Recently, when I read 2 Corinthians 6 and 7, Rod Dreher’s book, The Benedict Option came to mind. In 7:1, the Apostle Paul wrote: “Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.”
Paul’s exhortation to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit” points back to the mashup of Scripture quotations near the end of chapter 6. (7:1 belongs to the preceding section and rounds it off.) Among the Scriptures cited, we read: “Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord…” That was the line that brought Dreher to mind.
Long before the publication of The Benedict Option, the Amish were “going out from their midst and be[ing] separate from” even their fellow Anabaptists. But nearly 1400 years before the Amish, the desert fathers were separating themselves from the larger church, doing their utmost to cleanse themselves from every defilement of body and spirit. The Benedict to whom Dreher’s title refers pulled away from the larger church culture in the sixth century. In the 11th century, the Cistercians felt the need to cleanse themselves from the defilement of their Benedictine Abbey.
Following the Cistercians came the reform movement led by Bernard of Clairvaux. Later still, the Trappists attempted to purify the Cistercian movement, just as it had tried to purify the Benedictine movement. In the 19th and 20th centuries came the Restoration and fundamentalist movements. The separationist impulse continues to this day.
The promises that Paul spoke of in 2 Corinthians 7, which provide the reason for cleansing oneself from defilement, are great and precious promises. Paul listed six of these promises a few verses earlier: God promised to make his dwelling among (or to indwell) us; to walk among us (as in the Garden of Eden); to be our God, and to take us for his people. (These last two are part of the new covenant, spelled out in Jeremiah 31.) Additionally, God promises to welcome us and be a father to us, and to take us as his children.
The urge to pull back from the world (and even from the larger Christian community) in order to experience the fulfillment of these promises is understandable. Yet, time after time, the separation movements lose their initial passion and wane. Though many retain their outward form, too often the heart that once beat underneath has flatlined.
Knowing this, what are we supposed to do with the apostolic and biblical commands of 2 Corinthians 6 and 7? How are we to “cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit”? What does it look like to “come out from them and be separate”? Should we follow the Amish in their rejection of fashionable dress, technological advances, and the majority culture’s entertainments? But that has not separated the Amish from greed, envy, and strife—at least that is what my formerly Amish friend once told me.
Even though it must be admitted that the Amish did not succeed in purifying themselves “from everything that contaminates,” they have approached this issue more seriously than many other Christians. Their problem, it seems to me, is not that they went too far, but that they went on a tangent. That is, of course, a problem for almost all of us.
The use of the verb translated, “be separate,” might help us wrap our minds around what is involved in coming “out from them” and being “separate.” It is used elsewhere of God’s action in setting the Apostle Paul apart for his service. Though he was set apart, Paul did not stop living among worldly people. He continued to eat their food, wear their dress, and read their books (like those of Epimenides and Menander), yet he was a separated man for he was Christ’s man. He did not serve himself, but Jesus. Perhaps our separation is not about how we dress or whether we use smartphones, but about whether we see ourselves as boss (like pretty much everyone else in the world) or see Jesus that way. Or, to use biblical language, we “confess Jesus Christ Lord.”
Wearing unfashionable clothing (without a smartphone in any pocket) might readily distinguish us in other people’s eyes, but maybe the point is not to distinguish ourselves in others people’s eyes. It is what God sees that matters, and he does not judge by outward appearance but by the heart.
Yesterday, I officiated a funeral for a beloved woman from our church. I felt, as I stood to share the eulogy, that the problem with summing up a person’s life in a funeral service or an obituary is that so little of it as of yet has taken place. It’s like writing the biography of a newborn, or even an unborn, baby.
We, from our perspective, saw our friend’s life as having come to an end. We buried her body and began to tell her story in the past tense. But that does not reflect the way things really are.
Imagine three quadruplets who remain in their mother’s womb after the doctor has delivered their sister. If the fetal mind could think like us, and if they could communicate with each other, what might they be saying? “This is terrible! It is so unfair! Our sister’s life has come to an end. We’ll never see her again.”
How wrong they would be! Their sister’s life had only just begun. So, with us. When seventy or eighty years of life here are up – or even eighty-five, as was the case with our friend – we have only reached full-term, and the life that is life indeed is ready to begin.
What we must understand is that human beings have a two-stage gestation period. The first stage is in their mother’s womb. They have about nine months there in which to receive the kind of life that can continue outside the womb on earth, the life of heartbeats and brainwaves. The Greeks had a word for that: bios. (Biology is the study of that kind of life.)
Then begins the second stage, which lasts something like 70 or 80 years. That is when we receive the kind of life that can continue outside the earth in heaven, the life of the spirit. The Greeks had a word for that too: zoé. We receive bios from our mother and zoé from God’s Spirit. In the first stage of gestation, we have not developed enough to have a choice, but in the second, we are ready (and required) to choose. Biological life comes through an umbilical cord; spiritual life comes through faith. If we don’t receive the life of the spirit before the end of the second stage of our gestation, we will be spiritually stillborn.
We say that our friend has died and, from our perspective, we are right. But that kind of language belongs on this side of death, not the other. The other side, I suspect, sounds more like a maternity ward: “She’s here!” or “She has arrived!” And while on this side there is mourning (and rightly so), on that side there is rejoicing.
If we are standing on the dock as a great ship carries our son or daughter out to sea, we can rightly speak of their departure. But someone standing on a dock at that ship’s port of call would speak differently. Perspective is everything. And our perspective is severely limited.
But God’s is not. He is with us when we enter this world and he is with us when we leave it. He sends us from our point of departure only to receive us at our port of call. The universe (or multiverse, or whatever this marvelous place is where we dwell) is a ball in the hands of a skillful juggler. Its journey began with him and it will end with him. The same is true of us, though God is not playing games with us. As St. Paul so beautifully put it: “For from him and through him and to him are all things.” (Romans 11:36)
There is one more thing to be said—well, there are probably a hundred more things to say, but since I am not wise enough to say them, I will limit myself to one. The fetus is already in this world since that is where his mother’s womb is. Likewise, we are already in heaven even while we are on earth. So, St. Paul could write that “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms…”
How important is Christian baptism? Well, on the founding day of the Christian Church – the day of Pentecost – St. Peter’s hearers asked him what they must do. He answered: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.”
When Samaritans first came to faith in Christ, Luke tells us that Philip the evangelist preached “the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ…[and] baptized, both men and women.” When the Gospel reached the first Gentile converts, in Acts 10, Peter commanded that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Upon St. Paul’s conversion in Acts chapter 9, “He got up and was baptized.” In chapter 16 of Acts, we have the record of the first European convert, a woman named Lydia, who came to faith at a Bible study. We read, “The Lord opened her heart to respond to Paul’s message…she and the members of her house were baptized…” In Philippi, a jailer asked Paul and Silas what he should do. “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved,” they told him, and we read that, “he and all his family were baptized” that very same night.
How important is Christian baptism? One last Scripture quote (it’s the last thing Jesus said to his disciples before leaving them to return to heaven): “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” Baptism is part of the commission our Lord gave to the church. In other words, baptism is not optional for anyone who is serious about following Jesus Christ.
