By Such Stripes Are We Healed
by Jack Shaver
©The United Church of Canada, 1985
All Rights Reserved
ISBN 0-88622-196-X
7M/12/85/APL
Used with Permission
Monday
What's the father waiting for?
Luke 15: 11 - 32
This week we reflect on readings from the Gospels of Luke and John. John's Gospel is very different from the others. But Luke's is enough like Matthew's and Mark's that it generates interest in comparing them. Our attention is caught by what Luke leaves out - such as Jesus' cry of dereliction that the other two include. Attention is equally aroused by the material that is unique to him, such as the parables of the lost sheep, lost coin and lost son. With care we can begin to get a sense of what Luke had ears for, among the things remembered about Jesus ' ministry.
All the Lukan readings we use this week are from material unique to him. Today's selection tells one of several parables that only Luke records - the parable of the prodigal son. It is probably better named the parable of the waiting father, for the father has some waiting to do in the case of both sons.
An enormous amount of study has gone into the parables of Jesus, and rightly so. Of all the material in the records, they are the most revealing of his thought. Tales and fables with moral meanings have had extensive use down the ages. Allegories, with hidden meanings understood only by the initiated, also have had a long and creative use. But Jesus' parables cannot be made to belong to either of these types, even if the church began very early to try to do that very thing. Jesus' parables are a type unto themselves. They are stories of familiar every-day occurrences, which get the listener nodding in familiar recognition, but which suddenly explode with surprising implications.
An example in which we can most clearly see the parable at work is the story of the lost sheep. "Which one of you, if you lost one of a hundred sheep, wouldn't look all night for it and have a party when you found it?" This is not introduced as some kind of special behaviour. It is assumed anyone of Jesus' listeners would have done the same. And while they are all nodding in agreement, the story explodes. That is how God feels about a sinner who repents.
As we turn to the parable of the waiting father, where does the most surprising twist come? I think it is at the point where we are all feeling that the elder son got a raw deal. The wastrel gets the party, the steady worker gets to work steadily. What if the point of the story is to reveal a revolutionary notion of God's righteousness?
If God's righteousness is such that it is fulfilled when the punishment fits the crime, then the elder brother got a raw deal. But if God's righteousness is such that it is fulfilled only when the broken world is reconciled, then the elder brother is resisting God's righteousness. The father has more waiting to do.
If the life of Jesus Christ and his parables are a window into God's righteousness, what kind of clue are they to the puzzle of distinguishing between right and wrong? It seems that the whole matter of right and wrong comes under a different kind of scrutiny when you discover that the goal of God's righteousness is reconciliation.
- Speak Lord
Eternal God,
Your Word is a firm foundation. - Get through to us with your Word.
- When we live a life that's called for, there's nothing to fear,
- neither pain, nor failure, nor principalities nor powers,
nor any creature. - Get through to us with your Word.
We might protest and resist, but it will be good to have a firm place on which to stand.
Your Word is truth. - If we can face the truth about ourselves we will have nothing to fear.
Get through to us with your just judgement and plant our feet on the rock of truth. - Your Word is living and abiding.
- You commended your loving to us in the life, death and resurrection of Christ.
Get through to us with your ever lasting love. If we can learn to
love we'll have nothing to fear.
Our distress will be sanctified and our weariness find rest. - O Holy Spirit, witness within us to the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
Amen