Renewing Faith: Prodigal God

Note: You can view this teaching on our YouTube Channel. In Luke’s 15th chapter we are offered three related parables from Jesus, all well known, the last being one of the most loved of all his teaching. The context is familiar – the teachers of the Law were taking issue with Jesus’ teaching and company as he was mingling with tax collectors and sinners. Undoubtedly, Jesus was aware of their concern for purity as well as for the potential of his welcome being misconstrued as tacit endorsement of their behavior. Jesus offered three parables to get them thinking. The first was the parable of the lost sheep, where a sheep goes missing and the shepherd leaves 99 to go after the lost one. When he found and returned with the sheep, he invited friends to celebrate with him. The second was a story about a woman who lost one of her ten coins – presumably her dowry – and upon finding it, threw a party. The third story is about two sons and a father. The younger son asks for his inheritance in advance, which is granted, and then blows it all on wild living. Utterly ruined, he decided to return home, hoping to just get a job with his dad. The father celebrates his return, however, and throws a party after reinstating him to his sonship, all to the older brother’s chagrin. Each of the stories is about something lost being found, and when it was, there was much cause for rejoicing, something that was lost on the Pharisees, apparently, who Jesus connected to the older brother in the final parable.

I have taught these stories many times. The prodigal son parable, in particular, resonates with a lot of people, especially if they are carrying some guilt or shame from choices they believe has kept God at a distance (or themselves at a distance). The great news they hear from this story is that God is one who welcomes home all who have drifted, and truly celebrates their return. One commentator I read recently wonders if there was any real transformation on the younger brother’s part, or if returning home was just another con. Was he hoping to play on his father’s sympathies? Very hard to say, although it would be audacious to return home expecting anything but rejection. The younger brother, however, was the apparent “king” of the audacious. Either way, the younger son found out that he was deeply welcomed by his father due to his dad’s reckless, prodigious love.

The older brother character is usually not “owned” by those who resemble him (because they usually don’t see it in themselves). He was living at the address of his father but never really home. He was missing life that was always available to him. When his brother returned, he was indignant and disrespectful to his father (hello, Pharisees?). The father was not dissuaded – he invited him to join the party to which he was eager to return. The father, who is clearly tied the character for God, is loving, forgiving, and welcoming of returning kids who stray away. It’s a beautiful story that moves many from feeling alienated to finding themselves in the loving embrace of God.

If these more or less traditional interpretations resonate with you and serve to woo you into deeper relationship with God and help you become more like Jesus, that’s wonderful.

Yet perhaps there is more to glean here, deeper depths to enjoy.

In the story, the father/God character was a really lousy parent. How foolish would it be to give a kid his inheritance who just stated that he wished you were dead? That’s a kid who does not want to be related anymore. The more common-sense reply would be to refuse the request or worse. At the end of the story the dad goofs again by adding his name back on the checking account! Dumb! Foolish! Wasn’t he paying attention? Just because the kid returns with a memorized speech doesn’t mean there has been any real transformation. Real life parents take note: this parable was not meant to be generally instructive about parenting!

What do we make of it, then? Jesus used parables to teach us about the character and nature of God. Here we catch a glimpse of a truth about God that Jesus fully understood, embraced, and lived from. Our “inheritance” of God’s love is fully ours at birth. It’s already in our account. We can do whatever we want with it. God will not get in the way. We are all born in the image of God. We are all loved beyond measure. We are all provided grace upon grace. We are all assured support from God toward life at its best. We don’t have to do anything to earn it – in fact, we can’t earn it and we can’t earn any extra, either. Everybody on the planet is given everything God has to offer. We are given ultimate freedom of choice, even to walk away with the entire haul, leaving God in the dust (as if that is possible). I believe this is true for all of us, and I believe it is a key part of the Gospel Jesus promoted.

This helps make sense of why the father put fine clothes on his returned son and a signet ring (signing privileges on the checking account) on his finger and threw a party. The son may have blown whatever he took before, but the supply is limitless. He was loaded all over again because we never lose all that God freely gives us up front. The well never runs dry of God’s presence, love, grace, support. God isn’t like us in that regard. God is never stingy with his riches. This is a story about a prodigal father much more than a prodigal son. The father’s generosity far outdoes the younger son’s mischief. This isn’t meant to be a story about choices and consequences, either, as if God doesn’t care about such things. We’re talking about two different subjects. Many interpretations get stuck on the basic transactional form of sin, repentance, and redemption, and miss a deeper point that grace and the love of God are a constant – not dependent on anything we do.

