Who We Become ...

 

A tiny child takes something that belongs to another, because they want that thing, and they want it now.  A parent could hardly decipher any more reason than that.  But the parent immediately works to address this injustice, with the clear goal of teaching the child that this indulgence-of-want is just “not” OK.  The easiest thing to do is simply take back that thing from the child who took it, and return it to the one who lost it to them.  And all is right in the world again, or is it?  We have taught our child several things during this incident, that their tiny brains are big enough to absorb.  First, mom or dad, or whoever took away the thing to return it to its rightful owner is bigger than me.  Therefore, whoever is bigger, can impose their will on whoever is smaller, that is the way of life.  Next, the child in error has not considered the impact to the victim they took from, not before, not during, and certainly not afterwards.  So justice, is nothing more than undoing the wrong I have done.  I do not have to feel “sorry” about it, to accomplish justice, I just have to make up for it in some tangible way.  Justice then is nothing more than undoing what should have never happened at all, and usually only follows getting caught.  Finally, but what all parties here should be most concerned with, is that an incident, does not turn into a habit, that does not in turn become a part of the definition of who this child becomes.  Ask yourself, does every thief become a thief, because they knew how to get away with it, and just never stopped.  Or were they missing parental correction, or does being a thief even bother them in some way?  What do we learn in the absence of consequence?

I was a brutal child.  I was bigger.  I was stronger.  And my “most often” playmate was a beautiful little girl younger, smaller, and in no way any competition for me.  So I imposed my will.  I took any toy from her even if she was right in the middle of enjoying it, in fact, that time always seemed like just the right time to take it.  And she cried.  I was unmoved.  I should have been spanked.  I was for many other crimes, but strangely not for this one.   My mother had another approach.  She forced me to see what my actions had done to this poor girl, how I had hurt her, how she was grieving and did not understand my cruelty.  It worked, I returned what I had taken, and immediately began trying to comfort her.  It was now my comfort I would obsess over, trying to make her feel better, for what I had done.  My mother forced me to see my actions in the light of the heart, the toy was immaterial.  The thing I took lost all meaning.  I did not want it, or anything else.  I wanted the little girl to feel better, to be happy, to recover from what I had done.  My mother did not impose her will on me in this instance, and it had more effect than any other approach might have.  One could say she tried to “guilt” me into the right response.  But guilt only works if you feel something in the first place.  I didn’t, at least I didn’t until I saw that little girl’s heart as akin to my own.  Until I could empathize with her pain, and begin to seek to undo the pain, by any means I could imagine.

But I wonder, what other horrifying personality trait might I have developed, if this early experience did not serve as a catalyst in my memory?  After all I am anything but a saint as it is.  How much worse would I have been without this story, reinforced by the retelling over the years, even into my adulthood.  Disobedience does not seem like such a meaningful thing at the time we pursue it.  The devil tells us it is nothing more than a singular incident, that carries no more weight than a one-time-thing ever could.  So if we indulge, what real harm could not be undone, from just one thing?  We make excuses.  We rationalize.  And we carry out a deed we should have never gone near.  And here is the kicker, the consequence, is almost always missing from the equation as that occurs.  It is as if the devil himself takes special measures to make sure we are not caught, and do not suffer, from what we have done.  We are the thief who gets away with it.  Nobody knows, so nobody is hurt.  Given this, what harm in repeating our nefarious deed?  And an incident repeats itself.  And then again.  And before long it is a way of life for us.  And the kicker remains, still no consequence.  At least none we can see, or care to consider.  But damage is being done, each and every time, and is as inescapable as death itself.  We are accumulating an account of pain, that will one day be paid, in the lives of those we claim to love, in our own, and in the heart of God.  Who we become matters, and it is who we have become, that we must be saved from.

People who think the pain and consequence that God describes is a myth, think this, because they have never experienced it … yet.   They live in a cocoon of disobedience kept out of real harms way by Satan himself, to reinforce bad behaviors till we no longer think them bad.  But the rules, the laws, the admonitions of scripture act as a mirror against our hearts of disobedience.  They force us to see ourselves and what we do against a standard of purity that will not yield to accommodate our wickedness.  What we do in this confrontation may well decide our very fates.  Lest you think position in the church will act as a shield for you in this regard, think again.  No one is immune.  Nor is even leadership in the church body a protection against it.  Consider for a moment our Pharisee forefathers.  They were devout men, dedicated to the standards of the church Jesus had established.  They read the right scriptures.  They studied them all the time.  They sought righteousness in their lives.  So what had they missed?

