PRODIGAL: Pt 4--A Prodigal God?

I confess that I have never read Timothy Keller’s book, “The Prodigal God” (though I also confess that I stole the title from him)—but after preparing and preaching these messages I went back to read some online excerpts…I think we were both coming from the same place (though his work was probably MUCH better).

The more I read and re-read the story of the “prodigal” it became clear that the concept of grace was at the center of what Jesus was trying to communicate. In the process, I re-read Yancy’s excellent work “What’s so Amazing about Grace?” After re-reading, I was reminded of just how AMAZING grace is…I became convinced that I was on the right track.

I have often heard grace defined as “God’s unmerited favor.” Well...isn’t that special!! But what does it really mean? I am undeserving and I get something anyway…still not clear (I confess I am a little dense at times—so it takes me awhile).

What if the father in the story of the prodigal son is somehow key to understanding the concept of grace?  For if any being could afford to be “wastefully extravagant” (prodigal) it would be God because he has limitless supply of…well, everything! Don’t misunderstand, I am not saying that the father in the story has a limitless supply of everything…BUT what if his response is a metaphor for how God responds to lost things that “get found?”

It is interesting to note that the “prodigal son” takes a portion of the father’s wealth with him and then squanders it—though the father would have bequeathed it to him when he died—he concedes to give it to him when he is young—which only goes to show that the father is willing to allow freedom (risk) even if it means disaster (I could not serve a God who would not allow free will)—this in itself shows the love of the father.

However, it is upon the return of the son that we see how the father becomes the “prodigal” in the story:

• The robe
• The ring
• The sandals
• The fatted calf

(Remember that I told you that these were important…but you didn’t look them up for yourself did you?)

In response to his “prodigal” son, the father himself becomes a “prodigal.”  He shows mercy and grace where none is warranted…he is extravagantly wasteful with his resources because the son who was “lost” has come home.

This is the kind of God we serve…an extravagant God:  A God who promises “immeasurably more” than we can ask or imagine, a God who is quick to bless, even when we don’t deserve it. This is our PRODIGAL GOD!!

Lest you think I am espousing a “health and wealth” gospel…I’m not…I’m simply focusing on the lavish generosity in the grace of our God. I’m certainly NOT the first to notice:

See what love the Father has LAVISHED on us that we should be called His children, and that is what we are (1 Jn 3:1)

Lavish is a word only a prodigal God could provide, and a prodigal son could understand.

It is interesting, at this point, to speculate how the hearers of Jesus’ words might respond to such a view of God. The legalistic Jews might grumble and chafe at the very notion of giving grace to one who clearly could not uphold the Law of his people (legalism), the “sinners” might find a “light at the end of the tunnel” in his message…one thing seems clear—God rejoices when the lost are found!

We are SO undeserving and yet we have received ALL that we need and more from the hand of our prodigal God…it is a good reminder that God is good, and God is great…all the time.

I believe, help me in my unbelief.

PRODIGAL: The Journey Home (Pt 3.)

Old and well-worn stories are often the best.  They don’t require a lot of “set-up.” In fact, most people know the stories so well that it becomes a sort of “fill-in-the-blank” communication.  You don’t really retell the narrative as much as you guide listeners or readers to tell it back to you---thereby involving them in the narrative that you are attempting to share.  The story of the prodigal son IS that story.

A simple story line:

• A man has two sons
• The younger asks the father for his share of the estate
• The father concedes
• The son takes the money and squanders it in a far off land
• Now, in desperate straits, the “prodigal” hires on feeding pigs
• While doing so he concludes that even his father’s servants are better off
• He goes home expecting chastisement and punishment (and ready to accept it)
• When he arrives he gets not punishment but reinstated as an heir.

SO MUCH good stuff in the details of this story to grasp:

It is important that the man has two sons and the younger is “the prodigal” because it would have been commonplace for the elder brother to be the primary heir—yet this is not his story (at least not yet).

