Resurrection 17 Who Says We're Not All Prodigals?

[HKHaugan]

Resurrection 17 Who Says We're All Not Prodigals?

When Jesus said He was giving Peter the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt.16:19) they were keys to unlock the hearts of people hardened by self-centeredness, pride and fear. He was not starting an institution but a family of unlocked hearts who would help others with locked hearts to be freed. “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free (Gal.5:1).” When Peter recognized and said to Jesus by faith, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God (Mt.16:16),” it was the recognition of Jesus as Messiah and the faith to say it, that unlocked Peter's heart. This is when Jesus told him he was blessed by his faith. What is even more impressive is after Peter's denial of Jesus and the Crucifixion, Peter was forgiven, restored to Jesus and given the Holy Spirit to preach and teach in Jesus' name.

It seems then there are a number of keys on the Kingdom's keyring. They begin with the recognition of who and what Jesus is, faith in Him, following Him, preaching, teaching His Word and ministering in His name. Pentecost brought the power that turned the keys, the Holy Spirit. With Him spiritual gifts and the fruit of the Spirit are keys that work together to open not only locked hearts but social, cultural, ethnic and national barriers as well. From here you can identify the intricacies of the ways people identify themselves by neighborhood, cars, friends, clubs, jobs and appearance. They're all little locks or latches that need loosening. When hearts are opened a whole lot of other external and internal influences are displaced as well. Confidence, courage and character are joined to remove the chains that lock the mind and heart in anxiety, deceit and compromise. The hard way is never easy in the short run but the short way is harder in the long run.

But on with the keys. The Word is loaded with keys. Jesus gives us a whole set called parables. These really hit us where our hearts are. They uncover the emptiness of attitudes we have made apart from God. They are what the Bible calls strongholds; attitudes we build for self protection like: all Italians are emotional (ethnic), all rich people are snobs (class) and all white people are racists (cultural). If you are a believer there are unbelievers. If you are a Jew or Mormon everyone else is a gentile. If you are a Muslim everyone else is an infidel (unbeliever). If you go to any other nation you are a foreigner and those there are foreigners here. If you live in Florida those who visit are tourists. If you move into a small town you are an outsider. That's true too if you are a teen moving into a city neighborhood. If you live in a town with a private school there are 'preppies' and 'townies.' It goes on and on. You define who and what makes you comfortable as your stronghold for identity and survival (social). Those are attitudinal strongholds. A heap of 'em, aren't there? And they have a mountain of legalisms that accompany them.

We've already been through the one parable about the Good Samaritan which touches on what all the parables do and that is unlock the attitude that has hardened the heart through religious and ethnic pride. What happened in Jesus' day can be seen today in 'denominational pride' attitudes. Denominations can become strongholds. These in turn make so-called non-denominational churches embrace their 'non' distinction with pride, another stronghold. Both signal 'we-are-better-than-them.' You can carry this into house churches and home prayer groups who meet on the basis of not being part of 'organized religion.' 'We-are-more-pure-than-they-are.' Sin is subtle. It will always work to make you more right than others.

I realize there is a vulnerable fault line here especially when single issues become dogmatic and strong personalities demand authority. Then too, varying interpretations can breed emotional separation if a presenting ego claims perfection. The devil has a heyday and separation is inevitable unless there is a change of heart which really means attitude adjustment. These were the dynamics of religious controversy then and they are no different now. When leadership becomes dogmatic and hyper-theological, religious experts take over and Scripture is more a hammer than a solution. Religionists depend on man's mind. Believers depend on the Holy Spirit, the Counselor. I'm reminded of Jesus' parable of the tax collector and the religious leader that prayed in the Temple. The religious leader recounted his positives before the Lord as he compared himself with the socially outcast tax collector. He was trumped by the tax collector who asked only for mercy because he recognized he was a sinner (Lk.18:9-14). Parables take human situations and give them a spiritual twist.

