I guarantee the most common question every pastor hears after this passage gets read is, "So is Jesus telling me to sell everything I have and give the money to the poor?" In fairness, most of the time the question comes not from avarice and greed but from concern about how to survive without money for food or a home to stay in, but it does seem to the first thought in everyone's mind when they listen to Jesus say it to this young wealthy man.
Earlier in my career, I would often try to explain things in the passage like its context and listening with intent and stuff like that. Now I just say, "I don't know what Jesus is asking you to do. What do you think?"
Jesus met a lot of wealthy people during his ministry and some of those meetings are described in the gospels. He doesn't tell all of them to sell their goods and give the money to the poor, so we don't even know what he wanted all the rich people he met to do, let alone what he wants us to do. All we know is that he wants this young man, who has asked what he must do to have eternal life above and beyond full and faithful obedience to the commandments, to do.
That's not a cop out. You've probably heard people say, "Well, I'm not what you call rich so I don't really need to pay attention to this one." In 2015 people making minimum wage in the United States made twice the highest average wage of any nation on the entire continent of Africa. The average annual wage in the US ($29,930) is four times as high as that figure, $7,750 in Botswana. "I'm not really rich" is a cop out. "I don't know what Jesus would like you to give up" isn't.
We can see why Jesus selected wealth as the thing that this young man needed to consider giving away when we see his response. He is sad, because he has many possessions. Jesus perceives this about him and that's probably why he directs him to do what he does. He accepts the man at face value, as a sincere seeker of the truth and gives him what he needs to know.
When we sincerely seek Jesus, he does the same for us. Even though we may not be directed to divest ourselves of possessions and wealth, there is something -- probably a bunch of somethings -- we hold that come between us and full commitment to following Jesus. If we listen to him, we can learn what they are.
Because that's how we find them out. The wealthy young man didn't know what he lacked but the fact that he questioned Jesus meant that he knew he lacked something. When we rely on our own understanding to figure out what holds us back from the path of Jesus we can find ourselves in the middle of extravagantly detailed systems of legalisms that do everything but light our way to the Lord. We create joy-sapping jumbles of rules that produce worry and anxiety but absolutely no love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.
And we do it because we think this is what makes Jesus happy, but we never ask Jesus if it's what we ought to do! "Lord, I've given up watching football on Sunday afternoon because I think my enjoyment of it gets in the way of following you. I really liked watching Patrick Mahomes bring his team back from three touchdowns down, but since I am sure this is what you want..."
And Jesus replies, "Actually, I'm kind of partial to big comebacks. When did I tell you to do that?"
"Um, you didn't. I just assumed..."
Our perspectives and understanding are limited. We, as Paul says, know in part and see in part. Our limitations keep us from seeing ourselves as God sees us, and it is only God's vision that can reveal to us what holds us back. From our point of view, the obstacle created by the young man's wealth seems clear -- but it didn't to him, and our own obstacles are not clear to us. The only way we can know what holds us back from answering Jesus' call and following him is to ask.
And then listen to him.
Sunday, March 29, 2020
Sunday, March 22, 2020
Son or Servant? (Luke 15:20-32)
Getting our heads around one of the features of the first century's patriarchal culture can help us clarify one of the key questions this part of the parable of the Prodigal asks us. They limited the idea of inheritance to sons, more specifically the eldest. We don't -- and as we read the parable we can see how Jesus didn't either. Both men and women are given this question to answer: Do we wish to live as servants, or do we wish to live as heirs of the Father?
Both of the sons in the story have to deal with this question, although they approach it from different directions. The youngest son, having first insulted his father by demanding his inheritance while the father was still living, further distances himself from his family and household literally as well as figuratively. He runs away to live in a far country, apparently because the partying is better there. There he busies himself in spending his inheritance as fast as he and his new friends can manage it, having the bad luck of running out of money at the same time his new homeland runs out of food. Though he gets work to survive, it's the ultimate humiliation of not only feeding pigs but realizing they eat better than he does.
Then, Jesus says, he "came to himself." He remembers who he's supposed to be, and even more importantly, he remembers who he's the son of. His father's servants do better than he's doing right now! Finally realizing what he's done to separate himself from his rightful place as an heir -- even if a junior one -- he resolves to return to his father and earn back that place he spurned so carelessly.
When he gets home, he doesn't even make it to the gate before dad sees him coming and runs to meet him. This might worry him at first -- patriarchs don't run to meet people, other people run to meet them and so he may figure he's fixin' to get beat. But his father welcomes him and cuts him off mid-speech. There'll be none of this servant nonsense, not for his son! He was dead and is alive, lost but now found!