It also seems odd that the father acquiesces to his younger sons request—rabbinical teachings are clear that this is a fool’s play.

Understand that the son is not squandering HIS OWN money—but his father’s money that would have eventually come to him in some form and amount.

It is at this point that the son becomes “prodigal.” He extravagantly wastes his inheritance (it is also an important side note to understand, legally, what one has to do to receive an inheritance---CLUE—NOTHING…somebody must love you enough to give it to you) on things and people he assumed would increase his quality of life.

Once the son becomes the prodigal he has no way forward or no way back, and no visible means of support—so he literally “forces himself” onto a local pig farmer, who takes pity on him and hires him to slop the hogs (PLEASE NOTE that all of the “cast members” in the narrative and listening to Jesus tell the story are Jews…for Jews this is ROCK BOTTOM…slopping unclean swine).

The son “comes to himself” (reasons within himself)…comes to understand his own situation...and humbly decides that he will throw himself on the mercies of the father and he will return home to become a slave (again…probably NOT the most realistic of scenarios—pride is both a wonderful and terrible thing).

While he is still on his way home the father runs out to meet him and, literally, “drapes himself on him” to welcome him home.  He gives him a robe, a ring, and sandals for his feet (all which have meaning in the ancient world—but I will let you look that up yourself---trust me—it IS important in the scope of the story). They kill the “fatted calf” (which is a special calf that they have been taking care of to use for a special situation—some NT scholars speculate that it was a calf being kept aside to be sacrificed on the altar for a Jewish ceremony—if that is the case it adds another layer and dimension to the story).

There is a HUGE celebration because the son that was lost has been found…he has come home!!

What a GREAT story…it is where the story should have ended (and if it did there would STILL be much to talk about).  However, it is NOT the end of the story…but maybe it should have been?

We cannot get so lost in the fine details of this story and MISS the BIG PICTURE.  It is a story about grace. But then again, whether we know it or not, every story about being a prodigal is a story of grace. It is a story about unmet expectations...the son could not find what he was looking for somewhere else (perhaps he DID find it, let’s just say he couldn’t sustain it)—life in another place or time is rarely what we have dreamed that it could be.

The BEST unmet expectations are those where grace abounds when there shouldn’t be any—a father who should have shunned and punished instead goes out of his way to rejoice, a son who extravagantly wastes his life in search for something that he can no sustain, a story of restoration and inheritance, when a life of servitude should have been acceptable…it IS the story of the “prodigal son!”  It is HIS story, it is our story, it is MY story…we are ALL “prodigals” because we have “extravagantly wasted” what God has entrusted us with (in ALL areas of our lives)—and for that we deserve to be disowned, and denied, but we are not…because that is what happens when God shows up.

I believe, help me in my unbelief.

PRODIGAL: The Journey Pt 2--The Introduction

Do you know what the word “prodigal” means?  My intent in my first message, to introduce the series, the passage, and the concept, was interrupted by a sudden and unrealized conclusion…I was laboring under a false assumption.

I always thought that the term “prodigal” was simply a synonym for “wayward”…I had never heard otherwise, (in hindsight I am contributing this mistake to Kerry Livgren, Robby Steinhardt, Rich Williams, and Steve Walsh aka the rock group Kansas for their unrelenting lyrics in the song “Carry On My Wayward Son” which to this day remains one of my ALL TIME favorite songs!)—I was hoping to prove that in some sense of the word we were ALL prodigals who had gone astray.  What I found out was that the term “prodigal” in the ancient world meant something like “extravagantly wasteful.” That began to change the rhyme and reasoning behind the messages.  While everyone can agree that they were wayward (at one time or another) I’m doubtful that everyone would concede that they were “extravagantly wasteful.”

At the same time, I was trying to be a good biblical interpreter and understand the context that this story was set into—trust me…IT MATTERS!

