ace all the rest.  The rules?  First, love God with everything you've got.  Second, love others as you love yourself.  That's it.  And that's the problem.  Older brothers like the one in the Prodigal story struggle with love.  Love isn't a law, it is a way.  

When we let our elder brotherliness grow in us, we don't really want our younger brothers back, because they seem more bother than brother.  We don't love them much.  If they somehow come back, we want justice before they get to eat our food.  We want some groveling.  We want to impose penalty.  We want them to wear a scarlet letter so that nobody will forget what they did.  If they want to eat and sleep in our house, it's no too much to ask.

When we let our elder brotherliness get the best of us, we create environments that are hostile to younger brothers.  They feel great to us, because they support everything we believe in.  We are comfortable.  But what is comfortable for us is excruciating for our younger siblings.  Worse, creating environments where we are insulated from younger brothers perpetuates our blindness toward our self righteousness.  We think we're great, but the world we are supposed to be reaching calls us hypocritical.  We even want to blame the media, because it can't be our own fault that people see us this way - we're wonderful - just ask us.

The fact is, the Great Commission relies completely on the Great Commandments.  Lack of love leads to failure.  Guaranteed.

Keller notes in his book, The Prodigal God, that a character is missing in Jesus' story: a True Elder Brother.  According to Keller, it would have been the elder brother's role to seek out his wayward sibling and bring him back.  This would have cost him time, money, and energy.  Why would he does this?  Love.  A True Elder Brother would respect the fact that his younger sibling was stuck in a story, and would be more interested in helping him through it that reminding him of it.  Why wouldn't he make him recount the painful details of his waywardness?  Because he loves him.  A True Elder Brother is lavish with grace.  Normal older brothers see this as being soft on sin.  But the True Elder Brother recognizes (from personal experience, no doubt), that grace provides a higher form of justice than the pursuit of justice alone.  Where justice alone is satisfied with restitution, grace goes far beyond it by pursuing redemption and restoration.

As for all the other stuff the run-of-the-mill older brother does which seems good, when compared to a loving True Elder Brother, there is no comparison.  The work is done better, with greater passion.  People aren't forced to reach a standard, they are won to a cause and want to contribute.  When love is absent, it is painfully obvious.  

The religious leaders were older brothers.  Jesus was a True Elder Brother.  What he claimed to believe matched his lifestyle and ministry.  He loved people unconditionally, and people were seeing their lives get turned around - folks who had been written off by older brothers of religiosity.  Jesus embodied love in everything he did, all the way to the end, when he even died for his cause, even calling for forgiveness for those responsible for his death.

Jesus loved because he knew how much he was loved by God.  God's love grounded and overwhelmed him at the same time.

Which are you more like - the older brother or the True Elder Brother?  Where is your struggle?  What keeps you from loving more fully?  What help you experience more love from the Father?

Great Quotes from Timothy Keller's Prodigcal God:

The younger son's level of remorse did not generate greater compassion from the father.

Just the opposite.   

The father's lavish affection made the son's expression of remorse far easier.

The elder brother did not get a harsh condemnation but a loving plea to turn from his anger and self-righteousness. Jesus is pleading in love with his deadliest enemies.

He is not a Pharisee about Pharisees; he is not self-righteous about self-righteousness. Nor should we be. He not only loves the wild-living, free-spirited people, but also the hardened religious people.

Our sense of lostness and desire to escape are indications of God's work within us.

To truly become Christians we must also repent of the reasons we ever did anything right...

We must learn how to repent of the sin under all our sins and under all our righteousness

- the sin of seeking to be our own Savior and Lord.

It is only when you see the desire to be your own Savior and Lord - lying beneath both your sins and your moral goodness - that you are on the verge of understanding the gospel and becoming a Christian indeed. When you realize that the antidote to being bad is not just being good, you are on the brink. If you follow through, it will change everything: how you relate to God, self, others, the world, your work, your sins, your virtue.  It's called the new birth because it's so radical. 

110911 Prodgial God 4: Elder Brotherliness

Note: Sorry, no audio today...