Luke discusses an incident in scripture in the 16^th chapter of his gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why.  He picks up with an encounter between Jesus and the Pharisees beginning in verse 14 reading … “And the Pharisees also, who were covetous, heard all these things: and they derided him. [verse 15] And he said unto them, Ye are they which justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God.”  The Pharisees were pissed.  Jesus had just declared that you cannot serve both God and wealth or money.  The Pharisees were generally well to do, they had money, they thought money was a sign of the favor of God, of His blessings.  Jesus just undid all of that.  Jesus just declared that money was not really a blessing, instead it was a problem.  The clothes they wore, the fine linens, the rings on their hands, and chains that adorned their chests and wrists – none the blessing of God, but rather a mark of the curse of this world.  These men were guilty of covetousness.  In spite of what they had, which was not small, they still wanted more, much more.  The Romans stood in the way of that, but then, so did this upstart Hippy talking about wealth being a problem.  So they started to deride the Son of God, to make fun of Him, of His clothing, His poverty.  His disciples were no prize either.  All losers.  All nothing next to them.  They were the top of the church.  They were the gold standard.  These idiots were nothing to them.

But Jesus looks deep into “who” they have become, as He stares into your heart this day as well.  He sees the rationalizations we use to tell ourselves we are not so bad.  He sees the ways we dodge the rules, avoid the laws, and compare ourselves into holiness by focusing on the sins of others.  We lie to ourselves as we lie to others.  But God is not fooled.  He sees past our lies to the truth of who we are.  And Jesus utters haunting words that should echo in our ears still today.  What we use to justify ourselves, those very things, are actually abominations in the sight of our God.  What men hold us in high esteem over, are the very things that God cannot stand to look at in us.  He has lost our hearts, for we have closed off our hearts from Him.  We stand on the scriptures, as did the Pharisees.  We stand on church attendance, as did the Pharisees.  We stand upon being the leaders in our day, as did the Pharisees in theirs.  But our prayers are empty for they touch not our hearts in the slightest.  We have lost the feeling for the lost, they are now nothing to us.  Nor do we count ourselves among them because no consequence exists to remind us it may be so.  And we mistake patience for acceptance of who we have become.  But we are wrong.

So Jesus turns to the law to prod these proud men into seeing how what they do is a complete contrast to what God would have them do.  Jesus continues in verse 16 saying … “The law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. [verse 17] And it is easier for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of the law to fail. [verse18] Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.”  The Law remains.  It is not optional.  Our commitments not trivial.  What we pledge before almighty God, and incite Him to bless and seal, remains sealed, and is not subject to the whims of a wicked heart.  The Pharisees believed that if their respective wives did not please them, they could just put them away on the backburner, and go find someone else.  Divorce had become a meaningless tool to seek variety to the heart’s content.  And they, and we, treat our God no differently.  We do not commit ourselves to His Law any better than we commit ourselves to the woman who stands before us now.  Let ease or comfort be found in the arms of another and how quick we are to stray – ever building an account of pain that will one day come to full harvest.  Consequence had been delayed for the Pharisees, so they believed there would ever be no consequence.  Shielded from how bad the pain could be, they mistook patience, for tolerance and acceptance, but it is not so, not for them, nor for us.

They had been hit with the Law.  Now it was time to hit them with a parable based in the fears they held most personal, fears they could not avoid.  Jesus continued in verse 19 saying … “There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: [verse 20] And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, [verse 21] And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.”  Here was the height of contrast in Jewish society of this day.  The rich man was the Pharisee.  He had fine clothing and ate the finest foods every single day.  By contrast the poor beggar Lazarus, had nothing, had no one, and was near starvation.  Moreover he was covered with sores, a sure sign of the displeasure of God in this world, a perfect contrast to the rich man, to them.  And as if it could not get worse, dogs came and licked the sores of the beggar.  This was meant to be the height of disgusting to the rich, to them.  But they had forgotten their charge, their duty.  It was not just to share with those in need, but to meet the need itself.  The Pharisees, instead of contempt for the mans obvious sins, should have been set upon healing his sores, giving him raiment, putting food in his belly, and helping him find work.  A different heart would have pursued these duties gladly, but alas, it was not so then, or now.

