It was a good thing that I typed that out. So many correlations and connections popped up in my head while I was busy with it (thanks, Dad). I'll hit them as I go.
Normally when I hear the story of the prodigal son, I see myself as the son that ran away and squandered everything. I still to, actually. That's exactly the way God treats us. I love the lyrics of the Phillips, Craig, and Dean song, "When God Ran:"
"The only time I ever saw Him run was when He ran to me, put me in His arms, held my head to his chest, said 'My son's come home again,' lifted my face, wiped the tears from my eyes, with forgiveness in His voice, He said 'Son, do you know I still love you?"
Every time we run away from Him, He is faithful even though we don't deserve the grace that He gives us. Dad's amazing that way.
What Sunday school did this morning to change this story for me didn't take anything away from my interpretation of the parable. It actually added to it. I still see myself as the prodigal son for the most part, which is the best of all cases in my relationship with God. In addition though I can see myself as the angry brother sometimes, too. That's pretty sad.
Let's be honest. I'm a Christian, but I'm also human. I'm imperfect. I sin the heck out of life in almost every way imaginable. Where we Christians get into trouble is becoming that vindictive older brother. To put it bluntly we get so mad at people that don't believe sometimes that we steel ourselves against having any feeling for them. We get mad that maybe somebody else is being blessed and we're not. We lose sight of the fact that there is absolutely no difference between us and the lost other than the Grace of Jesus, which has nothing to do with things we can do anyway. We can sin just as hard as they can.
I'm afraid of getting into the rut of taking my relationship with Christ for granted and getting used to walking around in the loving presence of the God of the universe. Doing that stops any possibility of being a good, genuine witness for Christ to the lost. We lose sight of the love God has for us through grace and, amazingly, start feeling that we deserve the salvation that He gives us freely. We deserve nothing but Hell- that's the truth of the matter! Our own pride and arrogance about how "good" we are can make us forget that though.
Back to the central theme verse of the BCM this year, Micah 6:8. "He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" Walking through life as the angry brother shoots a Christian witness to heck and back. To hate another person in anger and be jealous of what the Creator decides to bless a person with is definitely not acting justly. Condemning a person when we are guilty of breaking the entirety of God's law is definitely not loving mercy- it's not understanding what lengths of mercy God showed us.
"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. And why do you look at the speck in your brother's eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye'; and look, a plank is in your own eye? Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."
Jesus in Matthew 7:1-5
That goes right along with walking humbly. As Christians, we should be able to discern sin from righteousness. That doesn't give us the right to judge other people for their actions. There is one judge, and that's Jesus. Walking humbly means bowing the knee to Him and letting His mercy and love show through us. I'm pretty sure when Jesus told us to be salt and light that He didn't mean for us to be a salt induced ulcer and a police searchlight. Our light should be for people to see and understand the Love of God, not be a searchlight to aim at people in order to point out every flaw in them. Chances are we have the exact same flaws, anyway.
I say this because I genuinely do love all of the people I have constant contact with here at UGA. I haven't found someone yet that I don't love that way. I'm just scared that I may begin to go angry brother and start taking them for granted and go down the nit-picky judgmental path that leads to anger and hatred. Familiarity breeds contempt- that's the way the adage goes, right? The way the lead singer of Casting Crowns puts it is that "it's the second glance that binds your hands while darkness pulls the strings." Even giving evil thoughts a second chance at the mind is enough for them to take hold and take root. I'd prefer the Dawgs to hunker down. Not evil in my mind.
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