Caution: Ouch Factor May Be High!

Remember the story of the father of two sons?  The younger asked for his inheritance in advance - "I don't want you, Dad, I just want your stuff".  Dad granted the request.  The younger son blew it all over some period of time, and was destitute.  He came to his senses, and decided to try going home.  At least he could work for an honest man.  His Dad was thrilled to see him, restored his "sonship" and threw a lavish party for him, which included the entire village.  The older brother was indignant, however, and would not attend the celebration.  Dad went out to coax him in, and the older son's true colors came pouring out.  Ugly, smelly stuff that got spread all over.  Dad paid no attention, however, reminding him of his love, and inviting him to join the party.

Even though we can glean a lot from the younger son and father characters in this story, the focus, really, is on the older son.  They represented the Pharisees and teachers of the religious law.  They were not pleased with the company of sinners Jesus was keeping, even though their lives were being changed as they experienced restored relationship with God.  The Pharisees were the insiders, the ones in charge.

Are we anything like the older brother?  Do we have elder brotherliness in our gene pool?  See if any of the following indicators are similar to your life experience.

Indicators of elder brotherliness...

• Anger at brother's return where there should have been joy - justice button pushed, which was more important to him than mercy (see Micah 6:6-8).  He was distracted by the lesser concern so much that he missed the greater concern of redemption.  We want them to admit all their wrongdoing - grovel - before we offer love and grace.
• The father's highly unusual begging didn't humble him - his heart was cold as stone.
• He lacked respect when addressing the father - no honor given - very uncommon and highly inappropriate in those days.
• His perspective on serving was servitude, not servanthood.  He was not serving out of love.  His motive was what he would gain out of serving.
• He was near perfect in his own estimation: never once have I refused to do a single thing...  Self-righteousness was his top spiritual gift!
• His focus was on the young meatless goat he never asked for (because a good dad would just know how much he wanted it...).  But what about all the food he had enjoyed for so long in his father's house?  Ingratitude was his next highest spiritual gift...
• Undercurrent: The younger brother got to have all the fun and come back with no consequences - not fair or right - why should he have to stay in this drudgery?  The younger brother realized that Vegas wasn't as fun as he thought, and what he really lacked was a meaningful relationship with Dad.  The older brother glamorized what he didn't have, secretly yearning for it - maybe in retirement, when Dad kicks the bucket and my ship comes in.
• Disassociates himself with his brother - "son of yours".  "I'm not anything like him - I'm much better."
• Judges harshly his father's decision to celebrate - now we know how he feels about Dad.

This was actually one of several accounts of Jesus lifting the value of grace over any other concern.  And, like the others, was probably not received well.  I the story's point registered with the target audience (religious folks), my bet is that they never admitted it to anyone.

My guess is that most of us are in denial about just how much elder brotherliness swims through our veins.

In his book, The Prodigal God, Timothy Keller challenges us with this thought: If the preaching of our ministers and the practice of our parishioners do not have the same effect on people that Jesus had, then we must not be declaring the same message that Jesus did. If our churches aren't appealing to younger brothers, they must be more full of elder brothers than we'd like to think.

Ouch.

He's right.  We very easily slip into elder brother mode.  If the Bible is a witness to human tendencies, then we can be certain that we very naturally lose focus on keeping our relationship with God - Dad - central in our lives.  We very easily choose hatred over love, revenge over redemption, getting even over grace.  When we sense we are wronged, our sense of justice kicks in.  Unfortunately, all too often our way of seeing things favors ourselves handsomely, and fails to see the fuller story of what really happened.  While we may strive for blind justice in our courts, I think it's a struggle to pull off in our own lives.

What the elder brother experienced throughout his life cannot be boiled down to sheer greed - upset that his share of the estate was being wasted on his idiot brother.  Because I believe things like this are layered and complex, I am confident that this fictional character, if he were real, could not even begin to explain all he was feeling, and I am pretty sure he wouldn't be too clear on why he was feeling the way he felt.

That's the case for all of us.  We are complex beings for sure.

