Lessons From the Prodigal & His Dad

I've been reflecting on the story that we call the Parable of the Prodigal Son recently, though the parable is really more about his brother, and especially about his father.

We all know the basics of the story: a younger son asks for his inheritance while his dad is still alive (before it's due to him). His dad gives it to him, and then he takes it out of town and squander it. Eventually when times are tough, he formulate a repentance, and returns home with his tail between his legs to tell his dad how he doesn't deserve anything but asks for a job just to be able to eat regularly.

So he heads home to act out his obeisance, and learns that his dad has never stopped watching for him, never stopped looking forward to his return. Before he can explain his situation and ask for a job, Dad interrupts him, stirs up all the servants, and essentially restores the young man to his former position and status.

The scene shifts to the older brother working out in the field like an obedient kid. As he's coming in at the end of his workday, he hears the hubub at the house and asks a servant what's going on; the servant explains the celebration for the returning brother, at which point the older kid takes a good bit of offense at the father's goodness and embellished his brother's failings (the story never mentioned prostitutes, for example).

So Dad comes out to listen to his whining and help him understand how important it is to celebrate his returning brother.

The part that really stood out to me (this time) was that Father addresses both boys exactly the same: as "Son."

He interrupts the submission of the prodigal, calling him "Son." Then he sits through his religious brother's complaining before addressing him also as "Son," and explaining why we celebrate.

I get it why the "good kid" older brother is addressed as "Son." He's the good boy, the obedient one, and I've grown up in a culture that encourages that. And since the younger brother has spent his inheritance, the older brother will inherit the entire farm. Of course he's "Son."

But as much as I know better, I still find myself stumbling over the younger kid. If he'd gotten his repentance out, if he'd worked it out for a few years, then I'd understand the "Son," but Dad calls him by that name before he's even gotten the repentance out.

The two boys had been walking two entirely different tracks, but both of them were based on lies. One lie was that getting away from the family would be where he'd find freedom. The other lie was that steady obedience should lead to reward (the desired goat) and preferential treatment.

Apparently God doesn't actually care about our history nearly as much as we do. He is determined to love us, determined to lead us in truth, regardless of how rebellious or how religious we have been.

Apparently careful repentance doesn't impress our Father as much as we thought. Apparently consistent obedience doesn't impress Father as much as we expected either.

He corrects our thinking and treats us as "Son" regardless.

Dang, he's good.

Distribution of Resources

 I had some stale bread, so of course I wanted to give it to the chickens. Bread is one of their favorite snacks.

But it's not unusual for the chickens to fight over their snacks. I guess that some of that is part of the natural order of things, establishing their pecking order and all that, but it still makes me uncomfortable. So I cut the bread into long thin strips.

I got maybe a dozen strips out of each slice of bread. "There. Now they won't have to fight over it. There's enough here for everyone!" Boy was I mistaken.

I walked up to their gate and they all gathered around, as usual. And I tossed the plate of bread strips into their midst, expecting them to share the wealth. Boy was I mistaken.

One of them grabbed a piece of bread and ran off to a far corner of the chicken yard with it. I expected that the others would just grab their own piece of bread, maybe run off with it. But no. When one had a bit of bread and ran off, the others ran after it, trying to snatch a bite of her bread for themselves. They left the pile of bread sitting unattended.

I muttered and grumbled and took their names in vain.

And I heard Father chuckle. Aha! A clue! That usually means there's a lesson for me there.

As I reflected on the gallinaceous lesson before me, one chicken came back and grabbed one piece of bread and ran off with it, with the rest of the girls chasing after her for a share of the wealth.

I could hear Father's smile, as he watched me working my way through the drama, learning to see it as he saw it.

In times past, I've learned lessons about how we humans interact from watching the chickens in their interactions, and it happened again. I recognized that we do what the chickens were doing.

When someone among us gets a bit of a revelation about something, the rest of us often enough go running after them in order to get a bite of what they've found. When God began speaking to his kids about prophetic gifts being for the Church today, we quickly had dozens, maybe hundreds of conferences about prophecy and how to prophesy. Books were written, podcasts jumped oneo that gravy train.

But there weren't a lot of us (and I'm as guilty as anyone) who came back to the Giver and asked for our own bit of revelation.

The same thing happened when God began talking about healing. We followed the few folks in social media who were actually doing the stuff, but not a lot of folks headed out to the streets to do the stuff; a whole lot more went to the conferences, the healing meetings, the YouTube channels, like chickens trying to steal a bite from the one with the bit of bread.