But what difference does it make? Does baptism magically or mechanically change my position before God? Does it guarantee heaven? If it is only an outward demonstration of inward faith, why do it at all? Isn’t faith alone enough? Just what is baptism?
There are three things to know about baptism. (Well, there are probably four thousand things to know, but here are three of them.) Baptism is a Decisive Act of Faith, it is a Dramatic Act of Faith, and it is a Declarative Act of Faith.
In the early days of the church, baptism was adult, as opposed to infant, baptism. Being baptized held something of the same place that “going to the altar” held in evangelical churches for more than a century. When people were ready to make a decision to follow Christ, they were baptized. They may already have believed Jesus’ claims (and the church’s claims about him). But at baptism, they embraced Christ himself. They committed themselves to follow Jesus. Going under the water didn’t make them Christians. Faith in Jesus Christ did that; without faith, baptism would only have made them wet.
So, if baptism does not make us right with God or guarantee us heaven, what does it do? Why be baptized at all if salvation is by faith? First, baptism is a decisive act of faith. It is a decisive step away from a life centered around self and toward a Christ-centered life.
Some words just go together. Peanut butter goes with jelly. Ham goes with cheese. Rod goes with reel. Baptism goes with repentance, and repentance is a decisive word. On the day of Pentecost, Peter told his hearers to “Repent and be baptized.” To repent is to change from the inside; to change one’s mind and, as a result, one’s actions. Baptism is the announcement that we have repented.
Baptism is the demonstration that we have made the once-for-all choice to follow Christ. In the early days of the church, if a man became a Christian, he might be excommunicated from the synagogue, refused entry into the temple, and ostracized by his family. It was a costly decision to make. But when he made it, he sealed his decision by being baptized.
Paul alludes to this kind of decisiveness in Romans 6:1. “Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? May it never be!” Shall we remain in sin? Shall we stay where we are, satisfied with a life we know is sinful? Or shall we go on? Those who are baptized have made their choice. They will not stay where they are. They will move forward with Christ.
The Australian coat of arms pictures two animals: the kangaroo – nature’s pogo stick with a pouch – and the graceless, flightless emu. Not a lion or a tiger. Not an eagle or a falcon. Why did Australia choose such animals? They are, of course, Australian animals, but there is more to it than that. Australians identify with these two animals because they share a common characteristic: Both the emu and the kangaroo can only move forward, not back. The emu’s three-toed foot causes it to fall if it tries to go backwards, and the kangaroo is prevented from moving backwards by its large tail.
People who are baptized have chosen the emu and the kangaroo for their coat of arms. They are going forward with Christ. They have made their decision, and by the grace of God there will be no turning back.
A young couple was married at the church of Sts. Peter and Paul in San Francisco. When the bride was asked, “Do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband,” she replied, “I don’t know.” People who are baptized do know. They are like the widow who had been seeing a widower regularly before he returned to his own city. (This was many decades ago.) After he left, he sent her a letter, requesting her hand in marriage, and asking her to communicate her answer by telegram. She went to the telegraph office and asked how much a telegram would cost. She was told so many spaces for so much money. She used every space she could afford. Here is what she sent. “Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.”
That is what the person being baptized has said to God. “A dozen times, yes.” And a dozen times “no” to a life without Christ. The word the church has used to describe baptism is “sacrament,” which comes from the Latin, “sacramentum,” the pledge a Roman soldier took to be obedient to death. Baptism is a decisive act.
Baptism is also a dramatic act. By that I mean that baptism dramatizes outwardly and visibly what God has done for us inwardly and invisibly. This is one reason for baptizing by immersion. (There are other ways to baptize – sprinkling and pouring – and I have no argument with those who practice them.) The Greek word “baptizo” was used of people being drowned and of ships sinking; it meant to plunge, sink, drench, or overwhelm. Immersing people in baptism dramatically portrays what God has done for them through Christ.
Faith unites a person to Jesus Christ. This is clear in Romans 6, where the “with him” phrases (in English) are emphasized. We were “buried with him” (v. 4); “united with him” (twice in v. 5); “crucified with him” (v. 6); and we “died with him” (v. 8)
But Romans 6 is hardly the only place where we see our union with Christ stressed. There is Galatians 2:20, where Paul writes, “I have been crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20). And so: “We died with him” (2 Tim. 2:11); were “buried with him” (Romans 6:4 and Colossians 2:12); “made alive with him” (Colossians 2:13 and Ephesians 2:5); and “raised with him” (Ephesians 2:6). When we believe in Jesus Christ, we are united to Christ. And though we are never said to share in his birth or baptism, we do take part in his suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and some day, his reign.
This is how the picture works: when the baptismal candidate goes under the water, it is a picture of their death. The man or woman they were has died and was buried. In bringing them up out of the water, we dramatically represent their resurrection. They have been raised to new life—a life united to Jesus Christ, now and forever.
Etched into the black granite of the Viet Nam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington, visitors see the names of 58,156 American military personnel killed in the war. For many people, the sight is overwhelming. Some walk slowly and reverently down its length without pause. Others stop before certain names, remember their buddies or sweethearts, dads or sons, and wipe away the tears.
But for three vets – Robert Bedker, Willard Craig, and Darrall Lausch –visiting the memorial must be surrealistic, for their names are carved into the stone. Because of data-coding errors, each of them was incorrectly listed as killed in action. They are listed among the dead, yet they are alive. In baptism, the believer is listed as dead, and yet is alive to God through Jesus Christ.
Baptism is also declarative. The Ethiopian eunuch was baptized without many witnesses, but that was because there were not many people around; he was not trying to keep his commitment to Jesus secret. Those who choose to be baptized are doing just the opposite: they are taking their stand with Jesus. They are declaring to anyone and everyone, “I am on his side.”
Because baptism is declarative, whenever I baptize people, I encourage them to invite their friends and family to witness their baptism. These people are planting their flag, not in the sand, but in the water. They are telling their friends that Jesus is worthy of their time, their energy, and their lives. And, just maybe, they are awakening in their friends’ hearts the desire that has awakened in theirs: the desire to be with, and be like, Jesus.
The idea of calling receives considerable attention in the Bible and has had significant influence on Christian thinking. Pastors will sometimes talk about when they were “called” into the ministry, but the word “calling” is broadened to include other vocations as well. Just yesterday, I saw an advertisement from a Christian university that referred to teaching as a “sacred calling.” Missionaries have a calling. Motherhood is sometimes represented as a calling. Even athletes pursue their calling.
I was at a denominational conference last month where the subject of the role of women in ministry was addressed. In our denomination, women can be ordained and given the title “Pastor,” but women do not ordinarily serve in the role of lead pastor. I say, “ordinarily” because 26 of our churches in the U.S. and its territories are led by women pastors, and this has created dissonance. So, at the bi-annual national conference, a panel of pastors and educators spoke to the issue from a biblical perspective. Some claimed the Bible limits the lead pastor role to men, while others insisted that the lead pastor role is open to both men and women.
