Saturday in the Second Week

Micah 7:14-15, 18-20; Psalm 103:1-4(5-8)9-12; Luke 15:11-32

And now, just after the threatening parable of the tenants, we hear of God’s mercy.  We might think this is just the difference between Matthew and Luke, but Luke told us the story of the rich man condemned forever.  Both parables are aimed at the Pharisees.  So what’s up?  Mercy or eternal damnation?  Will the real God please stand up?

I read a while back that this parable, the prodigal, is the least popular among Christians.  In our hearts, we don’t want the father to welcome him back.  We agree with the older brother, who would see him dead rather than returned.

I think many people are more comfortable with a God of eternal damnation than a God of mercy.  At least, that is, as long as God is condemning someone else.  It’s easy to imagine that God will torture those who we think “deserve” it.  But so many of us were raised to believe that God was waiting to condemn not only others, but us.  We may have been taught by people who believed that “others” would get what they deserved, and who shared that lovely news with us not realizing that we would put ourselves in the place of the others.  They may have been taught the same lesson.  One way to ward off that horror is to displace it onto someone else.  

The harder lesson is that God is better than we are, loving in a way that defies our ideas of justice.  Our human institutions don’t have room for that.  We are so wedded to rules and order and revenge that we actively refuse to consider that God might love the wastrels and sinners.  

This parable is only good news for those of us who know, really know, that we are sinners.  it’s not good news for the older brothers, those who think following the rules is really what God should be about.  But it’s good news for me.  It’s good news for you too, if you’ll let it in.

As we follow the path of transformation, what needs to change in your image of God?  Where do you need healing, “decontamination” as my friend Don Bisson says?  What in you resists that welcoming, forgiving God?

May God see you from afar and gather you in today.