Jesus continues reminding us all what comes for us all and is inevitable picking back up in verse 22 saying … “And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; [verse 23] And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. [verse 24] And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame. [verse 25] But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. [verse 26] And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.”  This is not a parable about salvation, or the afterlife.  It is a parable to reset the priorities of what we think is important in this world.  You will note the logic (clearly not about salvation), the rich man suffers in hell, because in this life he had extreme wealth, so in the next one he is tormented.  And by the same token, the poor beggar suffered here so in the next one he sits at the side of Abraham.  Our suffering does not save us.  Only Jesus can do that.  What we need is to become different people than who we have made of ourselves.  Just because consequence is delayed, does not mean consequence is never coming.  It is coming with the intensity of hell itself.  And the gulf between heaven and hell keeps any who think of visiting the other place kept firmly in their respective sides.  i.e. fates will be forever, whether for good, or for evil.

So the rich man realizes there is no more hope for himself.  The best he can do, is try to influence his own family before it is too late for them.  Jesus continues in verse 27 saying … “Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: [verse 28] For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment. [verse 29] Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them. [verse 30] And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent. [verse 31] And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.”  And here is where the parable goes sideways, and becomes prophecy.  The Pharisees (and us) refuse to hear the law, the prophets, the scriptures we are supposed to value so much.  Instead we are casual with our commitments, and loose with our behavior and motives.  We treat God like the booby prize at the fair, instead of treasuring our salvation from who we are.  And so we do not hear what was written.

The Pharisees would not hear scripture, nor the God who spoke to them right that minute, nor the risen Savior would be with them after His own crucifixion.  They would not repent, no matter what.  So what say you?  Are you willing to be broken upon the anvil of Gods love?  Are you willing to have what your life looks like now shattered into a million pieces by a loving God until it can be rebuilt into something you cannot possibly imagine today?  For that is what He wants.  To save you from who you have become.  To spark the heart in you until it is overflowing.  To cause so much love in you, that you see the need in this world, not as your duty, but as your opportunity to reflect His love outwards.  In this process you may be forced to confront the pain you have been accumulating for years on account.  It may come all crashing down in your life.  Those you love you may break with your past.  But what can be broken by sin and its consequence can be remade by a Creator with such tender love and mercy that what emerges anew wont ever be broken again.  Let us look to Jesus as our sacred Creator, and allow Him to work His wonders in the very soul of who we are, making us into who He would have us become, not just later, but now and forever.

 

Plan "B" ...

 

How many backup plans do you have?  What kind of things might they cover?  Perhaps you are looking for some kind of car, with a certain set of features, and a certain color.  You go to the dealership and find the combination you are looking for is just not on the lot.  You could keep looking.  You could search until you find exactly what you want, but then you might pay quite the premium for that.  So perhaps instead of going with your first plan, you settle for your second plan, for plan “B”.  But let’s face it, our second choice is second for a reason.  The first choice is first by the same token, because we want it more, because we envision ourselves happier in our first choice.  Our second choice is only for backup purposes, in the event we cannot easily get what we first envisioned wanting.  Where this comes to automobiles, we can probably live with it.  Where this happens with spouses, perhaps not so much?  Whoever wants to feel like the second choice, like the booby prize at the fair?  No woman wants that.  Rest assured no man does either.  When love is involved, everyone likes or dreams, of thinking they will find that special someone who will always pick them ahead of everyone else, forever and ever.  So can you imagine what this idea is like for the heart of God?  Can you imagine God settling to be our plan “B”?  You know, in case the whole righteousness thing has merit, and/or if we find ourselves in times of desperation, we come back to good old plan “B”; and call Him God.

