The Other Son

I think most people are familiar with the story of the prodigal son. The father in the parable has two sons: One of them asks for his inheritance early, and goes off to live on his own. After some time, and some bad decisions, he finds himself broke and hungry. Considering where he came from, he begins to realize that he would have been much better off if he had stayed with his family. He decides that his father wouldn’t be willing to treat him as a son, but perhaps there is enough love left that his father will give him a job. When he returns home, though, his father welcomes him home, and throws a celebration that his son has returned. One thing that gets overlooked in the story a lot is the other son. After the prodigal returns, the older brother, coming back to the house from working in the fields, hears the party going on, and, instead of going in and asking his father what was going on, he asks one of the hired servants. Finding out that his brother has returned, he becomes angry. He understands that his brother didn’t come home because he struck it rich and wants to share the wealth, he hit rock bottom and didn’t know where else to go. Word filtered back to the father that the other son was angry about the treatment that the prodigal was receiving, and so the father sought out the other son. “I don’t get you, dad, he has dishonored you, he has dragged our family name through the mud (or worse), he finally gets desperate enough to come home, and you throw a party! Why haven’t you ever thrown a party for me? I’m the son that has always followed your wishes!” The father reminded him that he had never asked for a party; he had never indicated any desire to celebrate with his father.
I think that there is some of each brother in most of us. Sometimes we end up doing our own thing, and end up outside of the will of God. All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. When we get right, God is happy that we did. But, then, we swing the other way. We start thinking that we are doing right, and have done right, and we are in the zone; we are just so right with God. But then someone else falls into the same trap that we did, and when they get right, we wonder why God would even forgive them. On some level we know that if God didn’t forgive people, then we are all in deep trouble, but how can He forgive that?
I think that it’s interesting, too, that the other son never asked for a party. He should have at least been willing to celebrate his brother’s return. Apparently he would have been at least as happy if his brother had died in whatever far country that was that he had gone to. It seems to me that, in the natural, at least, he might have been considering the fact that, with his brother gone, he stood to inherit everything that his father had, but with his brother’s return, and the father’s obvious jubilation, suddenly his inheritance stands to be cut in half. Jesus didn’t even address that aspect of it, though, because He wasn’t talking about a natural inheritance. Our inheritance is Heaven, and Heaven will never get crowded, or spread too thin; it will be perfect. Of course, I think most of could understand the other son’s frustration at the idea that he has been doing all of this work for all of this time, and his brother ran off and did whatever he wanted, and now they both stand to gain the same inheritance. Of course, Jesus dealt with the same idea in the parable of the laborers in the vineyard in Matthew 20. What I do for my reward is between God and me, and what you do for your reward is between God and you. I don’t have any business passing judgment. The real problem IMHO, is the brother’s attitude. He’s so busy worrying about his own sense of justice, and his reward compared to his brother’s, that he completely missed his father’s justice, the true justice.

BTW—the above image is courtesy of Edith OSB on flickr.com.

What Does It Mean to Be Reprobate?

What does it mean to be reprobate? American Heritage Dictionary gives two definitions (as an adjective): 1. Morally unprincipled; shameless. 2. Rejected by God and without hope of salvation. To be honest, there isn’t a lot of difference between the two. If one is morally unprincipled and shameless, than one stands a very good chance of being rejected by God and left with no hope of salvation. If one is rejected by God, then one has no basis for moral principles, and so will become morally unprincipled and shameless. Please notice that there is a definite difference between being reprobate and being an atheist. If you’ve been paying attention, then you know that many atheists do have moral principles, which simply proves that, although they have rejected God, God has not rejected them (at least not yet). The term reprobate is used three times in the New Testament: Romans 1:28, 2 Timothy 3:8, and Titus 1:16.
Some examples from Scripture: the parable of the prodigal son has been brought up, but I don’t think that qualifies. The father never gave up hope that his son would return, and when the son did return, the father ran out to meet him. Clearly, the parable illustrates the relationship that God (the Father) has with us (His children). Many times we will slip away from the will of God, but He is patient with us. He will usually deal with us, and try to get us to return (in the parable, the father had nothing to do with the son’s misfortune, but sometimes God does prevent us from prospering when we seek our own will instead of His; but sometimes He just let’s us do what we want, and let us learn the hard way that material things never bring lasting satisfaction). Personally, I don’t think that the prodigal son represents a reprobate spirit—the Father did not reject him, even though he rejected the Father.
Esau is, perhaps, a better example. He sold his birthright for a bowl of stew. At the time, he had convinced himself that he was starving to death, so what good was his birthright? Some have said that Jacob took advantage of him (because Jacob knew that Esau wasn’t dying), but I think that Jacob did what God led him to do, but that’s a subject for another blog (this would get really long if I tried to get into that now). My main point here is that Esau found no space of repentance, though he sought it carefully. Of course, in Esau’s case, he wasn’t looking for salvation (he was looking for his inheritance, as the older son, but inheritance doesn’t always go to the older son—but our inheritance, as Christians, from our Father, is salvation), it’s just that when he realized what he had given up for a little bit of food, he tried to get his birthright back, even though he didn’t have anything that Jacob wanted nearly as bad as Esau had wanted those beans at the time. It is clear, however, that even though Esau’s state wasn’t really the state of a reprobate man, that the Scripture uses Esau’s situation as a warning to those who might become reprobate: God forgives (and He wants to forgive), but there are no guarantees that you will be able to find forgiveness if you just walk away. I have known far too many people that convinced themselves that they could do whatever they wanted, because God would forgive them, and ended up so far out there that they didn’t even want to be forgiven anymore.
The Pharaoh that refused to let the Israelites go (Ramesses II?) has been brought up. To be honest, I’m not sure that he qualifies, either, because, it seems to me, that you have to have been saved before you can be reprobate. Certainly Pharaoh had a reprobate attitude, and it even talks about God hardening his heart, which would suggest that God wasn’t trying to save Pharaoh, so that would indicate that God had rejected Pharaoh. There is some indication that Pharaoh knew who the true God was, but that he refused to bend his will to God’s, so maybe he really was reprobate. I guess it’s open to debate.