The arguments for and against were based on familiar passages—nothing surprising there. What caught my attention was the woman who, speaking in support of opening the role of lead pastor to women, made a heartfelt plea to allow women to fulfill their calling. One can debate how Galatians 3:28 fits into Paul’s larger argument about Gentiles and law-observance, but how can anyone argue against fulfilling a God-given calling?
Because the idea of calling impacts our thinking as Jesus’s disciples, it is important that we understand what the biblical writers meant by it. That would require a lengthy monograph devoted to the subject, for the subject is broad. Most of the time the verb “to call” (when used of God’s call to individuals) is found in the aorist tense. That is, it looks to a point in time when God called a person.
The verb is also used in the present tense, each time in a participial form, which means that God is still calling. This ongoing call, like the call of a child playing Marco Polo in the swimming pool, leads somewhere. God is calling us to himself, to “his kingdom and glory” (1 Thess. 2:12).
The “call” word group is also used adjectively on ten occasions in the New Testament, though contemporary versions frequently obscure this by translating it as if it were a verb. As an adjective, it describes a group of people as “the called.” The word is used in this way in Romans 8:28, where the King James translated the end of the verse quite literally: “to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
One could profitably explore each aspect of God’s call, how it comes to individuals, and where it leads (for example, “to peace,” “to hope,” “to freedom,” to a kingdom, and to glory). It would also be good to think through the implications of being part of the group known as “The Called.” These folks “belong to Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:6, NIV), which is a phrase charged with meaning. They are “saints” or “holy ones,” which implies that they are different from others. They are people of purpose—particularly, God’s purpose (Romans 8:28).
Lately, it has been the use of the present tense that has stirred my thinking. We were called at some point in the past, but we are also being called in the present. St. Paul uses the present tense three times to represent God as the one who is currently calling his people. Like the shepherd who goes before his sheep and leads them with his voice (John 10:4), God is calling us.
The Voice that called us in the past has not stopped calling; it calls us still. And if we follow it, we will come … to him.
The biblical emphasis is not, it seems to me, on calling someone to be in ministry (despite the way the NIV translates many of Paul’s epistolary introductions). Though we are “called to” something, the stress is not on the call to a career, but the call that leads to God, his kingdom, and his glory.
Does that mean God does not call people to become pastors, or teachers, or missionaries? Does he not call some people to become computer programmers, TikTok evangelists, husbands, wives, CEOs, biologists, basketball players, and most other occupations that can be imagined?
I tend to think the answer is not exactly. He does not call us to such things but through such things. He calls us to himself in such a way that our path frequently leads through some kind of vocation. Following God’s ongoing call to himself led me into (and will someday lead me out of) pastoral ministry. But I don’t think my calling was to be a pastor. It was to pursue God, his kingdom, and glory. But, of course, my heavenly Father knew that following that call would lead me through the pastorate. He calls other people to himself, his kingdom, and his glory, knowing that following that call will lead them to be railroad engineers, or commercial fishermen, or graphic designers, or nurses, doctors, animal trainers—you get the idea.
God never tires of calling us. The Divine game of Marco Polo goes on. If we are not hearing his voice, it is not because he has stopped calling but because we have gone in the wrong direction. In that case, it is best for us to call to him and then become silent, waiting for his answering call. We will hear it if we listen, no matter how far we have wandered. He is still calling, and his voice carries through all of space and time.
He looks, and ten thousand of angels rejoice, And myriads wait for His word; He speaks, and eternity, filled with His voice, Re-echoes the praise of the Lord.
Dear Shepherd, I hear, and will follow Thy call, I know the sweet sound of Thy voice; Protect and defend me, for Thou art my all, And in Thee I will ever rejoice. (Joseph Swain)
Jesus once said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and preparea place for you, I will come again and take you to be with me.” The Bible is full of talk about the preparations God has made for his children. According to the Apostle Paul, God prepared in advance the good works he wants his people to do. Jesus spoke of “The kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.” “God,” said the author of Hebrews, “is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.” It is “The new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.” “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor mind conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him.” “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” “On this mountain, the Lord almighty will prepare a feast…” According to the author of Hebrews, our coming salvation is now ready to be revealed; it has already been prepared.
It’s not just preparations in general the Bible talks about, but preparations for a party. Think of the 23rd Psalm: “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Isaiah 25: “The Lord almighty will prepare a feast, a banquet of aged wines. The best of meats and the finest of wines” (Isa. 25:6). We see this in the last chapters of the Bible, when the wedding reception for the Lamb of God is held. God is not only a planner; he is a party planner. He is the party planner. He loves a good party.
Is that how you think of God – that he is full of joy and loves sharing his joy with others? Or is your God more like the old, white-bearded curmudgeon in the sky you see pictured in Renaissance paintings and newspaper comics? Jesus had inside information about what God is like, and he knew his Father to be the most joyous being in all the universe.
This comes out frequently in the stories Jesus told, the parables. There is one genre of parables that is not about how things are or should be, nor about how we should act, but about what God is like. So, for example, when we read the story about the landowner who gave people the same pay whether they worked one hour or twelve, we shouldn’t think this is a prescription for Chrisitan economics. Jesus is talking about what God is like.
And since Jesus’s stories are often about what God is like, it is particularly interesting that they frequently feature a party. There is the party held at midnight in the Parable of the Ten Virgins, and the party in the Parable of the Wedding Reception. There are parties in the Parables of the Lost Coin, the Lost Sheep, and the Lost Son. It’s worth noting, too, that Jesus told many of the party parables when he was on his way to Jerusalem, where he knew he was going to be killed. It was with joy set before him that he endured the cross.
If the stories of the lost sheep and lost coin represent what God is like, as they are clearly intended to do, it seems like God is always looking for a reason to throw a party. The parable of the lost Son features a big party. This is no dinner party for a few close friends but a blowout, a shindig, a full-scale, kill-the-fatted calf gala.
To get our minds wrapped around this, we need to know that Jews in Jesus’s day divided the timeline of human history into two parts: the present evil age (which began with the fall of Adam; and the age to come (in which God will put right everything this age has put wrong). First century Jews believed the age to come would be inaugurated by a cosmic bash, the party to end all parties—the party that will end death itself.
This was the celebration Isaiah had in mind when he wrote, “… the LORD Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine—the best of meats and the finest of wines. On this mountain he will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; he will swallow up death forever.” (Isaiah 25:6-8). Could there be a better reason for throwing a party?
This end of the age – better, this beginning of the new age – celebration was sometimes called “The Great Banquet” or “The Feast in the Kingdom of God.” Jesus had this feast in mind when he said, “I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it anew with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Matthew 26:29). In the Revelation it is called “The Wedding Supper” – we’d say wedding reception – “of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9), with its laughter, dancing, and joy.
God the Father wants us to share that experience with him. His attitude is just like the attitude of his Son, who once said to him, “Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world” (John 17:24). “I want them to be with me where I am.” That is what God is like.
That may be hard for us to grasp because we’re not like that. In our experience, there is only so much to go around. So, if you share it, you have less. But God knows how to throw a party. When he shares, the fun is not divided; it’s multiplied. The one throwing the Great Feast knows how to multiply fish and loaves and turn water into wine, so there will be plenty for everyone. And not just quantity but quality: “the best of meats and the finest of wines.” And, as in the story of the wine at the wedding feast at Cana, he is once again saving the best for last.