To picture this kind of thinking in church just seems so foreign.  How could some folks treat the church, the body of Christ, as a “maybe” in the course of their lives.  To keep flirting with worldly backup plans seems about as tolerable to God, as it would be to your spouse.  Imagine the pain that causes.  Imagine how stupid it is.  If you are married, you have made your choice, to rethink it is an entertainment in stupidity and a golden invitation to pain all around.  If you are a Christian, you too have made your choice.  You have chosen salvation over desperation, a real life, over an existence of pain all around.  But when the heart is not fixed, the devil tries to convince us that something “else” is what we are looking for, in nearly all of our relationships, and the most intimate one with our God is not immune for that thinking either.  Even Jesus knows it happens.  You would hope your spouse is unaware if you are engaged in plan “B” thinking, but rest assured your God is always keenly aware of it.  And the pain you cause Him, is every bit as real, and damaging as the pain you would cause any mortal person you can see.

Luke writes about these ideas in his gospel letter to his friend Theophilus about what we believe and why starting out in the sixteenth chapter picking up in verse 1 it reads … “And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods. [verse 2] And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward.”  Busted.  So many things to unpack here, let us begin with the idea that this story does not happen in poverty but in wealth.  This story is about a steward, about a person put in charge of managing the wealth, the assets, the liabilities, of another, of a very rich man.  That is an awesome job if you can get it.  Not everyone would carry that kind of trust.  Not everyone would be considered for it.  You have to have a head for what is important.  Could that be you?  Do you know what is truly important in your own life, and what God may have entrusted to you to manage.  Your wealth is not your own, it is God’s.  It is His gift to you.  And it comes in more flavors than simple currency.  Your kids who adore you, need you, and see you with love in their eyes.  That my friend is wealth of the best variety.  But as good as that gets, that special someone, who gives their heart to you without reserve, that is worth more than anything too.  All of it your wealth to manage, gifts from our very rich Father God.

But as good as life gets, the story begins with a calling to account for what we have done with the wealth we have been entrusted to manage?  Have we been embezzling from our employer, or enriching ourselves at his expense?  Entirely possible this steward was, and now that his evil was possibly catching up with him, he faced losing everything.  After all the wealth was entrusted to him, and it could be entrusted to another.  The pain we sometimes cause with what we have been given happens, because we forget it was never truly ours, but instead a gift as well from the Father God in heaven.  We are entrusted with our families, not granted ownership of anything.  Our kids are God’s.  Our spouse belongs to God.  Their hearts, their love comes from God, and if we drive them away by how we manage those precious entrusted treasures we stand to risk losing everything.  If that strikes fear into you, it probably should.  I am certain it terrified this steward, as you usually don’t get called into account, if everything was going smoothly with no wrinkles.

Jesus continues in verse 3 saying … “Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.”  Fear will now drive the brainstorming.  The steward recognizes his limitations.  He is not a very physical kind of person, not someone who could work at a physically demanding job.  Digging ditches would kill him.  Working out in the hot sun might just as easily kill him.  He knows it.  The fear deepens.  This was such a great gig, why would I mess that up, for mere scraps the rich man might have given me if I had but asked.  But no, it was more “fun” to take what I wanted, to give myself an illusion of self-control, when there really was none.  So physical alternatives are out.  As for begging, there is too much pride.  Think of that for a moment.  This situation might have been resolved, if the steward had the humility to beg the rich man for forgiveness, even if no one else, at least beg him.  But the steward “would” not, he could not bear the shame of that humiliation.  And so pride, the original sin, just keeps right on ticking, and destroying lives that may not have ever needed to suffer at all.  Mismanagement cannot be undone.  But we can.  If we are willing to humble ourselves before God, there is nothing He cannot restore, forgive, and move us past.  He can maintain His gifts with us, even when we have thrown them away.  But that does not happen with the proud, too ashamed to seek it.  It can only happen with the humble who know there is no other way.

Jesus continues in verse 4 saying … “I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses. [verse 5] So he called every one of his lord's debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? [verse 6] And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty. [verse 7] Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.”  Enter Plan “B”.  The rich man’s trust will now be abused one final time, while at the same time, creating a climate of very grateful debtors who will “owe” this steward their gratitude in very tangible ways.  At the time of this parable telling, debtor’s prison was a very real thing.  If you owed someone something, and could not pay it, they could have you put into prison until your family paid the debt on your behalf.  And the interest may have been no small thing, because the jailors would want their cut as well.  If your family could not pay either, an entire family might be cast into slavery for the years it takes to pay the debt.  Very bad outcomes.  Very real.

