The Prodigal Father and His Sons

Are there times you know you've really let someone else down? Do you sometimes refuse to let yourself off the hook for what others have long since forgiven? Sometimes you and I call ourselves "unworthy" to be loved by someone else, rejecting their care for us. Sometimes we condemn and shun others for what we think are their faults. Does any of that square with God's view of us?

Jesus gave us a hard-hitting trio of parables in Luke 15.  He knew human nature to be judgmental. The Pharisees were prime examples of judgment in his day, so he told them about the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Lost Son. In all three parables, the object has great value to its seeker, and the seeker doesn't stop seeking and hoping until the object is returned safely. Since the sheep and the coin didn't know any better than to be lost, Jesus added the kicker in the third parable, about a son who dishonored his father, ran off and did stupid things, and then came back asking for a job on the farm -- and his older brother, the "righteous" one, who refused to join his father's celebration.

The father pursued both sons in love. The father had been dishonored by his younger son, but he ignored the boy's lame speech about being unworthy, and restored him to his place in the family.  Then he appealed to his firstborn to learn grace. We don't know what happened next:  there's no assurance the younger son turned his life around, nor that the older son learned to forgive. The lesson  is that our worth is not calculated on our performance or our moral rectitude, but on the love of the One who loves us.

You and me? We have never performed well enough to be loved, and we never will, any more than sheep ever stop straying, or coins stop being lost! But love, by its nature, extends grace -- forgiveness without conditions or expectations. Love, by its nature, values the loved one for his or her own sake. And God, who IS love, loves us! So how can we learn to accept God's love, reject our own broken view of ourselves, and just love freely? And how do we learn to extend that love to others?

First, we learn to admit that we are loved by God without conditions. Second, we learn to admit the depth of our shortcomings and sins, and accept the forgiveness Jesus gave us on the Cross. Third, we begin to heal from the shame and the hurt handed to us by others. Then, we learn to see others in the same way we have learned to see ourselves, and act toward them in the same grace we've been given. That's a process. We'll look at more of it next time.