In Luke 14, Jesus is at a Sabbath dinner where most of the guests are stuffed shirts, and while he’s there, he heals a man with edema – a fluid build-up in the legs and possibly around his heart. The guests are shocked – it’s Sabbath! Robert Capon compares what Jesus did to being at a formal dinner party and pulling the tablecloth off the table, putting the guy with the bad back up on the table, and doing a chiropractic adjustment on him. The guests would have thought this was outrageous.
Jesus finishes healing the guy and sends him on his way. But if people were hoping to get back to a nice, normal Sabbath Day dinner, they were disappointed. Jesus goes on to offend the guests by calling attention to their status-seeking ways and then suggesting to the host that he might want to invite a different class of folk in the future. The ones from skid-row would be an improvement, the kind who wouldn’t know a truffle from a turnip. If he will do that, Jesus tells him, he will be richly repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.
At that moment, one of the stuffed shirts speaks up and piously says, “Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God” (Luke 14:15). Maybe he had his doubts about Jesus being numbered among those so blessed, but I’m guessing he expected to be there himself. But I don’t want to be unjust to this guy. Maybe this wasn’t false piety. Maybe this was a genuine attempt by a sensitive soul to ease the tension, which was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Whatever his motive, Jesus used his comment to introduce another of his party-themed parables. We can read it in Luke 14:16-24.
Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’ “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’ “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’ “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’ “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’ “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes (Gk., hedges) and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.'”
The scholar Kenneth Bailey says that a party for two to four guests would require butchering a chicken or two; it was duck for 5-8 guests, a kid for 10-15 guests, a sheep for 15 to 35 people, and a calf for more than that. The party Jesus describes was a two or three-calf party. This was the event of the season.
People invited to a party like this would receive two invitations: the first required an RSVP. The second was sent on the day itself to say, “Everything is ready. Come on over. The party is about to begin.”
The first invitation was sent out to all the right people and they all RSVP’d. But when the day came and the second invitation arrived, one after another said they wouldn’t be coming. One says he just got married, another that he’s just signed a major real estate deal, another is purchasing new farm equipment and has to take it for a test drive. These are big ticket excuses, but they are still excuses. The guy getting married knew when he was going to get married, so why did he RSVP in the first place? It doesn’t make sense. The land deal doesn’t hold water either: if the guy bought property sight unseen, what was the rush to see it now, when the money was already gone?
We are left to wonder why these people would back out of going to a banquet, given by an obviously important person. (Jesus describes him as the master of the house – think aristocrat – and gives him the title “Lord.”) Why refuse to go to a party that is certain to be the event of the season?
It could be these folks don’t play well with others; that they are introverts or misanthropes. Maybe they experience a lot of anxiety at parties and are afraid of looking foolish. Or maybe they just want a night to themselves. But after saying yes, they all back out, every last one of them? Something is going on here.
Jesus may have intended – and his hearers may have understood – another meaning. He may have intended the refusals to be seen as an intentional slight, a conspiracy not to attend by those invited. That kind of thing did happen in the ancient Middle East and still happens today. For example, when a ruler’s authority was being challenged, the invitees might decline his invitation as a way of distancing themselves from him or signifying to his opponent their willingness to change sides. Their refusal to attend the gala was a calculated rejection of the host.
That led the Lord Party-giver to do something entirely unexpected. Instead of saving face by cancelling the party, he went looking for other party guests. Look at verse 21, where the master tells his servant: “Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.”
But even after the servant brought these people to the party, there was still room. So, the Lord sends him out again, this time “to the roads and country lanes” – the hedges, under which the homeless sleep – and tells him to “make them come in, so that my house will be full.”
These are not the kind of people who got invited to swanky parties. I’m about as likely to get an invitation to a White House gala as these folks were to be invited to a party like this. Some of them were beggars, and none of them had anything to offer: no money, no influence, no political power; why, they couldn’t even vote.
Those original invitees wouldn’t come now, under any circumstances. They wouldn’t be caught dead at a party with those kinds of people. That would put them on the same footing with … losers!
Why does the master tell the servant to make people come in? Wouldn’t they jump at the chance to get the best meal they’d ever tasted? Probably not. People like the ones mentioned here never got invited to big soirees like this. And even if, by some crazy mix-up, one of them did, he’d know better than to accept. To attend a party like this put a person in a position of debt. He would be expected to reciprocate, which the people mentioned here could never do. The master says, “Make them come in,” because he knew they knew this was not their kind of party. It’s as if the master told his servant, “Tell them not to worry about repaying me. I know they can’t and I don’t even want them to. I just want them to be here. I want them to enjoy themselves.”
Let’s step back from the story a little so we can get some perspective and, perhaps, see where we fit in. First, remember that Jesus is telling us something about God in this story, and he is definitely not the cosmic killjoy that people (and the devil) make him out to be. If anyone ever loved a good party, it is the God and Father of Jesus Christ.
Neither is this God a snob. He doesn’t exclude people because of their race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. He doesn’t care if you’re rich or poor, the brightest light in the sky or the dimmest bulb in the house. He doesn’t worry that his team might get stuck taking the last kid on the playground. He loves having that last kid on his team. He knows he’s going to win anyway, so why not pick her first?
Nor is he a God who is always keeping score. (This is a stumbling block for many people.) God has never said, “You own me one.” The idea is just plain silly. We don’t owe him one; we owe him everything, and he knows we can never repay him. We can be grateful or not. We can love him or not. We can be his man or woman or not. But we can’t repay him. Real estate in the new heaven and new earth is not for sale. It’s not just that no payment is necessary; no payment is allowed. If we don’t take charity, his charity, his bleeding charity, we will be left out in the dark.
This is Robert Capon again: “Grace doesn’t sell; you can hardly even give it away, because it works only for losers and no one wants to stand in their line.” Winners, he says, don’t even want “free forgiveness because that threatens to let the riffraff into the Supper of the Lamb.”[1]
But Capon was wrong. One person did want to stand in their line—in our line. That was Jesus, and he paid the entrance fee for everyone.
If we insist on paying our own way – on proving that we’re not one of the losers – we’re going to miss the party. That is terribly sad because God really wants us there.
Now, if you want to come to the Party – more than that: if you want to join the Party-Giver’s joyous family– stop trying to impress. Stop trying to repay. Don’t make excuses. Just accept the invitation. It was delivered by Jesus himself and purchased with his blood. The message the servant carried in the story is the one God’s Spirit brings to us today: “Come, for everything is now ready.”
Everything except, possibly, us. That is why God is waiting. (He “is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance” 2 Peter 3:9.) He’s prepared the party for us. Now, he is preparing us for the party, which is a far more difficult and challenging work. But he is up to the job.
The word “spirit” appears in the second verse of the Bible and then appears something like 765 more times. Clearly, the idea of “spirit” is important. Jesus said that “God is spirit.” People have spirits. The gift of the Spirit is one of the most important events in salvation history and in personal experience.
But do we even understand what “spirit” is? I’m not sure that I do.