So the plan “B” the steward devises makes debtor’s prison far less likely, while at the same time, a backdoor for him to stay with these now grateful debtors whose debts he has erased off the books of the rich man.  You will note this plan does not involve any humility at all, but it does further prove the case against the steward, that he thinks of himself, ahead of the interests of the rich man, or anyone else.  And God becomes the booby prize once again.  Serve Him if it does not cost you anything, even simple obedience.  But if it looks like that is no longer “fun”, or profitable, then find another way to make you happy, even if it is at His expense, and ironically even if happiness is the last thing you will ever find.  Walking a path away from God never leads to “fun” or happiness.  It only leads to causing more pain to everyone, even to you, and especially to God, who wishes so bad you would give up this choice and come back home again.

Jesus continues in verse 8 saying … “And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. [verse 9] And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.”  The rich man, even Jesus in this case, sees the worldly wisdom of making friends, or close associations with money to preserve us in the hard times.  It is a craftier strategy than those sheep who serve the Lord.  For the sheep are utterly dependent upon the Shepherd to lead them to places to eat and drink, and keep them safe.  This steward was no sheep.  He wanted self-control.  He wanted to find his own places to eat and drink.  He was not content to be led, to be dependent on anyone including God.  Is that what your “faith” is like?  Do you serve God on your terms, content to take care of everything yourself, have need of no one, or nothing?  If it is, then you will need money, a lot of it.  Money will give you the band-aide you think you need.  But the wisdom of the wicked is not wisdom at all, it is simply a strategy to avoid humiliation, while they throw their lives away.

Jesus continues in verse 10 saying … “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.”  And this is the text we tend to remember the most in this passage, but it only comes as part of the story of the seemingly crafty, but unfaithful, and proud steward who was caught, yet refused to yield, or beg, or carry the shame of admitting he needed grace.  Our whole lives require grace.  That is fact, non-optional, if we are to live that is.  Grasping that gift of grace may require the humility of us admitting we need it, and do not deserve it, but that price of admission is nothing next to what it took to offer Grace to us.  Our Savior paid it all on our behalf, so we would never need to pay any of it ourselves.  That is the God we serve.  That is how His love for us is defined for all to see.  Is it really so hard to say “I’m sorry”, is it really so hard to mean it?

Jesus concludes picking up in verse 11 saying … “If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches? [verse 12] And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? [verse 13] No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”  If we mess up our money, how can we ever know what is true wealth?  If we mess up other people’s wealth, how can we ever be entrusted with our own, or come to know what real wealth is made up of.  It is not money.  Money is nothing.  Love is everything.  If we throw away our love for stupidity, how can we ever be truly loved?  For we cannot serve the wealth of this world, and at the same time, the wealth of the next.  The wealth of the next world is all that will ever transcend the one we live in.  And that wealth is made of love and nothing more or less.  Money has no part in the equation.  Money only serves as a distraction from what was ever truly important.  And even in that distraction we find ourselves unfaithful.

To find restoration, we must be willing to be made humble.  We must embrace the cost of what it took to offer us Grace.  We must divorce ourselves from pride of any kind.  Come to know what is truly important.  There should be no plan “B” in any of our relationships, only one plan, God’s plan, we wish to never let go of.  And least of all, there should be no plan “B” where God is concerned.  No attempts to make half-hearted service of any kind – but instead to be content to be the sheep who is led to everything, to food, to water, to the protection of the Shepherd.  The sheep may be dim-witted, it may be fully dependent, but it is never unfulfilled.  Trust brings the contentment that nothing else can.  Let trust in our God begin to bring us commitment, restoration, and a passion for His kingdom that nothing else dare try to replace.

 

Home for the Damaged ...

