When we realize our inner lives are sometimes full of greed and wickedness, and we become frustrated by our inability to live freely and generously, and love deeply, may we receive these frustrations as invitations by God's Spirit to a deeper spiritual life, a life held and shaped by His fierce and tender mercy. ( fragments , 6/11/03)

Jesus told a story of an older brother who returned in from working one day to find his worst nightmare come true. His younger, arrogant brother had returned home and his father had reconciled with him. Years earlier his brother had shamefully requested his inheritance from his father (while he was still alive!). To make matters much worse, his father actually gave him his share – a substantial sum. Then his brother left. The family was mocked throughout the community – what type of father would actually let his son treat him so dishonorably? It was a scandal! At the time, this older brother thought his father should have certainly refused the request. In truth, he thought his brother should have been beaten. But he didn't say anything to his father. Instead, he sought to work dutifully and restore the honor of the family in the community. And that he did. For by all definitions within the community, he was a good and righteous son.

So when this honorable son arrived home that afternoon, sweaty and exhausted, after having finished his work in the field, he was obviously offended by the news of the day: his father had received home—honorably, no less—his starving and barely recognizable brother. And, his brother had squandered all the money. In the older son's mind shame upon shame would be heaped onto the family. For his father had restored back his rebellious brother without consequence. This was deeply disturbing and utterly unacceptable to the older son.

Who is this man? Only a fool would receive back a son after such an affront. The community had just ways of dealing with such behavior. He must be dealt with fairly and harshly. Reconciliation should not come without a cost from the wayward son. The whole community knew it.

The older son could not make any sense of his father's actions. He felt confused and frustrated, ashamed and alone, angry and jealous. In just a few short moments, everything in his life had seemingly turned upside down.

His own reaction even shocked him. He refused to go into the celebration. Such a public refusal deeply dishonored his father. By all rights his father could have him beaten for such a public act of defiance. But he could not help himself. He would not help himself! He had arrived at a verdict in his mind: his father's actions were not righteous--they were not just. Does his own father not understand what sort of person his brother is?

He demanded an account from his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed a command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!”

The older son finished his speech with fists clenched, his chest heaved up and down, and his whole body shook. His feelings moved from utter confusion to shame to indignation. He stood tall and upright, but afraid before his father. He waited for the anger. He waited for his father to reject him for all of his dishonor and greed and anger.

Instead, his father spoke tender words.

“My son…you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”

I often wish the story didn't end there. I want more than this invitation. I need to hear more. I hope and long for a good ending for both sons. Will he dare to accept the father's invite? Will the brothers ever be reconciled? What would that moment be like? Many of us are left to puzzle and wish and wonder about this older son's response.

Some of us, however, I would suggest are left not just to wonder and to wish. This story asks from us more than just our thoughts and conjectures. It seems to reach across two thousand years and demand our response. We are the older sons and older daughters. We have never left “home.” From Sunday school to youth group to volunteering to teaching and leading and perhaps beyond. We are very familiar with the landscape of the local church. We know the world of duty and loyalty and respect and friendliness. We live our lives “in the field”, working hard, building up the sometimes-damaged reputation of the family or local church or the kingdom. We know kindness and obedience, keeping the peace and pleasing others. We know the subtleties of what is right and what is wrong. We recognize how to stay out of trouble and help others do the same thing. By all definitions, we are the good daughters and the good sons. This is our way in the world.

But in truth we sometimes struggle to recognize grace and mercy expressed uniquely in our lives. While we know all the definitions and stories of grace and forgiveness, we are brutally hard on ourselves. Failure is unacceptable. We are riddled with anxiety. Self-condemnation is often the only impetus for our movement. We would never dare verbalize the expectations and demands that our own conscience sometimes puts on us. Many around us would never guess this sort of violence in their neighbor's inner world. And in all honesty, we wonder whether we will ever really be loved apart from our goodness and our performance.

And then one day some event confronts our way in the world, and it feels like our heart is turned inside out, our fear and frustration and greed refuse to be concealed any longer. Does He not recognize all that I have been doing for him? Why does so-and-so always get the attention? Does anyone really know me and love me? Notice me! Am I, the good son, really a fraud? Isn't there something more? We discover that we are lost and we didn't even know it. We feel confused and overlooked. We long for grace. We yearn for the embrace of the father.

Perhaps there is a brother's return or a failed job or a broken relationship or a rejection or a deep loneliness or just an intensifying feeling that something is very wrong. No matter how it occurs, the doubts we have harbored for years gain a greater volume in our hearts. We are confronted with such disorienting thoughts, and the rage and confusion and yearning almost deafen us to anything and anyone but ourselves. Our condition is disclosed as decidedly that of “un-grace” and “un-love.” And our way of seeing the world no longer seems to make sense. In those times, how will we respond? How do we respond?

When our world is disrupted and ceases to make sense, are we open to something startling new? Do we consider that even and especially in desperate circumstances God's Spirit can work creatively to usher us into a radically different way of imagining and being in the world—full of surprise and freedom and laughter and grace—or do we simply survive, cut our losses, close ourselves off, and try to retreat back into a world where it once did make sense?

St. John of the Cross (16th century) wrote, “To become that which you are not, you must go a way in which you are not.” This is the place in which the older son found himself on that late afternoon. This is also the point in which many of us find ourselves. Will we dare leave the familiarities of the way we know for the unfamiliarity of a way God will guide us? Will we listen closely for the invitation – the Spirit of God beckoning us to let go of our foolish way in the world, a way that cannot make heads or tails of all that goes on inside and outside of us? And will we trust more deeply a foolishly compassionate and recklessly merciful God…a God beyond our wildest imaginations?

God give us grace to be open to such an invitation.

Discuss!

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