In Hebrew and Greek, the words translated as “spirit” are polysemous, that is, they have multiple (but related) meanings. So in both languages, the words can be translated as “spirit,” “breath” or “wind.” On the sixth day of creation, God “breathed” or “spirited” into the man’s nostrils the “breath” or the “spirit” of life, “and the human became a living being.” (See also Jesus’s explanation regarding the new birth to Nicodemus in John 3:8, where the word pneuma is translated as “wind” twice and “Spirit” once.)
The polysemous nature of the words is only the beginning of our difficulties. In the Bible we learn that God’s Spirit and our spirits are not the only spirits occupying (can one use that word of spirits?) our planet. “All angels,” according to the author of Hebrews, are “ministering spirits.” But there are still other spirits, and at least some of these interact with humans—sometimes disastrously.
King Saul was tormented by a “distressing spirit,” surprisingly sent from the LORD himself. A “lying spirit” deceives wicked King Ahab. (God sends this one too, and there are many other accounts of God sending an “evil” or a “harmful” spirit to people.) When Saul goes to the witch of Endor, he asks her to divine for him “by a spirit” and bring Samuel up from the dead.
The spirit world really gets crowded when Jesus arrives on the scene. There seem to be “unclean” or “evil” spirits everywhere. Some of them speak, some of them are mute, and all of them are bad company for decent people.
Occasionally, these spirits are identified as demons – another difficult word to understand. It is used 63 times in the New Testament (though, interestingly, not once in Acts, even though it occurs regularly in Luke) and always in a negative sense. But in the larger Greek and Roman culture of the Mediterranean in the first century, daemons were viewed more positively. People actually wanted to be influenced by daemons; they thought such influence inspired them and heightened their creative powers.
Dallas Willard describes “spirit” as “unbodily personal power.” However, the word “spirit” as it is used in the Bible does not always imply personhood. So, for example, God has given some people “a spirit of skill” (Ex. 28:3). Jerusalem will be given a “spirit of judgment” and “a spirit of burning” (Isa. 4:4). Egypt is under a “spirit of confusion” (Isa. 19:14). Perhaps such spirits can be personal in the sense that we understand personhood, but that is certainly not clear in the text. We read also of a “spirit of sleep,” of “justice,” and of “whoredom.”
When the disciples first see Jesus after the resurrection, they think they are seeing a “spirit” – a mistake he quickly corrects. What exactly did they think a spirit is? A “ghost,” as the NIV translates it in Luke 24:37?
Understanding the nature of spirit is difficult enough within the borders of Holy Scripture, but when we leave the Bible, we enter a befuddling world of spirits. In late medieval and early Renaissance periods, even theologians who considered themselves Christians believed that there are spirits abroad in the world (or in the air, like Shakespeare’s “airy sprite” in the Tempest) that were not exactly evil or good. They were neutrals, neither aligned with heaven nor with hell. They were among what C.S. Lewis described as the “mundana numina.”
Lewis made use of his remarkable scholarship to write That Hideous Strength. In the story, Merlin reappears in modern England and uses his familiarity with spirits (familiar spirits) to serve God and destroy the evil powers that seek to dominate England and the world. How does Lewis, an orthodox Christian, justify his character’s use of familiar spirits to achieve a good result? Rather ingeniously, I would say.
Lewis speaks through Professor Dimble, a scholar who in some ways resembles Lewis (and in other ways does not), to explain. Here is the quote at length from That Hideous Strength.
“Have you ever noticed,” said Dimble, “that the universe, and every little bit of the universe, is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?”
His wife waited as those wait who know by long experience the mental processes of the person who is talking to them.
“I mean this,” said Dimble, answering the question she had not asked. “If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family—anything you like—at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing.”
Dimble explained to his wife that there were still spirits in 1940s England that were neutrals, but that soon even they would need to take a side because everything is coming to a point. Perhaps that point has been reached and now all spirits are either good or bad, holy or diabolical. Perhaps that point was reached in the incarnation, when the Point-of-it-all incisively entered our world. Or perhaps there never was such a thing as neutral spirits, which seems most likely to me. (Jesus does not seem to have met any.)
My point is not that neutral spirits might exist or have existed, still less that Lewis thought or didn’t think they did. My point is that my understanding of spirit is so limited. Yet I usually skim over the word without even pausing to think about it, though it is rich in history and full of mystery.
And the whole Bible is like this. The whole of life is like this. There is so much to know and we know so little of it. Thank God, we are not saved by knowing everything, but by God’s mercy (Titus 2:5) in sending Christ.
It is clear that intellectual modesty is required of us. There is far more that we don’t know than we do know. That’s okay. Jesus would tell us to be of good cheer. Though we don’t know all these things, we do know God.
Paul would emend that last line (as he did his own line in Galatians 4:8) by adding: “Or rather, are known by God.”
Ah, yes. And that is reason enough – and more than enough – to be of good cheer.
I took a half-day of prayer today. I try (but frequently fail) to do this on the first Friday of every month. I nearly always start my half-day of prayer by praising God. I usually do this while walking a trail in some state or county park. As I walk, I go through the alphabet and find something I admire about God that begins with A, then B, C, and so on, all the way to Z.
Today, I went to Ferretti-Baugo Park in St. Joseph County, IN. The park covers 214 acres, with Baugo Creek winding through it on its way to the St. Joseph River. I’ve done my half-day of prayer at this park three or four times and have walked most of its trails.
I usually head south down the trail marked “Portage,” which leads to some pretty places along the creek. Today, however, I decided to follow the trail sign that read: To Palisades. (Maybe it’s because I’ve been back to Treasure Island in the last few weeks, and I remembered that Stevenson mentions the palisades around the pirates’ island stronghold.)
The trail was not as nice as the “Portage” trail. It ran along fences and houses, next to old cars and derelict fishing boats. Instead of hearing the river sing, as I do on the Portage Trail, I heard the repeated blasts of a freight train’s horn, less than a tenth of a mile away. But I thought it would be worth it to find the Palisades. I might even see (in my mind’s eye) young Jim Hawkins or brave Captain Smollett, holed up in the stronghold, fighting off Long John Silver’s cruel buccaneers.
But I didn’t find the Palisades. For one thing, the trail markers were nearly useless. “Does this marker point down that trail or the one that veers at a slight angle away from it? Sometimes, the trail marker would display the word “Palisades” with arrows pointing in opposite directions. It was nuts.
But I was determined. I tried one trail, then another—only to find it was all the same trail, running in a loop. Sometimes, I walked in a northerly direction. Sometimes, on a southerly course. I passed over the same trail so often that the squirrels were getting to know me, but I never saw the palisades. I began to think there is no palisades, for I noticed that most of the trail markers did not point to “Palisades” but to “Palisades Trail.” Perhaps the trail is not the way to the attraction; perhaps it is the attraction.
I, for one, did not find it particularly attractive. I walked within 75 feet of a row of houses, a dozen feet from old cars and boats, and an arm’s length from two angry dogs (Pit Bulls, I think) that barked insanely and threw themselves against the six-foot-tall fence that separated us. There was an opaque fabric that covered the dogs’ side of the fence, so I could not see them clearly, but if I am any judge of a dog’s bark, they were snarling, “I’m going to kill you” again and again.