Sometimes a mistake is not just a singular event.  Sometimes what begins as a choice devolves into a habit, then further as it attempts to define your life.  And you come to think the damage is insurmountable.  So you hide it, deny it, and in so doing enable it.  Eventually you lose hope that your life might ever be better than it is, because after all, you did this to you.  It might be convenient to look at others, or other events as catalysts that drove you to your initial choices, and then what followed.  But that is merely revisionist history.  An attempt to avoid a blame we know ultimately falls back on to our own shoulders and nowhere else.  It is hard to know the mind of the lost sheep in our previous study.  Whether that sheep was self-aware enough to feel this way or think this way.  Or whether it just stumbled through life ignoring the bad choices it made until it discovered it was alone in the wilderness, having forsaken the safety of the flock, and the tender care of the Shepherd.  But for the character in the next parable of Christ, his mind was easier to read, and explained more in depth.

But stories in the gospel of Luke are not just stories are they?  Many of them cut right into the hearts of our own lives and histories.  I have known too many marriages that began with a sacred covenant to establish a home, centered in the very plans of God.  But time, and circumstance, and the building of bad choice on top of bad choice, occurs until that home is forsaken.  Not all these marriages end in divorce.  But many languish on in the abandoned homes of the mind, heart, and all too often bodies of those who should have never wandered away in the first place.  And so rationalization becomes our greatest enemy.  As the prodigal son would reason you only live once, so why not enjoy this life to the fullest?  So the components of two who have been made to be one flesh reason, that they are free to explore their own needs in the arms or hearts of another, and somehow this is something that is “not” all that bad.  And rationalization is used to ignore the pain we cause.  Used again to ignore that we play a role in the dissolution of another’s marriage, telling ourselves, we would never treat a spouse that way, or justify them leaving, while this is exactly what goes on in our own experiences and we blind to them by choice.  And we make ourselves the damaged, the unworthy.  And Satan need not torture us with lies, when the truth of our lives is more than ample ammunition.

So has home been lost to us forever?  It is what our enemy would have us believe.  It is what the “normal” response to cause-and-effect would seem to dictate.  What hope is there for the damaged?  What home would ever welcome back the damaged under its graces?  We do not deserve a home.  We have abandoned it, lied to it, forsaken it.  That was done to us.  That was done by us.  And we remain the damaged.  This is the ultimate state of the prodigal son in the gospel parable of Christ Himself.  This is where sin leads, all sin, any sin.  We need to truly understand the depths to which this unfortunate sinner had slid before we can truly understand the point of this parable.  Compare it to your own life.  Find the common ground between you and the prodigal and begin to understand the entirety of the story.  Luke continues this revelation in his gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why. 

He picks up with Jesus speaking in chapter 15 beginning in verse 11 saying … “And he said, A certain man had two sons: [verse 12] And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. [verse 13] And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.”  Home already had wealth.  Home should have already had fulfillment.  There was rewarding work there for many who lived there.  A son would have been like a prince in that home.  Taught to manage the affairs of a sprawling home or estate with much animals, land, paid servants, etc..  The Father would have been like a king there.  His rule would be law, as all the wealth started with him, and his own connection to our God.  So while the sons would live a life second only to the father, for this son, that life was not good enough.  Chefs, and masseuse, and maids, and butlers, staff of every variety to wait upon you, do your laundry, and treat you as the prince you truly are.  All of it, not good enough.  There was still a hunger in this son, which could not be fulfilled in wholesome living.

But why grant his request?  Why would a wise father, allow a son to leave with the blessing of much wealth, knowing what was sure to happen to it?  Could not have God simply ended this parable short, by telling the rebellious son, sorry kid, you are going to make bad choices, spend money foolishly, ruin your life, and wind up eating with pigs, lusting after how good the pigs had it.  That is your future if you leave.  Why not instead settle down with a good wife I could help you choose?  Why not find a heart that will be forever true to your own?  Is not fidelity, loyalty, humility, and beauty worth more to you than any “variety” you may encounter?  Grow a family instead of a streak of self-destruction. Find a wife who would forever look only to your heart for fulfillment, than a woman only interested in the pleasures of a moment, with no real thought of you after that.  The father could have said all this, but does not seem to.  Instead he quietly puts the affairs and wealth in order and passes it to his princely son.  The father breaks his own heart to let his son make his own choices.  Love cannot be mandated.  Love must be chosen.  Or it is not love at all.