This leads us into the parable we know as the Prodigal Son (Lk.15:11-31). He tells this parable to an assembled mixture of Pharisees, law teachers and those they considered 'sinners.' But you have to see how Jesus leads into this relational heart attitude gently. He knows He has to take His time to get those listening to realize their heart condition. Jesus is showing that you can't run into a person's heart with a bulldozer. You have to earn their trust. That's what parables are designed to do. You see the objective points, parallels, in order to get the listeners to identify subjectively.

So He starts by talking about a lost sheep and then a lost coin. The first gets to a man's pride in his possessions. The second progresses more closely to a man's heart, pride in his money. In the prodigal, Jesus gets to His goal, the relational and spiritual condition of a man's heart. Here we have a number of characters with a range of translatable views. There is the younger and older brother, the father, the varying influences in the prodigal life, the pig farmer (gentile) and the servants who simply do what is expected of them. Each is descriptive of an attitude. The younger brother asks for his share of the inheritance thinking he will find a sense of freedom in a libertine lifestyle in a gentile territory. The older brother finds his purpose in dutiful obedience in order to obtain his inheritance. Both have their strongholds. The father loves both the sons and obviously longs for the return of his younger son whose new life wastes him. Losing his fortune he has to fend for himself. Alone and in need he ends up working for a pig farmer, the most unclean and most demeaning job longing even to eat pig food. He hit bottom. He came to the hopeless realization his choices had led him to humiliation and rejection by his family and his religion.

In desperation he heads home. There perhaps, he just might be able to get a laborer's job on his father's farm. So he works up a speech to give his father as he walks along. What happens next is so far from his expectations that even the most merciful religious person in Jesus' time would hardly have believed it. The father sees him and, filled with compassion, runs, yes, runs out to meet him, throws his arms around him and kisses him. The son must have been overwhelmed and tries to rehearse his unworthiness before his father. But the father's reaction is to get his servants to dress him up, put the family ring on his finger and have a banquet readied to celebrate his son's homecoming.

Of course the older brother who has worked hard heard the noise from the celebration and refused to participate thinking how good he had been compared to his brother who had “wasted his substance in riotous living.” How come he had never been recognized for being good. The father heard his complaint and responded. Now watch this response statement by statement (italics mine):

“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.”

First, apply this to our relationship with God. Then to ourselves individually. Then apply it to our relationships. What we find is this:

First, God loves us and will not stop. We are all images of God. Every human being is an image of God. He ran out to meet us in Jesus His Son who died and rose to secure us to the Him as His child.

Second, we are spiritually schizophrenic in that we have two natures, one is sinful and the other is spiritual. Our first reaction may be to judge and reject (sinful). But with the conviction and nudging by the Holy Spirit, we react with patience, love and acceptance. The spiritual is always by God the Holy Spirit and the sinful we take to the Cross where it dies.

Third, our closest friends and family members may hurt us, reject us and leave us but God never does and we are being called into His heart to do the same. “That we may dwell in Him and He in us.” We practice that truth to be a spiritual and relational remedy as we offer our forgiven heart to the hearts broken by sin in the world around us.

What we want in any situation is to focus on Jesus. He is the source of the parable, its direction and its purpose. What is the point He is making that reflects Him, who He is and what He came to do? Is it possible to separate the point, the meaning and the intent of the parable from Him? If God's thoughts are not my thoughts and His ways not my ways what purpose then does the parable have? How do we know their meaning if by hearing we don't hear and by seeing we don't see (Mt.13:13-14)?

The heart of any parable is the heart of Jesus exposed and ready to give our hearts a spiritual jolt and take the stronghold attitudes that sin has built in us to the Cross and let them die there. That's how we put to death what belongs to our earthly nature (Col.3:5) and replace all of them with the Lord God as our one and only stronghold. When Jesus said He was the Resurrection and the life He was and is the ultimate parable, the ultimate stronghold in the flesh. Parables move us to move on in a movement of resurrected people whose stronghold is the risen Lord who is on the move through us. That's what a Resurrection people do.

“But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit (Jer.17:7-8).”