I see that in the world, too. When it was announced that the companies that Elon Musk had poured his money and his energy into had increased in value, making him a "trillionaire" on paper briefly, people ran after him, some declaring how unfair it was that he had so much money when people were starving, others telling their followers how we can learn from his success.

But not too many people have been pouring their money and their energy into something (a business? a job? a ministry?) that could produce a worthwhile return for their efforts. ("Your mina has made five minas more, Lord.") 

It is *absolutely* not a universal thing. There are some folks coming back to the bread pile for their own piece of bread (and some of them are having others running after them, criticizing them, trying to get their own bite of it).

But in general, it seems more normal for people to run after someone who's found some success than to come back to the Source for their own success.

People are smarter than chickens. Sometimes.

The Christian Religion

I was talking with someone recently who doesn't call himself a Christian any more. And I realized that I avoid that term "Christian" pretty intentionally myself.  Interesting. I didn't plan that.

The term is a Biblical term [Acts 26:28 & 1 Peter 4:16]. That's not the nature of my hesitation. 

I found myself saying that I avoid the term because I don't like the associations so much. There's a lot of heinous things that have been done in the name of the Christian religion. The crusades are a good example. 

But then I corrected myself. Yes, that's true, but the bigger issue for me might be that I don't like what has happened to the Christian Religion so much. Well, really, not at all. 

Yeah, the term is Biblical. That does not mean that what we've done with it is Biblical. It's not. We can point to the Romanization of Christianity first by Constantine's legalization and patronage of it starting in 313 AD, then the adoption of Christianity by Theodosius I in 380 AD. 

Those effects, both the patronage of government (think "501c3") and the cultural dominance of the religion are perversion (in my view) that have continued on even today. Christianity does not thrive when paired with government. 

We see another religion trying its hand at government: Islam is working pretty diligently to take over the world. Literally. If you look around, you can see a lot of growing dominance in a number of countries (Great Britain being one example), and there are communities around America that are considering adopting Sharia law (the religious law of Islam). 

Islam (Muslims) kind of hate Christianity. And they kind of have reason. I refer you back to the crusades, when Christian knights and armies slaughtered Muslims and took their lands. We did it badly then. They're doing it badly now, and reminding us of why religion and government don't mix. 

I've been living in the Gospels in the Bible for a few months. Some Christians today kind of hold up ancient Israel as an example of religion and government working together. But if you read the Old Testament (Kings & Chronicles in particular) and the Gospels with open eyes, you'll see that it never worked for them either. Jesus went waaay out of his way to castigate the religious ruling party (Pharisees, teachers of the Law) for how badly they got it wrong. 

The way I read it, Christianity was never meant to be a culturally dominant religion. Aw heck, Christianity was never meant to be a religion at all. It has always been meant to be a family. When family and government converge, you get dynasties and corruption, and we have seen too many examples of that in our lifetime. 

Let me add, however, while the Christian religion does not belong in government, Christian people ABSOLUTELY do. William Wilberforce and Charlie Kirk have been really excellent examples, though they've both were persecuted and paid a price for bringing their faith into their political work. Let's be honest: our faith belongs in our work, regardless what our work is. If we can't be a believer in our work - and I am not saying to be an evangelist or a preacher in our work - then our faith might be pretty superficial. 

So yes, I am proudly a part of Jesus' family. I am his son, his child, and I live my life in and under and for his kingship. (Note that God's Kingdom is NOT a political kingdom!) I have been redeemed by Father's massive love, and by Jesus' massive sacrifice, and Jesus lives in me, along with Father and Holy Spirit. I am born again. And I am what Luke (in Acts) and Peter called "Christian," but I respectfully decline to fit into the cultural and political boxes of what is called "Christian" in the 21st century. 

I know some folks who call themselves "Christ followers," and the term "born again" has some value again these days. I'm afraid that I expect that whatever "believers" (another option) call themselves will be corrupted quickly enough and filled with all sorts of cultural and historical baggage, particularly by people who want to put "those Jesus Freaks" (yet another option) into some sort of box so they can stop listening to them. 

So yeah, I kind of hate what has been done by the Christian religion over the centuries, but I think I resent what has happened TO the Christian religion even more. 

Maybe I'll find a label (ick) that will work, but maybe I'll just avoid labels as much as I'm able for the time being.