The younger son realized that he deserved to be a servant rather than a son and confessed that to his father; his father rejoiced at his return and restored him to being an heir as he was before.
But the older son, when he heard the party and found out what it was about, refused to enter his father's house. Though his father also came out to welcome him, he rejected the welcome and reminder of his family inheritance. He insisted he deserved better than he was getting because of all his hard work and his slavish devotion to his duty. He deserved a party for never going astray and pulling a Van Halen throughout the ancient Near East, but his father had never given him anything.
No, the father says, you were always with me and so everything I have was already yours. It was yours before you did a single chore and would be yours if you never did another one. You are my child, not my slave!
You and I are confronted with that choice and we may have approached it from each way at different times in our lives. There are times when we recognize how we have separated ourselves from our Heavenly Father and insisted we could not be his children. The only proper thing we could do would be to earn our way back into his grace and his family. Nope, he says. You are fully welcome whenever you return; settling accounts doesn't apply between a father and his heirs.
But there are also times when we, considering all of our great and wondrous righteousness by which we have lived, believe we have earned what the Father has given us. Therefore we sometimes scoff at the way the wanderers are welcomed home, and sometimes it makes us angry. We earned our status! We deserve our position, and rejoicing at the return of those who don't deserve it makes a mockery of all our hard work.
There are a lot of differences between the two sons, but one that I'll single out is who they'll let define the relationship between themselves and their father. The younger son will come back to his father on whatever terms the father sets, although he believes he's not worthy of being considered a son. But the older son insists that his father receive him as he wishes, and his self-regard blinds him to the reality that his father has always considered him a beloved child and always will, no matter what he does.
So he stays outside, and won't come in. Will we?
Both of the sons in the story have to deal with this question, although they approach it from different directions. The youngest son, having first insulted his father by demanding his inheritance while the father was still living, further distances himself from his family and household literally as well as figuratively. He runs away to live in a far country, apparently because the partying is better there. There he busies himself in spending his inheritance as fast as he and his new friends can manage it, having the bad luck of running out of money at the same time his new homeland runs out of food. Though he gets work to survive, it's the ultimate humiliation of not only feeding pigs but realizing they eat better than he does.
Then, Jesus says, he "came to himself." He remembers who he's supposed to be, and even more importantly, he remembers who he's the son of. His father's servants do better than he's doing right now! Finally realizing what he's done to separate himself from his rightful place as an heir -- even if a junior one -- he resolves to return to his father and earn back that place he spurned so carelessly.
When he gets home, he doesn't even make it to the gate before dad sees him coming and runs to meet him. This might worry him at first -- patriarchs don't run to meet people, other people run to meet them and so he may figure he's fixin' to get beat. But his father welcomes him and cuts him off mid-speech. There'll be none of this servant nonsense, not for his son! He was dead and is alive, lost but now found!
The younger son realized that he deserved to be a servant rather than a son and confessed that to his father; his father rejoiced at his return and restored him to being an heir as he was before.
But the older son, when he heard the party and found out what it was about, refused to enter his father's house. Though his father also came out to welcome him, he rejected the welcome and reminder of his family inheritance. He insisted he deserved better than he was getting because of all his hard work and his slavish devotion to his duty. He deserved a party for never going astray and pulling a Van Halen throughout the ancient Near East, but his father had never given him anything.
No, the father says, you were always with me and so everything I have was already yours. It was yours before you did a single chore and would be yours if you never did another one. You are my child, not my slave!
You and I are confronted with that choice and we may have approached it from each way at different times in our lives. There are times when we recognize how we have separated ourselves from our Heavenly Father and insisted we could not be his children. The only proper thing we could do would be to earn our way back into his grace and his family. Nope, he says. You are fully welcome whenever you return; settling accounts doesn't apply between a father and his heirs.
But there are also times when we, considering all of our great and wondrous righteousness by which we have lived, believe we have earned what the Father has given us. Therefore we sometimes scoff at the way the wanderers are welcomed home, and sometimes it makes us angry. We earned our status! We deserve our position, and rejoicing at the return of those who don't deserve it makes a mockery of all our hard work.
There are a lot of differences between the two sons, but one that I'll single out is who they'll let define the relationship between themselves and their father. The younger son will come back to his father on whatever terms the father sets, although he believes he's not worthy of being considered a son. But the older son insists that his father receive him as he wishes, and his self-regard blinds him to the reality that his father has always considered him a beloved child and always will, no matter what he does.
So he stays outside, and won't come in. Will we?
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