“Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:1-2)
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’ So he got up and went to his father.
“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
“The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
“‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
It's too easy for us to put ourselves in the place of God's "sons". He is great and we are not. He is omniscient, omnipotent, and eternal. We are created beings.
That older brother was so proud of himself for not being a total brat - taking his father's stuff and then running away and wasting it. And aren't we sometimes proud of ourselves for the evil we might do and yet somehow manage not to do? Not messing up is a decent goal for a kid.
But I can't help feeling sorry for that Dad, waiting and longing day after day for his son to come home, with no one at his side. No one to share his yearning heart. No one to half that burden. And maybe worst of all, when his messed-up son finally makes his way back - no one to share his joy. The neighbors came to help him celebrate but his own son would not join in.
I know how slighted that older brother felt, and how confused. You don't fatten calves for no reason. He had plans for that fatted calf, plans that got discarded without his being asked. I've been that older brother, trying to satisfy myself with the benefits of being a child of God, with the promise of inheritance. I, too, have thought that my Father might be satisfied with my not running off and wasting his gifts trying to buy myself cheap happinesses... all the while blind to the ways I'm wasting the greatest treasure of all - the chance to be not only a child but a friend to my Father - sharing his longing for a lost son and his joy at that son's return. I've let rivalry and jealousy overcome me and keep me from fellowship with the aching God-heart. I've compared benefits and felt slighted, instead of joining the Giver on his great mission to love. I've felt like I was losing when someone else received a good that I desired.
There are a lot of us who feel jealous, even angry, when people who have seeming little connection with God look like they are getting treated better than we are. The prophet Jonah was angry at God for reaching out to the Assyrian city of Nineveh.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
In the end, God explains his heart to Jonah. His compassion is crazy beautiful, especially when you consider that he's a Jewish God, speaking to a Jewish prophet about his love and concern for Assyrians:
And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?” (Jonah 4:11)
The older brother, Jonah, and me - we've missed the best gift. We've wanted too little. We've looked for benefits and ignored the great joy we might have in being givers along with our Father. We've settled for being children and servants when we are offered the great honour of being friends with a heart of unimaginable wisdom and beauty. It's not just worship that we are afforded. We are invited to know and understand the great heart of God himself, to share his perspective and his loves.
If God is greater than we have imagined; if he is not, after all, growing creatures, or even children; if his end goal is for us to move beyond being his kids and become what we know the best grown-up sons become - friends - then surely this is better than the happinesses we might receive as his dependents.
Father and Friend, give me a heart that looks past the gifts you give to see and desire the Giver.Make me strong enough and mature enough and enough like you inside to walk alongside you, open-hearted and able to sacrifice without growing resentful.
Make me your friend, and satisfy my hungry heart with your fellowship, so I won't resent the parties you throw for people who choose you.
Let my heart wait with yours, and ache with yours, and rejoice with yours over the return of lost things. You are the gift, and your friendship the prize.
