22 March 2014 - coming home

22 March 2014 - coming home

God is so full of mercy.

We ask him for our inheritance apart from him.  We ask to be so separated from him that we implicitly wish him to be dead.  The first step of our separation seems somewhat innocuous to us at times.  We take what seems to be ours and move to "a distant country".  Over time we end up squandering our inheritance on things that can't satisfy until everything is freely spent.  This stage might not seem overtly sinful.  It might just be us trying to be good on our own strength without God.  But when our own strength fails we may find ourselves desperate for satisfaction, searching even among the swine, longing to eat the pods they eat.  And even then, no one will give us the fulfillment we seek.  But as we exhaust ourselves in our need we discover the true abundance of our Father's house, abundance from which we all turn in bigger and smaller ways.

Coming to his senses he thought,
‘How many of my father’s hired workers
have more than enough food to eat,
but here am I, dying from hunger.

It is no wonder he leaves in the first place, as he doesn't seem know his father that well.  He prepares a speech in the hopes that he "does not persist in anger forever".  "I shall say to him," he thinks, and prepares a good act of contrition. 

But this is a father who doesn't just forgive but who "delights rather in clemency".  It isn't "according to our sins" that he deals with us, or "according to our crimes."  He is concerned, not with the formalities of justice, but rather that his son who was dead has come to life again.  Before the son can try to take things onto his own shoulders and set them right with his own effort his father comes out to meet him.

While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.

His son still tries to make his speech but quickly realizes that his sins are as far away as the distant country he leaves behind.

For as the heavens are high above the earth,
so surpassing is his kindness toward those who fear him.
As far as the east is from the west,
so far has he put our transgressions from us.

He isn't just welcomed into his father's house as a servant, like he plans.  He thinks, before coming, to say that he is no longer worthy to be called his father's son.  But it isn't about worth.  How could a child ever be worthy to be a child.  And why ought they?  It is true that to live in the house of our Father comes with a certain code of conduct, a standard of living to which we should adhere, but we do not thereby buy our place in the household.  Let us be like children, children to whom the kingdom belongs.

The older son begrudges the younger his welcome.  The older son secretly believes that he is earning his place by working in the vineyards.  He imagines that his Father is holding back blessings he deserves and giving them instead to the younger son who does not earn them. Do we imagine that we are earning our place in the Church with our righteous deeds?  If so, we risk jealousy when the LORD celebrates the finding of one lost sheep more than the ninety-nine that do not stray.  But when we see that our place in the household is just as unmerited as that lost sheep we no longer feel any implicit judgment on our works of righteousness, our kingdom fruits.  We are free to enter the party as well.