What was also complicated was the invitation he was given by his dad to join the party.  He certainly had many reasons to offer - if given the chance - to refuse the invitation.  To attend is to reward bad behavior.  To attend is to somehow condone the younger brother's decisions.  I haven't heard the apology. I don't believe he has repented.  

So why did the father welcome him home to quickly?  Why not have a family meeting so that Older Brother could get on board?  The simple answer is that none of that really mattered in the end.  Dad made a decision to break a system that has been in far too much control from the beginning of time.  Quick justice via harsh judgment would certainly have been approved of by all.  But it would not have been at all redemptive.  

Dad displayed prodigal grace, a bold decision to break the old system.  Systems don't change until part of the system changes.  Changing even a part of a system is usually difficult.  Even though he held all the cards, it was still a courageous decision for the father.  I recently read a quote in one of my kid's classroom: What is popular isn't always right.  What is right isn't always popular.

In fact, no relationship would ever survive unless we operated with more grace than justice.  Our failures would catch up with us very soon.  We would be kicked to the curb, or we would kick our partner to the curb.  

Grace changes all that.  Grace cancels the debt.  Grace is bigger than justice, but when received, has a greater impact.  Grace received changes us from the inside out because we realize we do not deserve the release, the forgiveness that we have been given.  We become humbled.  Our eyes get changes when we really come to grips with what has happened to us.  Our current view of things changes.  our future motivation changes.  All because of grace.

So, how much older brother blood are you pumping through your veins?  If you've never come to grips with the enormous, lavish, prodigious gift of grace, you have more than you might realize.

To not take this inner search seriously is to endorse the status quo, and to willingly participate in the perpetuation of ongoing judgment, disharmony and strife in your relationships.  You may be right in your assessment of justice, but you will also be very alone.

May you take your older brother search seriously, that you may be a part of a revolution that will change the world if we'll have it.  In truth, grace is the only thing that ever will.  Jesus was so confident in this fact that he died for it.

Inside the Mind of a Younger Brother

Jesus tells a story (Luke 15:11-32) about a father who had two sons.  One requested his inheritance up front, long before his dad’s death.  No doubt, when people heard this opening portion of the story, they shook their heads.  Nobody makes such a request.  It can be interpreted as wishing your father dead.

What was the younger son thinking?  How could a person be so bold and rude?  Let’s see if we can get inside his head...

Maybe he wasn’t as malicious as it seems.  Sure, his request was awful and largely unheard of.  But what if he was simply entrepreneurial, and was looking for some venture capital from his dad?  Let’s go with that for a moment.  So, he heads out toward the big city with a massive wad of cash in his pocket.  His plans were to get his business going.  But along the way he gave into some compromises that took him in unexpected directions.  He started networking with his bankroll, attending the right social gatherings, picking up the tab of the right people.  Then he got sucked into a lifestyle he never imagined he would find himself in – eventually all-day drinking, prostitutes – simply out of control.  This seems more likely to me, and I think more common.

Instead of a villain, the young son becomes much more human, and more relatable to our experience.  How many people start out with good intentions, only to find themselves surprisingly off track down the pike?  How many of our country’s heavily-indebted credit abusers began with a plan to rack up enormous credit card bills?  How many people set New Year’s resolutions to get their health back under control by carefully monitoring what they eat and making sure they get their cardio in, find themselves in no better shape in February?  How many teenagers make a covenant to keep themselves pure until marriage, only to find their commitment fading under pressure?  How many struggling addicts start their sobriety afresh today, only to found out tomorrow they’ve succumbed to the power of their drug of choice?  Sometimes it’s the smaller, seemingly insignificant turns along our course of life that end up getting us most off track.  One degree of separation initially seems like nothing, but the chasm becomes massive the longer the journey goes uncorrected.

This makes more sense to me.  This scenario makes the father’s choice to cash in part of his estate more reasonable as well.