The younger son represents the human capacity to consciously, willfully walk away from our source, our true home where our True Self finds support. His choices represent sins of commission. We all do this from time to time in big and small ways. We don’t know what happened at the party or after the party. We’d like to imagine that he was deeply humbled by his experiences and truly transformed. Maybe not. What if he started bragging to everyone about his escapades, and started talking about his next trip to Vegas and the money he intended to blow on more partying? It certainly happens in real life. How does this possibility mess with you? We generally commit the same theme of sins throughout our lives in different ways based on our personalities that have been shaped by our DNA and shaping forces. They may change in degree, but the core is still there. What are your patterned, overt sins of choice?

If this younger son represents the human capacity to disturb shalom consciously, the older son represents our capacity to disturb it unconsciously, blindly, unaware of what we are doing to ourselves or others due to our commitment to staying asleep. This makes sense in the story. The older brother would have known that he was the more favored first born who held the power. When we are more or less stable/comfortable, we are less likely to pay attention to our shadow side until something wakes us up like a cold splash of water to the face, or the crack of thunder as our inner storms finally explode. Finally exposed, the older son is afforded a mirror-to-the-face moment of graceful clarity. We do not know how his story unfolds, just like his brother’s. We are left viewing another example of extravagant love, unsure of what the response might be.

God does not restrict our use of what has already been fully given to us, which is everything that God is and has. We are born with the full amount already in our account. God isn’t going to die, and has “more money than God”, which never runs out. All that is of God is good and oriented toward love, therefore God has no reason to withhold anything, and doesn’t. This is our Good News origin story. How do we work it out? How do we tap into it? How do we avoid mishandling it or abusing it? That’s the story of human life. But we all start with full accounts, even if our circumstances are very different, and even if some of our beginnings work very hard to tell us it isn’t true. There is nothing to be earned, no tenure to work toward – all that God offers is completely available to all of us at all times, even when we willfully blow it.

What have you been told of the love of God, really? What complications arise for you as you hear about God’s prodigious love for us that is truly unconditional? What happens when we remove transactional thinking from the love of God?

What have you been told about being human and transformation? How have you remained the same younger son, simply discovering new ways to willfully disturb shalom? How have you remained asleep, unconscious of the murkier aspects of our lives that serve as an undercurrent that directs your life more than you realize?

This is a story that forces us to come to grips about who we are as human beings, living somewhere on the consciousness continuum.

This is a story that forces us to come to grips about the reality of God’s abundant, uncontrolling and uncontrollable love.

Which bothers you more?

What is actionable from this story? What might this story be calling us to do? I would suggest taking time soon, while this is still fresh, to examine what you have been taught about human nature, the love of God, and what motivates us. As we engage such an exercise, I would encourage you to take on a stance of humility, an openness to whatever the Spirit might illumine in you. What are your known patterns of conscious, willful disregard of the love of God in your life – how are you like the younger son? What are your patterns of unconscious, unwitting disregard of the love of God in your life – when have they been brought to your attention before (I’m sure they have)? What difference does knowing that the full, unconditional, unrestricted, limitless love of God is a constant for you and everyone else on the planet? How does it impact how you think about yourself? Others? How is God wooing you forward? As one who might be falling in love with God, what is changing in you? What does living in the love of God more fully look like for us? How are we invited to live in the world as people who adore God? What difference might be made in our world if those in love with God emanated it naturally wherever they went?

Psalm 32 NLT

Oh, what joy for those

whose disobedience is forgiven,

whose sin is put out of sight!

Yes, what joy for those

whose record the LORD has cleared of guilt,

whose lives are lived in complete honesty!

When I refused to confess my sin,

my body wasted away,

and I groaned all day long.

Day and night your hand of discipline was heavy on me.

My strength evaporated like water in the summer heat.

Interlude

Finally, I confessed all my sins to you

and stopped trying to hide my guilt.

I said to myself, “I will confess my rebellion to the LORD.”

And you forgave me! All my guilt is gone.

Interlude

Therefore, let all the godly pray to you while there is still time,

that they may not drown in the floodwaters of judgment.

For you are my hiding place;

you protect me from trouble.

You surround me with songs of victory.

Interlude

The LORD says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.

I will advise you and watch over you.

Do not be like a senseless horse or mule

that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”

Many sorrows come to the wicked,

but unfailing love surrounds those who trust the LORD.

So rejoice in the LORD and be glad, all you who obey him!

Shout for joy, all you whose hearts are pure!

2 Corinthians 5:16-20 NLT

So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!”