So the son leaves, and finds exactly the lifestyle he had always imagined.  And he falls into a literally riotous way of living.  Drinking, drugs (such as they were back then), hookers, orgies, a total excursion to fill his body with all manner of licentiousness.  To no end, to no purpose, only to live for the moment in front of him.  And damage takes up the mantle that home can no longer ever provide.  We have left the wholesome for the wicked imaginations of the heart, only to find those imaginations can now become real to us.  Money enables it.  But money does not do, anything the imagination has not first conceived of.  Money becomes a tool of evil, because choice has already determined where it will be spent, and wasted.  And in the self-deception of anyone who has left what is intended to be wholesome, for something else, damage creeps in and destroys the desire for what we know is better, and what is right.  Damage perverts us.  Damage twists us into a creature who prefers the night, who prefers the unusual, the different, the something else.  Home is not only gone for us; it is barely a memory for us.

Jesus continues in verse 14 saying … “And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. [verse 15] And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. [verse 16] And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him.”  Time to hit rock bottom.  First the money runs out.  Evil often has a high price tag.  And damage deludes us into thinking that spending to attain our desires is a good idea, even if we stop eating, or lose everything in the process.  But after already losing all the money, the unpredictable hits.  A famine.  No one could have seen that coming.  But any fair weather friends you might have made in your evil wanderings, are now more concerned about feeding themselves, than they are about some formerly rich schmuck, whose only imagination was ever more perverted each time they encountered the boy.  So the best this former prince can do, is to get a job feeding pigs.  Kosher ideas would prevent him from touching pigs, let alone feeding them.  But it gets worse.  He is feeding pigs food he is not allowed to eat himself.  He is now literally starving to death in front of pigs he has to maintain from that same fate.  Here is where the damage has led him to.  Here is where every sin leads.

Jesus now continues in verse 17 saying … “And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! [verse 18] I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, [verse 19] And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.”  A rare moment of clarity dawns upon the brain of the damaged.  Home is better.  It always was.  Even in the times of great want and need, the wholesome is always better than the perverted.  Faithful love is always better, than fleeting lust.  The son now realizes the magnitude of what he has done.  His sin now lies naked before his own eyes.  He has damaged himself.  He has sinned against God, not just his father.  He has destroyed his life and turned himself into something less than pigs.  He now only aspires to be a hired hand, a servant in his father’s home once again.  No more the prince, as he has forsaken that honor, just a field hand would do nicely, at least the hired servants eat bread, they have always had more than enough to eat.  But while he remembers that fact now, he never noticed its value when it was right in front of him.  Becoming a servant, that is justice, or perhaps more justice than he even deserves.  But this is the limits of his hope based upon who he has become, who he has allowed his choices to turn him in to.

Jesus continues in verse 20 saying … “And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.”  Here is where all of our ideas about ourselves are broken upon the anvil of God’s love.  We do not deserve it.  And so we cannot fathom why God would love us with the passion He does.  We have done nothing to earn it, and in fact, everything to run away from it.  We have insisted upon our own wisdom, and left His home.  We have insisted upon our own wicked ideas, and forsaken the wholesome for the perverted.  We are damaged.  He sees us damaged.  But while we are a great way off, He is already moved with compassion.  He runs down the pathways we long ago abandoned to meet us such a long way from the front door we are trying to reach.  And when Jesus meets us, He does not begin to tell us – “I told you so”.  In fact there is no condemnation at all.  Even though we deserve it.  Even though we know we deserve it and so does He.  Instead there is weeping tears of joy, a hug tighter than that of a bear, and a fatherly kiss upon the neck to further reassure us we are welcome once again.

Jesus continues in verse 21 saying … “And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. [verse 22] But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: [verse 23] And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: [verse 24] For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.”  The damaged begins with a declaration of admittance of who he has become.  The damaged realizes he is no longer worthy.  The damaged understands he has sinned, and caused pain like the ripples of water when a stone is dropped into it.  So he begins his confession.  But it is interrupted.  Dad is not having it.  Dad knows what he says is true, he knows the confession is well earned.  But Dad is not having it.  He will not be met by the fate he aspires to, but instead will be met by the fate His Father aspires for him.  The best of the Father’s robes is brought out.  The Father’s own ring is to be brought out and given to this returning prince though he only wished to be a servant.  A party is held, and the whole of the estate is to participate, a holiday is declared and happiness abounds across the entirety of the fathers domain.