So I began to consider a MUCH wider scope of material. The story of the prodigal is set in Luke 15. It comes immediately after two other stories about things that are lost (a sheep, and a coin).  I read every possible English rendering of Luke 15 as well as doing my best to translate, word for word, from the Greek. This, in itself, was a truly informative exercise but the “context question” kept expanding.

Why is this story unique to the book of Luke? Does that make it less likely that Jesus ACTUALLY said it? Since Luke is supposed to be written by a Gentile doctor—what, if anything, does that have to do with how I understand this story?  Luke’s gospel, in general, shows a much more “relaxed” picture of Jesus—one of Luke’s favorite places for Jesus to hang out is (literally) “reclining at the table.”  While at the various tables in the book of Luke Jesus spends time with a variety of people…Luke seems to emphasize the poor (literally poor not spiritually poor like Matthew), the oppressed, and the societal outcasts. Does this have ANYTHING at all to do with the story of the prodigal son? The idea of a “kingdom” seems to pop up a lot in Luke’s writings (I’m assuming that Luke wrote both the gospel that bears his name and the ONLY book of history in the NT the book of Acts). Does the story of the prodigal son have anything to do with the concept of the kingdom or visa-versa? Clearly this was a BIGGER undertaking than I had imagined.

All the while the “immediate context” was becoming more important as well. Jesus is not just spouting words into the air as he speaks. There is a geographic, historical setting with REAL people who are interacting with Jesus.  Luke makes clear that there are two primary groups of people present when Jesus is speaking, I quickly scrawled out the following diagram (which I ended up using numerous times in the series):

I concluded that Jesus’ question, which is implied in all three stories, is simply “what would you do?”  Note WHO Jesus is asking the question to—the “grumblers” the Jewish leaders (Pharisees and teachers of the Law) who were grumbling because Jesus was eating with “tax collectors and sinners” (who I would later call “the grateful”).

It appeared to me that AT LEAST a partial key to understanding was to clarify how the people in the stories reacted to their circumstances…thus answering the question, “what would you do?”  I figured that once I understood how they reacted I should note how the “grumblers” and the “grateful” reacted and it would give me some helpful, practical, application. As Shakespeare would say, “ay there’s the rub…” we are not given the response by the “grumblers” or the “grateful” (these titles imply what the response might be from those hearing the stories). Jesus ends the first two stories by simply stating, “so I tell you…there is joy…for those who are repenting” (a pretty loose translation but it can work). So are these stories about joy, repenting, and the unrepentant? Are these stories about how people respond to God?

CLEARLY…there was more work to do, and I haven’t even gotten into the ACTUAL story of the “prodigal son.”

I believe, help me in my unbelief.

PRODIGAL: The Journey (My Journey?) Pt 1

Recently I felt led to revisit one of the best known stories of Jesus in Luke 15…the “prodigal son.”  I am not at all sure what prompted me to put it in the middle of a couple of other sermon series that I had already been working on, AND I am even LESS certain as to why, since I haven’t blogged for months, I feel compelled to share the experience here (especially since I don’t share my messages on the internet or social media—frankly, my giftedness lies MUCH more towards the teaching side so I don’t think I am a gifted preacher who has stuff that others want to steal—and since only about an 1/8 of my congregation is computer literate—it is not the best use of my time)…but for whatever reason I do…so I am.

I confess I often don’t frequent the most well known stories in Scripture because it is always difficult to find something (anything?) new to say about them…notice I didn’t say RELEVANT…but new.  Such, I believe, is the case with the seemingly parabolic stories that Jesus tells in Luke 15: a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost son.

Oddly enough, the first thing that emerged was a graphic concept (I tend to think better in images)—so while I was sorting through the material choosing how to present it, etc… I developed this graphic to “advertise” the upcoming series:

 (NO, the picture used in the graphic is not original with me, and YES..I realized after the fact, that I failed to capitalize the "w" in "way"---thanks for noticing!)