I finally – it really was a long time – gave up on finding the Palisades. Anyway, I wasn’t there to sightsee but to pray, and I had done lots of that as I walked (with special earnestness when the dogs tried to knock down the fence). Among other things, I prayed for a friend and for the friend of a friend. Both seem to have got on a path on which they go endlessly but get nowhere. After today, I understand a little better what that is like.
Humanity walks on a ruined earth, the result of Adam’s rebellion and the long, devastating war that followed. The paths we take frequently lead nowhere. We lose ourselves and we cannot find our God.
But it will not always be so. The day will come when our long search will be over, not because we have found God by our cleverness, but because he has found us by his love. Even this ruined earth will be rescued and restored. Its circular paths will be straightened, and all paths will lead to him.
In that day, we will learn that we were never alone, even on our circular paths that led nowhere. There was always Another with us. He did not walk beside us because he was afraid for us – never that – but because (wonder of wonders) he likes us, loves us, and enjoys being near us.
There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them. Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.
After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found’ (Luke 15:11-24).
Louie Zamperini was a bombardier in the Army Air Corps in the Second World War. After his plane was damaged by Japanese anti-aircraft fire, Louie was assigned to search and rescue and was set to find a lost aircraft and her crew. During the search, the plane he was in experienced mechanical difficulties and went down in the Pacific, 800 miles from Hawaii. Eight of the eleven crew members were killed in the crash.
Louie and the other two spent 47 days at sea, drinking collected rainwater and eating whatever fish or birds they could catch. They fought off sharks and were strafed by Japanese planes. One of the three died. When they finally reached land, they were immediately captured by the Japanese and transferred to a prison camp. Later they were sent to another camp, where they were brutally tortured.
The Army supposed that Zamperini had died with the rest of the crew and listed him as KIA. Louie’s parents received a letter of condolence signed by President Roosevelt. But this wasn’t the first time Mr. and Mrs. Zamperini had lost Louie.
Before he was lost at sea, Louie was lost at home. When he was a teen, he was constantly getting into fights and stealing and drinking. One day, after an argument with his parents over chores, he told them he was leaving. His parents pleaded with him to stay, but he refused. So, his tearful mother made him a sandwich to take with him and his dad gave him $2 which, in the Depression, may have been all the money he had.
Louie hopped a ride on a train but nearly died after he got locked inside a boxcar in sweltering heat. When he was discovered, he was run off at gunpoint. With nowhere to go, he sat around the rail yard, dirty, bruised, and wet. He’d had nothing to eat except a can of beans he’d stolen, and nothing to do except watch the trains go by. When a passenger train passed, he saw people in the dining car, sitting at tables with tablecloths and crystal stemware, eating and laughing. And that’s when he remembered the sandwich his teary-eyed mother had given him, and the money his dad had put in his hand. He stood up and he started walking toward home.[1]
That is a modern (and real-life) retelling of Jesus’s Parable of the Prodigal Son (or better, The Parable of the Lost Sons, since both sons in the story are lost; or better still, the Parable of the Loving Father). It is the crown of Jesus’s 37 parables and it beautifully portrays what the God and Father of Jesus is really like.
The people to whom Jesus told this masterpiece of a story lived in a society where everyone had a place. That place depended on lineage, employment, education, annual income, assets, languages spoken, and religious credentials. Based on those particulars, you were assigned a spot, maybe on the A-list, or maybe down on E-list, level four, position 293. And that was who you were. (Not unlike today.)
If you were assigned to D-list, you looked down on those in E-list but were looked down on by the people in C-List, who were looked down on by the B-listers, and so on. If your religious credentials weren’t in order, regardless of the list you were on, people looked down on you. And according to religious orthodoxy, so did God.
Then came Jesus. He not only didn’t look down on people at the lower end of the scale, he got rid of the scale – threw it out. In a society where even a child could distinguish between the reputable and the disreputable, Jesus’s disregard for those distinctions was scandalous. He welcomed people in, while other religious leaders kept them out—and thought they were doing the right thing. How is it that Jesus treated people so differently?
He treated people differently because he knew that his Father was not like the God the religious leaders talked about. The Pharisees were sure that God did not want those people. He regarded them as a kind of infection. But Jesus knew that God does want those people, that he loves them, and considers them to be a kind of treasure.
That’s why Jesus told the stories in Luke 15. He wanted to clear up people’s misconceptions. He wanted them to know what he knew about his Father: He loves people, even after they have messed up. He wants them, even when they don’t want him. And if they only come to him because they are cold and hungry and miserable, he’ll still take them in, and do it in a heartbeat. That is what the God and Father of Jesus is like.
Jesus tells three stories in Luke 15. The first is about a guy who has one of his hundred sheep wander off. He’s still got 99, but he can’t stand to lose one, so he goes after it, finds it, and then throws a party to celebrate.
The second story is about a woman who had ten silver coins but lost one of them. She’s still got nine, but she won’t rest until she has found that one, and when she finds it, she throws a party.
The third story, the jewel in the crown, is about a dad who has two sons. Notice how the stakes get higher with each story. One out of a hundred. One out of ten. One out of two. One of the sons leaves his father, goes out into the world, and gets terribly lost.
Lost is one of a key word in these stories: it occurs 8 times in its noun and verb forms. The religious leaders would have said, “People are lost,” and Jesus would have agreed. As far as God is concerned, we’re not A-list of C-list or E-list. We’re either lost because we are away from him, which is a grief, even to God, or we’re found, because we’ve come back to him, which is reason to throw the biggest party ever. Jesus would have agreed with the Pharisees that people are lost but, unlike the Pharisees, he knew that God loves people whether they’re lost or found. And finding them is one of his chief delights.
The rabbis had a saying: “God rejoices over the downfall of the godless.” When the Pharisees heard that, they nodded their heads in agreement, but Jesus emphatically shook his in disagreement. That is not what his Father is like.
Jesus adds a lot of color to this story—there’s more detail than in any other. The lost son pulls a Louie Zamperini on his dad. He knows his dad doesn’t want him to leave, but he says (in effect), “I hate my life with you and I can’t wait to get out of here.” He then sells his share of the farm out from under his dad and brother (which would be bad form in our culture but was unthinkable in theirs), takes the cash, and bolts.
Now, if you are a Pharisee listening to this story, you know exactly how this dad feels. He is madder than a hornet – than a nest of hornets. And you know exactly what this dad would do: hold a qetsatsah ceremony, have his son declared dead, and a death certificate issued. As far as this dad was concerned, his boy died and any relationship they’d had died with him.
Jesus, being the greatest storyteller ever, leaves the dad there in his grief and shame and follows the son. And here is where the details come in. The son blows through his money in no time. He’s out there partying and telling himself that this is the life. He knows it can’t go on forever, but he’ll worry about that when the time comes. Then one morning, he wakes up with a hangover and discovers the time had come. (Our modern translations say something like, “he squandered his wealth” in verse 13, but a strictly literal translation is, “he squandered his being.” He might have said, “It’s only money,” but it wasn’t; he was squandering himself.)
