Part of my Lenten discipline this year is going through The Thoughtful Christian (TTC)“Pausing on the Road to Jerusalem” Bible study and, as part of that, sharing my thoughts with you all based on the Scripture for the week and the study itself. A lot of this is just personal reflection, but I hope that maybe you can gain a little insight into your own faith and how these themes and ideas may apply to you, the larger community, the Christian church, and the world today. Click the following to see my reflections from Week 1 (Part 1 and Part 2) and Week 2.
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Well, I ended up doing the third and fourth Thoughtful Christian studies around the same time, and prepared to blog about them at the same time, too. Not surprisingly, I confused myself and meshed the ideas together. So the following is actually two studies pushed together. Looking back, they make much more sense to me used right next to each other, but they weren’t intended completely that way. For the sake of space, then, I will give you the links to the two Bible passages (NRSV) and what my Lutheran Study Bible uses for their subtitles:
Luke 13:1-9 (Repent or Perish; The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree)
Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32 (The Parable of the Prodigal and His Brother)
Luke 13
At first, I didn’t understand how the first part of this part of Luke 13 fit in with the second half of that passage; or, perhaps it’s more honest to say I didn’t like how I initially fit them together. But we can’t just ignore the passages that make us uncomfortable, can we?
The answer is “no, we can’t.” I saw you thinking about it for a second! Yes, it would be nice and make things much less complicated...but being a Christian isn’t always a stroll down easy street.
Verses 1-5 are a bit of a downer, I think. Some people were talking to Jesus about their current events and how some bad things happened to some people and Jesus wakes us up to let us know that those people who suffered...they deserved it no more than we do. Stop trying to justify why bad things happened to these people, trying to figure out “why” they deserved it, and repent.
Bam. Jesus words. They always get me. Mainly because they are so true. Word to the Word’s words (a little John 1/modern slang humor, there).
The Thoughtful Christian Bible study lays it out pretty convictingly: Can any of us deny that, oftentimes, when we hear about someone getting hurt, maybe in an accident, and the first thing we want to know is whose fault it was? Was the driver speeding? Were they drunk? Were they too young/old? My Dad use to always joke when I was a kid that we have to lay blame and then we can move on. We do it, though, because it gives us some sense of comfort that there is a cause-and-effect pattern that we can use to control our lives. If we follow this set of rules, there will be this outcome. If we don’t smoke we shouldn’t get lung cancer; if you do smoke and get lung cancer, then somehow you had it coming.
But that’s where Jesus steps in and says, nope, we’re all in the same boat. Either we all deserve the bad, or no one does. I am not better than you, and we are not worse than anyone else. Life isn’t fair. If it was, we’d all be in the same boat.
Jesus goes from this first idea into the parable of in which a man tells his vineyard’s caretaker that the vine not bearing fruit should be cut down. Yet the caretaker asks for one more year to see if something can be produced. Mercy.
This last part was what really caught my attention in the passage. As much as I, too, look for control from a cause-and-effect style justice, I am so thankful for the concept of mercy. Probably because I realize how much I have benefitted from merciful friends, family, and co-workers. Imagine if we were to start acting merciful in more areas of our lives? Whoa. Is your mind blown at how much more love there could be going around?
Luke 15 Passage
A few quick points from The Thoughtful Christian study that I won’t elaborate on for the sake of not making this post unbearably long (and also my own attention span writing it), but that I think are worth noting.
--The parable draws some attention “to the unwillingness of ostensibly righteous people to welcome those who they believe to have placed themselves outside the reach of God’s grace.
--We can interpret the younger son’s thoughts upon returning to his father as rather self-serving, although his planned words give a tone of “genuine repentance”.
One of the coolest points, I got out of studying this parable, though was that whether or not the younger son was truly sorry or not (and prepare yourself- this is AWESOME) the father doesn’t even get to hear what his son planned to say. As the study says, “The father is not just waiting; he is apparently searching the horizon, and at the first hint of his lost son’s return, he becomes proactive in unbecoming extreme. Judaism, even Pharisaical Judaism, made plenty of room for those who confessed their sins to be forgiven and welcomed home. But the act of running, the embrace before confession is ever offered, the ring, the robe, and the fatted calf seem overly indulgent.”
What!? I will be the first to admit that when someone hurts or wrongs me, I want an apology, in clear action if not in word. I want some type of tangible repentance at that exact moment, as well as in their actions in the future. I have a feeling I’m not alone, too.
How often have we conditioned someone being welcome (back) in our churches or our view of who is included in Christ’s salvation requires their repentance (even if it is something we view as a sin, but they do not)? I know, I know-- some of you will refer me to passages such as Acts 2:38, in which Peter says “Repent, and be baptized...so that your sins may be forgiven...” And if we look back to earlier in our readings here to Luke 13, Jesus says “Unless you repent, you too will all perish.” And yet, while we are initially told we all need to repent, a few chapters later we are shown by Jesus that it’s a little more nuanced than what we may imagine: before the son can repent, his father welcomes him back into the fold and celebrates. Not even that but the father is *searching the horizon* to bring back his son.
WHOA AGAIN! How often have I searched for the person who has hurt me in order to bring them back into community with me? Answer: not nearly as much as I should have. What if, when that person on the church committee you’re on really ticks you off, you sought them out? Maybe give each other some time to cool down, but then actually talk about it, regardless of whether you will agree afterwards.
This all blows my mind. I love it! Go Jesus! These are the ideas that encourage me and get me pumped about the Body of Christ.
Now, I’m not saying there isn’t a need or call for repentance and the act of formally forgiving someone (in fact, I think, ideally, we should repent a lot more with the accountability of our friends and family, but that’s for another post), but I’m saying it’s bigger than that (isn’t it always? But at the same time, it is all so simple: love). It’s all characterized by love.
The study goes on to say that this idea is quite scandalous, it speaks “of a grace too excessive to make sense, the scandal of a God who is beyond ‘fair’.
My study went on to explain that some of the above, and what our natural/cultural/less-than-divine instincts may be telling us is that, like the Older Brother, who stayed by his father the whole time, we have a “desire that our father should love us because we deserve to be loved, our hope that he would love us because we were loyal and worked hard and did the right thing from the beginning.” Our reaction, however grateful for the grace extended to the Young Son, is that it’s not fair. At some point or another we’ve identified with the Older Brother who has seemingly done everything right, only to see someone who put in less work/screwed up major/has bad intentions/[insert how you’ve been hurt here] get the same love or recognition that you deserve, or sometimes more. And we’re right, “it’s not fair; it’s better than fair.”
It reminds me of hearing someone, somewhere explain that we all call for a “just” God, but what we really want, when it comes to ourselves, is a God of mercy and compassion. I think about this in the context of Palestine. I want justice for the Palestinian people, but I pray that justice is tempered with compassion and mercy.
To end, I’ve included the son “If We Are the Body” by Casting Crowns which I thought of while writing parts of this post, particularly about seeking out each other on the horizon to bring us together as one Body of Christ and how we, like the Older Son, sometimes judge who is “worthy” of this family.
Jesus paid much too high a price
for us to pick and choose who should come.
And we are the Body of Christ.
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