The “tag line” “A Way Forward or a Way Back” was intended, at that point, to be the introduction to the series. Our small congregation is at a pivotal point in its history so I had hoped that we might use this as a way forward (into the future) while standing firmly on our biblical foundations.  I hoped to show that it is either a way back to God (through Jesus) or a way forward serving the Kingdom as we seek HIS future…ultimately, both ways lead “home.”

So I began to pray, and study, and seek, and what emerged was a 5 message series:

1. Prodigal: A “Lost” Story (An introduction—setting the stage)
2. Prodigal: A Son’s Story (A wayward son—the core of the story)
3. Prodigal: A Prodigal Father (The father’s response)
4. Prodigal: The Prodigal Church (The view of the older brother)
5. Prodigal: A Way Forward of A Way Back (Where do we go from here?)

Somehow in the process of preparing and sharing this series of messages I began to glean some new things from this old, and often too familiar story. So, as my time allows, I want to share with you, NOT the messages themselves, but the “behind the scenes” of each message and how I presented what I had learned from revisiting the text.  There will no doubt be nothing here that you cannot find somewhere else, and I am quite certain that others have done it better…but this is my journey and if anyone can find use in any of it…welcome to it.

I look forward to sharing it with you…if you have comments or questions please feel free to contact me.

I believe, help me in my unbelief.

Death and Social Media

Since I grew up YEARS before interactive social media was invented...some things just didn't occur to me...but the world we live in now, where social media is SUCH an important aspect of our lives, (how did we ever live without it...oh yeah...we ACTUALLY had conversations with people face to face or over the telephone..and then we all got together once in awhile to view "family slides" projected onto a screen or a wall to see vacation pictures), everything is changing...even death.

It would NEVER have occurred to me that what happens to a social media page after one dies would matter--I assumed a family member petitioned the social media site to have it taken down (of course anyone could have left their password information on their computer for a loved one to find who could have then done what they wished with the page...but that of course would be a violation of the site's users policy...someone actually READ the user policy and is now going to abide by it??).

But it now appears that this issue will be increasingly important (though not to me...sorry folks I don't see my "tweets," FB posts. or these blogs as a part of any legacy I wanted to leave...I have no delusions...these are just a more simplistic way for more people to have access--I don't assume that more people DESIRE it..I'm merely adding to the overflow). To that end, the link below will take you to an article that announces that Facebook is about to make a major announcement about what COULD happen to your social media sites upon your death:

Who Manages Your Facebook When You Die?

Me?  "Frankly Scarlet, I don't...."  To me there is something that seems a little morbid, or morose about an interactive social media page that cannot possibly be "interactive."  Since my citizenship is not here (on earth), and I am just a sojourner passing through, the life I have lived here won't seem nearly as important as we think it is.

It would seem odd for me, who has lived the vast majority of my life, for another place to care deeply about what this place thought after I died.  I have nearly always felt like an outsider (in one sense or another) here--C.S. Lewis though that meant that we were meant for someplace else--if he was right, I don't much care what happens on Facebook when I get to the Aslan's world!

I believe...help my unbelief.

Learning about Church from a Beer Company

Recently I was able to watch the History channel miniseries "Sons of Liberty." (I did not see it air on commercial TV because I don't have commercial TV..so I had to wait for another option). I had read about it online, and being a history "buff" I was interested to see how it would be presented. I must confess that I was a little disappointed in the show itself but something happened that I was not expecting.

Since I don't have commercial TV--I have NO idea what commercials ran originally with the program. However, I did know that the Boston Beer Company (most famous for creating "Samuel Adams Boston Lager") was sponsoring the show.  On my Roku app, that I used to view the series, there were only three "commercial" sponsors, and it soon became self evident that the Boston Beer Company was the primary participant.  Even on Roku there were 4-6 "breaks"...each break was "headlined" by a Boston Beer Company product.