And then life got really bad, really fast. Circumstances were against him: a famine; high unemployment; his friends left him. Jesus says, “no one gave him anything.” So, he did the last thing any self-respecting Jew would do: he took a job with a Gentile pig farmer. And things got so bad that he wanted to eat the pig’s food.
Jesus has a reason for telling us these details—one we might miss. Herding pigs was shameful for a Jew. The Mishnah said, “None may rear swine anywhere,” and “Cursed is the man who rears swine.” Just hearing Jesus say that this Jewish boy wanted to eat pig chow was enough to make a Pharisee retch. It was disgusting. And that Pharisee would be thinking, “He got what he deserves. If he is going to act like a pig, he should live with the pigs.”
If I were a first century Jewish father, and my son Joel (I’ll pick on him because he is our only son with a Hebrew name; we gave the other two Irish names) went to work for a pig farmer, I would be shamed before the entire community. And shaming one’s father was, in that time and place, one of the worst things a person could do. People would look at me differently, talk behind my back, and whisper that I was being punished for some secret, shameful sin.
The turning point of the story comes in verse 17. The son comes to his senses (literally, “comesto himself” – to who he really is: the son of a wonderful and kind man) and decides in that moment to go back to his dad. He has an idea that his dad might just take him back (as a hired hand, of course). So, he composes a speech, trying to say just the right thing to blunt his dad’s anger. He understands that his dad won’t acknowledge him – probably won’t even look at him – but maybe he’ll instruct the foreman to put him to work as a farmhand. Once he’s got his speech memorized, he gets up (literally, arises; it’s the word routinely used of rising in the resurrection, for this boy is coming back from the dead) and starts off toward his father.
The last time we saw the father, he was being hammered by rejection and disrespect, and Jesus has not mentioned him since. But now as the son approaches, our thoughts return to the father. Every Pharisee knows how this story ends. The old man will turn his back on the kid and say: “You are no son of mine! My son died! We held his funeral. You – whoever you are – go back to the pigs and live among your own kind.”
The reason the Pharisees know the father will say this is because it’s what they would say. And they would say it because they’re sure it’s what God would say. God is holy. He is righteous. He despises sinners.
And it’s not just Jesus’s A- and B-list hearers like the Pharisees who expect this ending; the D- and E-listers – the tax collectors and prostitutes – do too. So, imagine everyone’s surprise when Jesus said (this is verse 20): “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”
And then, of course, he threw a party! (More about that next week.)
Jesus just pulled the theological rug out from under their Pharisaical feet. He tells them, “You’ve got it all wrong. God doesn’t write off people who are lost; he finds them. Not so he can punish them, but so he can throw his divine arms around them and kiss them and welcome them home.”
The son starts his speech, but the father doesn’t let him finish. No bargaining. No “I’ll do better this time.” He doesn’t make him sign a contract. He takes him in. Brings him home.
The Pharisees would have thought that was crazy. They believed that accepting people who do wrong takes away any motivation they might have to change. They thought the only leverage they had over people was rejection. You use a hammer to drive nails and you use rejection to change people. It was the only tool in their bag.
But Jesus knew that people don’t get better because you reject them; they get worse. The religious leaders were waiting for people to clean themselves up and become worthy of salvation, but God doesn’t wait. He doesn’t withhold his love until people meet a certain standard. He pulls up his robes and runs to them.
In first century Israel (and just about everywhere else), men wore robes. If for some reason they needed to run, they would pull the hem of their robe up and tie it above their knees. Older men didn’t tie up their robes like that; it was attire unbecoming a man of advanced years. But Jesus has this father (who is meant to show us what God is like) tie up his robes, not caring what anyone thinks, and run to his son. God won’t force us into a relationship with him – that would ruin everything he wants for us – but he will help us choose a relationship with him and will come running to us when we do.
The son in this story came to himself because he remembered what his father was like, just as Louie Zamperini remembered how his dad gave him money and told him that he was wanted. We’ll never come to ourselves until we come to our heavenly Father, and we’ll never come to him if we think he doesn’t want us.
But our heavenly Father does wants us; he wants you. Like the father in Jesus’s story, he doesn’t sit around waiting for you to come to him. He comes to you. He doesn’t demand, as the religious leaders of Jesus’s day did, that you get it all right before you come. He wants you – really wants you – to be with him and with his other children.
The younger son in this story almost missed out because he did not understand his father. He was sure that his father did not want him and would reject him. Some of us – all of us at one time or another – have had similar thoughts about God. Those thoughts are not true. He wants us. He really does.
There is much more to this story than we have time to go into this morning. I hope you will come to Go Deep on Wednesday night (we meet in the multi-purpose room on the other side of the lobby) to think together about the text and see how it applies to our lives. For now, I just want us to see what God is like. He is like a dad who takes back his son (or it could be his daughter); a dad who runs to take him back – who loves him, no matter what he has done.
Donald Miller had a friend – a kind, intelligent, gifted man – whose life was falling apart because of alcohol addiction. His marriage was full of strife, his relationship with his kids was in jeopardy, and Donald was afraid he might take his own life.
But his friend checked himself into a rehab and the next time Donald saw him, he had gone several weeks without a drink. The turning point – the moment he came to himself – happened at a recovery meeting. His dad had flown in for a visit and had attended the meeting with him. During the meeting, the man stood up in front of everyone – his dad included – and confessed all his issues and weaknesses.
When his son finally sat down, his father stood up. He looked at all the other addicts, then at his son, and he said: “I have never loved my son as much as I do at this moment. I love him. I want all of you to know I love him.” That helped Donald’s friend believe that God loved him, too. And if God loved him, his father loved him, and his wife loved him, he thought he just might make it.[2]
Your heavenly Father wants you – and all of us – to know that he loves you at this moment and every moment, no matter what mistakes you’ve made, what sins you’ve committed.
This year, I am involved in a Discipleship Group (a D-Group) that reads five biblical texts a week, writes journals entries on each of them, and presents one of those entries to the other members each week. Each journal entry is based on the acrostic H.E.A.R. The H stands for Highlight (we highlight a key verse, writing it out by hand. The E stands for Explain (we explain the verse or the larger passage). A is for Apply (we look to see how the truths we have uncovered apply to our own lives). And the R is for Respond (we write out our response, which could be a prayer or a statement of what we intend to do. Today, I was reading Acts 8 and 9. My highlight verse follows and then the Explain, Apply, and Respond.
Acts 9:31 “Therefore” (this refers to the previous verse, where the lightning rod Saul was sent off by the church to Tarsus), the whole church in Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace, being built up and going around in the fear of the Lord and the comfort of the Holy Spirit.” (My translation.)
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Once Saul was gone, the church had peace. What follows are two sets of contrasting realities, though “contrasting” is not the right word. They are more like two poles of experience around which the disciple’s life flows. The disciples are being built up (passive voice), which implies structure, steadfastness (as in immovable? see 1 Cor. 15:58), and strength. But they also “go around” (proceed, travel, move through life). Both are true of the spiritually healthy disciple: stop and go; rest and action; “let (-ting) nothing move” them yet always going.