Home for the damaged.  Home to undo the damage.  Home to offer what it always offered.  And the free will to choose it.  Love has been chosen, and not forced.  And greater love has been offered full of forgiveness not even dreamed of.  Restoration is now abounding.  What was lost is now found.  What was dead, is now alive.  But sometimes the damaged know better the value of a thing they did not deserve but were able to be given anyway.  The ones still in the paradise of home, have not yet learned that they live in paradise.  They spend their lives seeing the restrictions that come from wholesome living.  These restrictions are not seen as the fences around a castle, but rather as begrudging prison bars.  This happens because the imaginations of the residents of this home are as evil as the one who left it.  But they use the determination of their sheer will to restrain their bad behavior, but want it just as much.  And the motives of the one who lives in paradise are not less damaged, but only damaged in a different way.

Jesus continues the story in verse 25 saying … “Now his elder son was in the field: and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard musick and dancing. [verse 26] And he called one of the servants, and asked what these things meant. [verse 27] And he said unto him, Thy brother is come; and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and sound. [verse 28] And he was angry, and would not go in: therefore came his father out, and intreated him.”  So not only does the stay-at-home brother not feel better about his brother coming home, he is resentful about it, gets angry, and throws his own version of a temper tantrum refusing to go inside to join the party.  But the dad loves all his sons, and He goes outside to invite this angry brother in.  He does not send a servant out to order the son to go in, instead he goes out himself.  Imagine this, the humility of the father, to have to pursue his home-bound son for something that should have brought joy to him naturally.  But if all you see is a prison instead of a castle, it is easy to miss the paradise you reside within.  Home should be more than that.

Jesus continues in verse 29 saying … “And he answering said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment: and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends: [verse 30] But as soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.”  Jealousy, and a non-forgiving spirit.  This son believes he has earned a party or two, for being obedient to dad’s laws.  He believes he should have been recognized for that obedience at least once, or a couple of times.  But never.  You see this son knows nothing of the value of fidelity, or the infinite worth of his wife, and his home.  He takes them all for granted.  But his heart is still somewhere else.  He still secretly wants the ease his brother actually acted upon.  This brother mentions harlots, because harlots have often been upon his own mind.  But he believes that by staying home, and being the good son, he will get his reward in the end.  He fails to see that his reward was ever with him.  His home, the home he lived in, the job he worked at, the family he was given that love him – were already the rewards he should have been acknowledging.  You should not need the fatted goat, or the fatted calf, to understand that value, if your heart is right.  A faithful heart is worth more than an infinite number of harlots, so why imagine something as desired, when what you have is already better?

Jesus picks back up to conclude this series of parables in verse 31 saying … “And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine. [verse 32] It was meet that we should make merry, and be glad: for this thy brother was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”  The father in this story, the king, and our Lord Jesus, is telling us – heaven is not the reward, a righteous life is the reward.  Evil is not the thing to desire, it is the plague to avoid, for it brings the damage and punishments of a thousand hells with it.  Forget the afterlife, focus on the now.  Seek the wholesome for its own reward.  Find your place in a home built under the roof of God.  Under his restrictions meant to make it a paradise.  Wives look only to your husbands, never letting your hearts, or minds, or bodies find distraction anywhere else.  Become that gift of infinite value, no husband can ever ignore.  Husbands find fulfillment in the homes God has already given you.  Do not let the damage of seeking variety destroy everything of value God would have you live within, everyday of your lives. 

And for those who have already made mistakes, and compounded them, and find themselves damaged beyond what they believe is possible for redemption in the here and now.  Look here at the example of how the heart of God works for that which is damaged beyond all belief.  There is no condemnation.  There is redemption, and restoration.  It is possible, through the lens of the love of God, to forgive that which has been done.  To put the past into the past, not forgetting, or excusing what we have done to ourselves and our homes.  But bathing ourselves in the blood of Christ, and having Him take our sins from us forevermore, to bury them at the bottom of his oceans.  And what is more, to welcome us back right here and right now into the home that God would give you once again.  This is His plan.  This is His ability to love us right back to where we were always supposed to be.  There is a home for the damaged.  There will ever be one.  And its reward is the life that comes with it, a life you will experience everyday from now unto your death, and then beyond …