By now you might be thinking I became very thirsty while watching (for the record--to date I've never consumed a Boston Beer Company beverage)--but instead I will confess that I became enamored...with a commercial.  After two straight nights of being bombarded by this commercial I had to know more. I was infatuated...NOT with the product that they were selling...but with the lifestyle that they were suggesting. In vain I scoured the internet to find the video...I could not...so I did what any cheap entrepreneur would do...I used my smart phone to digitize it---so the quality and the clarity are a little off from digital quality..but I now have a copy.  Take a look and tell me what you see:

First let me tell you a bit about The Boston Brewing Company:

• They were founded in 1984 by three friends from Harvard.
• One, Jim Koch, was from a line of brewers (I assume, from the name, German brewmeisters)
• Jim cooked up the first ever batch of Sam Adams Boston Lager in his kitchen.
• In March 1995 The B.B.C. introduced its Samuel Adams Boston Lager for the retail market.
• In June '95 (THREE MONTHS!!) Sam Adams was voted BEST BEER IN AMERICA at the Great American Beer Festival with over 90 companies competing.
• Since then it has consistently been ranked among the top American beers in the "U.S. Craft Beer Movement." (based on sales and volume).
• In 2013 They employed 1,200 people in three factories (Boston, Cincy, and Breinissville, PA).

The video above is not a commercial for their products as much as it is a statement of how they became who they are--which in turn is a commercial for their products.

MUCH digital ink has been spilled in the past few years about the "millennials" and how they are leaving the "traditional" church and how most of them who are Christians are more interested in starting new ministries/congregations instead of dealing with the old leftovers that previous generations (who didn't see things their way) left to be "fixed"--because it is clear that by and large it is dysfunctional.

Jesus, in two different places in Matthew's gospel, chastises the Jewish leaders of his time for knowing certain signs but being completely oblivious to the "sign" that was standing before them (cf. Matthew 12:38-42 and 16:1-4) while it would take up too much space to deal with these passages in depth--suffice it to say that Jesus departed from them without further signs--if they could not see the truth RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM then it is doubtful further indications are needed.

A QUESTION: has the Church become too much like them?  Is there something THAT HUGE that we have missed?  The Church, in all of its glory, was never, and can never be about a particular age group or generation--but what if the way we THOUGHT was right has been a mistake all along?  Even if just PARTS of it were off the mark--we need to readjust our thinking. And THAT is why I LOVE this video!!! It is a BRILLIANT piece of work (it doesn't make me want to buy beer, but it does make me think about MANY things!) So allow me to "tear it apart" and put it back together for you.

Exegeting the Video:
1). It speaks volumes that they choose a female voice for the voice over (ask yourself why that might be important).

2). Listen closely to the dialogue--it is really just a laundry list of their beliefs:
"we take our best friends to work"--this speaks to their preferred "relaxed" work environment
"every day is casual Friday"--authoritarianism, legalism, and rules do NOT make for a happy workplace.
"we take our beer seriously...not ourselves"--loosen up, it's life, no one gets out alive--but there are things that demand our attention--and when those come around we take them VERY seriously.
"we brew beer WE want to drink"--if we like it (20-30 somethings) then it stands to reason that ALL 20-30 somethings will like it--not the hint of unison and commonality in this thought.
"our own standard"--we don't need others to tell us what we like
"we share our passion for beer"--those things that are important...we are PASSIONATE about--they consume us!!
"we share our beer with our friends"--we share our passion with our friends because we want them to be passionate about what we are passionate about.

3). Note it all ends in a happy "family: moment (it reminds me of the theme song of the popular 80's sitcom "Cheers"--a bar... "where everybody know your name...and they're always glad you came..."

4). Could the implication be that we are doing our best to survive in a world that is going downhill fast so we need to "own" (but not "possess") whatever we can...that is to say...to make it our own?

THE END...
Watch the video again---every place they say the word "beer"--in your mind hear the word "Jesus"--write it down if you need to.  Once you understand this...you will begin to understand the world that we are called to reach. Now think...what methods work the best.  I am NOT saying that they are always right...but I am saying we have work to do Church. Let's get busy.

I believe...help me in my unbelief.