Inside
of us we all have an idea of what is fair. Now, we may not always listen to
that inner referee, and we all may have somewhat different conceptions of
fairness, but most of us know what fair looks and smells like. And this time of
the year it seems like every story from the Gospels sets off our unfair
detectors. Jesus does not seem to have the same innate sense of fairness that
we do, which is strange when you think about it. What can we say when the
Savior of the world doesn’t think like we do? We like to craft gods into our
own image, but in Jesus we have a Savior who does not think or act like us at
all. It’s a little strange.
Part
of our problem is that we live life as if it is one big budget sheet. Those of
you who handle money are going to know exactly what I’m talking about, but even
if you can’t make or follow a budget if your life depended on it you actually
live like this too most of the time. When it comes down to it we make most choices
in life by assessing cost versus benefit. Why do we choose to exercise rather
than sit on the couch? Because the immediate discomfort of exercise will make
us fitter and feel better in the long-term. Why do we choose to go bowling on a
weekend? Because the cost of taking the family bowling is worth the enjoyment.
Why do we choose not to steal somebody’s wallet or drive off with one of those
vehicles that are running outside the Farmer’s Store? Because the benefit of
the wallet or the car is not worth the potential cost of getting caught and
harming our neighbors. Why do we go to church in the morning? Well, maybe we
won’t get into that.
Every
time we make one of those little choices we determine what a fair price is for
a thing. Very few people are going to go bowling on Friday night if it costs
$1000 for a game, just like many people might want to become school teachers if
school teachers started making six figures. This is how we live our lives.
But
here’s where it gets tricky: the Gospels work nothing like this, which is why
it’s hard to square much of what Jesus says and does with our experience. I’ll
give you an example: today we have the story of the Prodigal Son, which absolutely
makes no sense from a cost-benefit perspective. The one son runs off and
squanders his father’s money abroad doing bad things, while the other son does
good work at home for the family. Yet, when the problem son returns home he is
greeted in equal terms with his brother. In fact, his father rejoices
especially for him, since he was lost and finally found.
The
other son immediately plays the cost-benefit analysis card and says, “That’s
not fair!” He’s been the good worker. He’s been faithful and trustworthy. And
you know what? He’s right. If the father were an insurance company he would
have risen the premium on the prodigal son ten-fold because we all know that after
making that kind of mistake once he is far more likely to make it again. If the
father were a bank he would deny his son a mortgage, because his credit score would
be off the charts bad. If the father were any reasonable kind of human he would
not trust the son who went away. That’s life.
And
it’s also exactly the opposite of how God works.
You
see, our inner fairness detectors hold a grudge against mistakes. If somebody
lies or steals from us we will not trust them as we did before; that is a
very natural and, frankly, wise thing to do. We can’t live like the father
whose son ran away or the shepherd who lost his one sheep. We can’t do it. But,
thankfully, God can.
Every
once in awhile I have somebody come into my office or talk to me at their home
about how they try to trust everybody, even though they tell story after story of how those
people have taken advantage of them. The people who talk to me understand that
second chances are part of faithfulness, but what these individuals often
forget is that they are not God. These are some of the toughest conversations I
have, because, honestly, those of you who allow yourselves to be abused again and
again are, on some level, living out a Christ-like faith, but we have to
remember that even Jesus was not abused without purpose. We have to be wise to
unhealthy behavior. We have to tell the wife who is abused by her husband that
faithfulness is not going back again
and again. We have to tell the grandmother whose grandchildren steal from her
that it is not her duty to be a constant victim. The Prodigal Son is not about
our need to be passive victims, but rather it is about the different way that
God is able to judge and care for the world—in a way that we cannot.
Personally,
I try to give second chances. I try to be that father with that long lost son,
who does not hold even the slightest grudge against him, but the reality is
that I always have my guard up. On a cosmic level that means I am not acting in
a Christ-like way, but honestly, we can’t always be Christ-like because we
aren’t Christ. I realize that sounds funny coming from the pastor, but
sometimes—in this crazy, messed up world—you need to not be Christ-like.
Sometimes you need to let the sheep go or welcome the son back but only with
stipulations.
This
may sound like I’m hedging the Gospel, but I think the Prodigal Son and the
lost sheep and the lost coins are not stories about how we are to act. We are
not the father in the story; we are not the shepherd. That is God. We are the ones
fooling around in foreign places; we are the ones saying “That’s not fair.” We
are neither in the place to forgive or to be taken advantage of.
Thankfully,
though we have to make judgments for our own safety, we have a God who does
not. We have a God who welcomes us back no matter how far we have strayed and
no matter the stupid things we have done—even if the world does not. We have a
God who is willing to throw each of us a party every time we return to the
fold. And we need it, because each of us is that prodigal and each of us is
that brother. We both squander what we are given and think to ourselves all the
while that it is just isn’t fair. It isn’t. It never was.
But
God welcomes us just the same.
Thanks
be to God.
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