The other set of contrasts come next. The believer experiences both “the fear of the Lord” and “the comfort of the Holy Spirit.” The fear of the Lord moves us (see 2 Cor. 5:11), while the comfort of the Spirit rests us. The fear of the Lord energizes us. The comfort of the Spirit contents us. The fear of the Lord causes a desire for more. The comfort of the Spirit makes us rejoice in what we already have.
People tend to gravitate to one pole or the other, perhaps based on personality, yet we all sense the need for both. We were created with both poles – in that sense, we are all “bi-polar” – and we are only fully ourselves when we have a “current” within us that constantly moves between both.
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I prefer the comfort of the Spirit. I seek safety and rest. But I recognize the desire for more, the longing for the energizing “fear of the Lord” that makes things happen. I must not be content with one or the other; I must choose both. I desire the divine rhythm that moves me in rest and rests me in movement. I desire the magnetic attraction that is generated from the flow of life between both poles. That energy makes the Lord Jesus visible in my life and brings him glory.
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Lord, give me both. I want to be built up and to go about, to rest in the comfort of the Holy Spirit and to move in the fear of the Lord. But I am rhythmically challenged, so I need you to teach me, help me, and be yourself in me.
In Matthew 28, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary leave early on Sunday morning to see (“watch,” “observe”) Jesus’s tomb. But they are not the only ones watching it; so are the Roman soldiers, lent by Pilate to the chief priests so they could “make the tomb as secure as” they knew how.
This is only one expression, and the least obvious, of the parallel lines of storytelling by Matthew in chapter 28. The twin storylines follow the women and the guards, and it seems to me that Matthew structured his narrative this way on purpose.
An angel appears to the guards and they “are afraid of him” – so afraid that they shake uncontrollably and become “like dead men.” The women are also afraid of the angel. (Matthew does not tell us this but Mark and Luke do. Matthew does mention that the angel tells the women, “Do not be afraid.”)
The women go off to the city following their encounter with the angel. So do “some of the guards.” In fact, Matthew explains that while the women are on their way, the guards, recovered from the shock and paralysis of meeting an otherworldly being, go off to the city themselves.
The women go to report (Gk., ἀπαγγεῖλαι) to the disciples all they had seen and heard. While they are doing that, the guards deliver their report (ἀπήγγειλαν) to the chief priests. Both the women and the guards have news to tell, and they tell it. The guards are then paid “a large sum of money” (where the word is the same one used of the blood money Judas received).
By framing his narrative with these parallel storylines, Matthew is able to subtly demonstrate the ways different people respond to the gospel. (That word comes from the same root as the word used of the news the woman and the guards reported.) The women hurry to tell the good news to those who had not yet heard and, as they go, they were met by Jesus himself.
“Some” of the guards also carried news into the city to those who had not heard, but they did not meet Jesus. While the disciples eventually realized that the women’s report was very good news – was “gospel” – the chief priests considered the news the guards shared to be very bad news. Though they knew it was true, they did not want anyone to believe it.
Those are the parallel storylines we see in Matthew 28. If readers have noticed other parallels I have missed, I’d love for you to share them with me!
I have wondered why Matthew mentions specifically that “some” of the guards, and not all, went into the city. I can think of other reasons to account for it, but I’d like to think that some of the guards had made up their minds not to have in more to do with guarding priestly lies. I once wrote an Easter morning skit that features two such members of the guard (Gk, κουστωδίας) and what might have become of them. I include it for your entertainment.
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If That’s True
[Two soldiers stand in front of the tomb at attention, about four feet apart, eyes forward. But they talk to each other, on the sly.]
Soldier One: I hear there were some women here yesterday. Came to get a glimpse of you, I shouldn’t wonder.
Soldier Two: Shut up. [Ten seconds pass]
Soldier One: So, what are we doing here, anyway?
Soldier Two: Following orders.
Soldier One: Yeah, but . . .
Soldier Two: [Interrupting] Centurion’s coming.
[Ten seconds pass in silence]
Soldier One: I mean, what are we doing here, guarding a dead guy? It’s not like he’s part of the imperial family, or something. He’s a Jew, for cryin’ out loud.
Soldier Two: I heard the emperor ordered a twenty‑four-hour guard for his wife’s dead cat prior to its burial.
Soldier One: Yeah, the bigger they are, the crazier they are. But there was only one imperial cat; there’s got to be ten thousand of these Jewish teachers around.
Soldier Two: So?
Soldier One: So . . .
Soldier Two: Quiet! [several seconds pass]
Soldier One: So, what are we doing out here — a koustodia? You don’t need a koustodia to keep a few members of some crazy sect from getting into a tomb. What are they really afraid of?
Soldier Two: Maybe they’re not afraid of people getting into the tomb.
Soldier One: Then what?
Soldier Two: Maybe they’re afraid of someone getting outta the tomb.
Soldier One: That’s crazy.
Soldier Two: Didn’t you hear what the centurion said? This teacher told people he would rise from the dead.
Soldier One: Like anyone’s gonna believe that!
Soldier Two: Seems like somebody did.
Soldier One: What‑da‑ya mean?
Soldier Two: I mean: We’re here aren’t we? A koustodia. Somebody is scared.
Soldier One: You don’t think it could really happen — I mean, after being dead a person could come back to life?
Soldier Two: Maybe. I don’t know. But if Caesar could figure out how to do it, he’d send us into one battle after another till we’d taken the whole bloody world. Nobody could stop us.
Soldier One: Yeah. But what I was thinking was that if you and I couldn’t die, I’d have to see those ugly legs, day after day, forever.
Soldier Two: Shut up.
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(A long time has passed. The soldiers are now dressed in civilian clothing.)
Soldier 1: Legs?? What are you doin’ here? Come back to the scene of the crime, eh?
Soldier 2: [Surprised] Valerius, why aren’t you in uniform? What’s happened?
Soldier 1: [Shrugs] I served my 20. Got my citizenship. It was time to get out. But what about you? You’re not in uniform either.
Soldier 2: [Bitterly] I’m out too. The day I joined the Koustodia was the proudest day of my life. But when that old priest told us to lie, and the Commander backed him up—I felt ashamed of being a Koustodian. [Pauses.] I should’ve told the truth.
Soldier 1: They would’ve killed you. Besides, what is the truth? I still don’t know what happened.
Soldier 2: You know we didn’t fall asleep. You know we didn’t fail in our duty. You know a gang of fish-catchers and tax collectors didn’t steal the body.
Soldier 1: Yeah, I know all that. [Looks around.] But did anyone steal the body? I mean, it seems like no one went into that tomb, but … somebody came out.
Soldier 2: Are you saying what I think you’re saying? Because if that’s true …
Soldier 1: [Interrupting.] If that’s true, Legs, this Jew they set us to guard knows how to charm Cerberus and walk right out of Hades. But how? That’s the question. How’d ’e do it?
Soldier 2: I’ve been thinking that those fish-catchers and tax collectors might know—I heard the priest call them his disciples. Maybe he taught them how. I think I’d like to find one of them and ask him. Want to go with me?
Soldier 1: Sure. But, uh, just be careful those fish-catchers don’t catch us.
The Way Home 