Of course, I am thinking about this from a Western, capitalism-driven mindset that did not exist 2,000 years ago…

Adding to the picture, Keller suggests that part of the reason the younger son was the way he was may be related to the older brother’s approach to life:

"When we see the attitude of the elder brother in the story we begin to realize one of the reasons the younger brother wanted to leave in the first place. There are many people today who have abandoned any kind of religious faith because they see clearly that the major religions are simply full of elder brothers. They have come to the conclusion that religion is one of the greatest sources of misery and strife in the world. And guess what? Jesus says through this parable - they are right. The anger and superiority of elder brothers, all growing out of insecurity, fear, and inner emptiness, can create a huge body of guilt-ridden, fear-ridden, spiritually blind people, which is one of the great sources of social injustice, war, and violence." Keller, The Prodigal God

Was the younger son an entrepreneur gone awry or a younger brother simply reacting in polar-opposite fashion to his older sibling?  The fact is that whatever he believed at his core motivated what he did, and that got him where he landed.  Seen in reverse, what he did shed light on some core issues at work in his life.  What we do is one indicator (among others) of our core beliefs.

Keller also notes in his book that the two sons represent two basic kinds of people.  One type – the younger son – is the sort of person that wants to call all of his or her own shots.  Ultimate freedom to chart one’s own destiny is the way of life all people should embrace.  No serious concern for what others – including God – think about it.  However good the plan sounded in the beginning, the core orientation toward life emerged for the younger son.  The result was not what he had hoped, and he discovered the hard way what mattered most – relationship with his father (and all it meant) – and it seemed out of reach because of the distance he created.

We all have younger brother blood running through our veins.  Especially in our Western world, where mobility is so prevalent, and “relationship” so undervalued.  Most folks don’t go out of their way to offend God, I don’t think.  But I do believe that many people – myself included at times – do a good job of neglecting their relationship with God so effectively that they don’t even wonder if their way resembles the Way spoken of and modeled by Jesus.  In this mode, we naturally lend ourselves to a view of God-made-in-our-image, and not the other way around, which allows us to interpret everything we do as probably okay with God, since God is just like us.

Keller gives an insight for identifying older-brotherliness tendencies that I think applies to the younger, too: if our prayer life is dry (or non-existent), we’re probably headed in a direction that will eventually lead to a veritable pigsty.  How is your prayer life?

Getting unstuck from younger brotherliness.  I wake up out of my younger son stupor when life catches up to me.  Like a 2X4 to the head, I can’t miss it when things fall apart and I’m left in whatever pigsty I’ve created.  Sometimes that’s the only way we pay attention to what matters.  Are you in a pigsty right now?  While it sure is fun to blame others for your painful circumstances, what is your share of the reason for your current location?

At other times, I cannot ignore the ugliness that looms around us, and it stirs me from my slumber.  Seeing what’s going on in Furaha (slums of Nairobi, Kenya), is like getting sprayed with ice cold water to me face.  I am moved to change when faced with such great need.  What has moved your heart recently?

Sometimes, I am moved by the good I see and it draws me in.  I became a sold out Jesus follower because I saw the beauty of the God-human relationship at work in a close friend’s life.  I saw “better” and wanted it.  Are there any witnesses to the better around you that are compelling you to seek out a stronger relationship with God?

Sometimes, when I am quiet enough to listen to God, I am shown potential growth areas in my life that I would otherwise avoid or deny.  Issues of ego and arrogance, insecurities and frailties.  The beauty of getting this kind of coaching from the Holy Spirit is that it is skinned-knee free.  If I get the heads up from God, and heed it, it means I avoid learning the same lesson the hard way.  How have you carved quiet moments into your life so that you have the opportunity to hear the Spirit speak into your life?  How has God been encouraging you to grow lately?

How are you like the younger son?  How do you know when you are operating in those tendencies?  What does it take for you to come to your senses and journey back toward your Father?  Have you experienced enough pain to stop?  Have you witnessed enough ugliness to be part of the solution?  Have you seen the “better” worth pursuing?  Are you quiet enough to hear the whisper of encouragement that helps shape you toward your best?

May you recognize your younger-brotherliness, and may you come home.

I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him.  Then you will overflow with confident hope therough the power of the Holy Spirit.  Romans 15:13