The Prodigal

Interestingly enough, after posting yesterday on the subject of hypocrisy, during which I wanted to include the lyrics of "Undo" by Rush of Fools (what a name for a Christian group, by the way), I googled for the lyrics, and came up with another blog that was using the lyrics, but her subject was the Prodigal Son. Last night, my pastor taught a study on the Prodigal Son. Coincidence? I think not.

Anyway, the story has different levels. I think most of us get the idea that the younger son took his inheritance (early), and went to a far country, and wasted it. When he realized what a stupid thing that was for him to do, he decided to go back home and ask his father for a job. When he returned home, however, his father forgave him completely, and put him back in his place as the son of the household.

I think a lot of people overlook the older brother's part of the story, though. When the older brother came in from working in the field, he found a celebration going on. He asked one of the servants what was going on. When he found out that his brother had returned, instead of rejoicing with his father, he became angry. He undoubtedly thought that his brother had dishonored his father, and even the family name, but here is dad making a big fuss about his return. It sounds as though the older brother would have been perfectly happy to have never seen his brother again.

Consider for a moment what Jesus was trying to teach: Not just that there is forgiveness in God, but that sometimes we in the church have a hard time forgiving others in the church. It doesn't even have to be a sin that we are directly a victim of. It's interesting, too, that Jesus told this parable to religious people who were criticizing Him for hanging out with sinners. Clearly, these religious people didn't understand that these "sinners" had been forgiven, and were welcome in the Kingdom. It was the religious people whose souls needed mending, but they were too busy being better than everybody else. Ever meet anybody like that? Ever been anybody like that?

It's interesting, too, that the older brother, when he heard the commotion, didn't ask his father what was going on, he asked one of the servants. You might think that it was simply more convenient--the servant was right there--but, really, whom should he have been talking to? And even when his father came out and talked to him, he was angry with his father, and felt cheated. So why is it that the father didn't tell the older brother before he started the party? Maybe because the older brother wasn't communicating with his father the way he should have. Maybe that's why he asked a servant, instead of talking to dad.

Yet, we know that God wants to hear from us. We know that God wants to supply our needs, even when we don't know what our needs are. We know that God wants us to be joyful. God doesn't want us to be jealous of each other. If it seems that somebody else got a better deal than we did, maybe it's because we aren't seeing the kind of sacrifice that the other person made in order to obtain that reward, or maybe it's just because we aren't taking our needs before God in the first place. The Bible talks about not having as a result of not asking, and then when you do ask, you ask amiss. We need to be honest with ourselves, and with God, to bring our needs before Him, and let Him meet our needs as He sees fit--not as we see fit.

Hypocrites

Jesus didn't do a lot of name-calling when He walked the earth, but one insult that He used pretty regularly was, "Hypocrite." Alternate translations for the Greek word used would be dissembler, or pretender. To some extent, we've all been guilty of that, at one time or another. Much as I would like to pretend that I've never pretended to be something I'm not, that would hypocritical. Hypocrisy is not unforgivable, though, as much as Jesus railed against it. If you look at the times that He used that term, He used it to describe people that claimed to serve God, claimed to have knowledge of the Old Testament prophecies, and yet, did not recognize Jesus for who He was.

Most of us are more likely to get caught up in a different type of hypocrisy: one where God uses us to accomplish something, and then we walk around like we did something. Pride plays into this form of hypocrisy. Herod the King died because of his own pride. One instance where I almost fell for that, myself, I was hanging with some friends from church, and a couple of them were playing pool, and one guy walked away from the table, and the other guy invited me to play next. I walked over, picked out a reasonably straight cue, and ended up running the table. I tried not to look surprised--I had never run the table in my life (and I never have since). Later on, I found out that the guy that I played had beaten the other guy, badly, and then took pleasure in rubbing it in; so the guy that walked away from the table was praying that God would take the other guy down a notch. Had me puzzled for a while, because I knew I didn't do it, but I didn't understand what had happened.

There is, of course, forgiveness, at least, for those of us that are legitimately trying to let God use us. We have to be humble enough to understand that anything we do of any worth is God in us, and not ever just us. In writing this, I was reminded of a song by Rush of Fools called "Undo." The lyrics of the song make reference to the narrator(?) being a hypocrite and a prodigal, and he calls upon God to help to change, to "undo what I've become." This is something that we all need to do on a regular basis. Apostle Paul said, "I die daily." We have to keep slaying the old man, and renewing our dedication to God. It would be nice if we could just do it the one time and be done with it, but it keeps coming back. David (a man after God's own heart) once said, "I am a worm, and no man." That encourages me, because, so often I feel worse than useless, and I have to think that he felt the way I feel, and yet, in retrospect, he did so much for God (or, at least, allowed God to do so much through him).

BTW, the link for the lyrics for "Undo" above actually goes to another blog called "React less, Pray More" maintained by a young woman who identifies herself only as Ashley in Honduras (or AshInHonduras). There's some other good stuff on that blog entry besides just the lyrics...