The story is well known. A kid can’t wait for his pop to die, so he asks for his inheritance right away. His pop gives it to him. He goes to a far country. He knows the name of every hooker in town. He has a high degree of expertise in different intoxicating drinks. He scatters his fortune appeasing his appetites. This is the beginning of the story of the prodigal son ( Luke 15).
Suddenly he’s starving. He takes the only job he can get. It’s a terrible job. (Let’s assume that a man who’s famous for passing out in brothels has few job options.) He doesn’t even eat as well as the pigs he’s hired to feed. The man he works for treats his pigs better than he treats his hired hands.
1. A morality tale.
We know this story well, so as we read it the ending seems invetable. But when we hear it for the first time, we reach this point in the story, and it might seem that the story should end here.
Then, this would be a story of cause-and-effect, just deserts, crime-and-punishment, comeuppance-writ-large, bad things happening to bad people. It would be the story of a piggish son who dishonored his father and then starved among real pigs. After all, isn’t it written: "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you"? (Exodus 20:12 (NRSV).)
So at this point, we might be ready to say, "Great story!" But the story goes on.
2. Surprise: grace!
Now grace enters in.
The kid comes to his senses and remembers that his father is not like the lickpenny that had hired him to keep his pigs. He begins the long journey home. His father sees him from far away, runs to welcome him, shoves the ring of authority onto his food-deprived finger, kills the fatted calf, and throws a party.
The story could end here, too. Then, it would be a story of sin and repentance and forgiveness, a story of love covering a multitude of sins. Once again, we might be ready to say, "Great story!" But the story goes on.
3. Surprise: no grace!
The happy ending gets upended.
At the moment that the loving father gets one son back, he loses another. His elder son is resentful. He won’t join the party. The elder son thinks: his brother has sinned and spent, but he, the elder son, has been responsible. He himself has been faithful, and he has worked hard. He is the good son, but the father makes a party for the wastrel. He hates that his father honors the bad over the good. It isn’t supposed to be that way.
If you didn’t know the story, who could know that the good, hardworking, self-sacrificing, up-till-now not-complaining son would spoil the happy ending? After all, isn’t it written, "Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you"? Who honored his father more than the elder son did?
But there was something lurking under the good works of the elder son that dragged his heart down. While he was busy doing good, he craved recognition and reward. And when time came to celebrate the return of the prodigal son, that craving for recognition and reward bound the elder son’s willingness to join the music and dancing.
Cain repents; Abel resents.
4. Exposed!
The father is dismayed; God is not surprised. After all, "[T]he Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7 (NTSV).)
Probably even the elder son did not know his craving within. Or he did not recognize it as something that suppressed love.
Even as he judged his younger brother during his brother’s wastrel-years, he did not know the likeness between them. They both valued what the father could give them more than they valued their father. The younger son craved the high life with his father’s money. The elder son craved recognition, and, yes, from time to time, a feast for himself and his friends. Apart from the gall of the younger brother, the difference between them was a difference only of degree.
The prodigal son’s return potentially was a blessing to the older son, but the older son did not know that. The return of the prodigal brought to the surface the inward sin of the elder son, which otherwise would have been un-covered, un-acknowledged, and un-known while he toiled in his father’s fields. The return of the prodigal gave the elder son the potential for an epiphany – sudden, spiritual insight about himself.
So it’s not only a story of a bad son’s comeuppance. And it’s not only a story of sin and repentance and forgiveness. At this point, it’s also a story of reversal: the bad son becomes good, and the good son becomes – something like bad. But the story is not done; it goes on.
5. Loose end.
At the last, the father appeals to his elder son, the son who suddenly is lost to him.
[T]he father said to him, "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. [Luke 15:31 (NRSV).]
Finally, we look for the real ending: what will the elder son do? Will he shrug and join the party, or will he bolt away from the music, fuming that his brother is "dead" to him?
We don’t know. The story goes no further.
6. The preachy part of this essay.
Maybe the story goes no further because the story of the elder son is our story, and our stories are not fully written.
I might feel spiritual. I might feel right with God. But it’s worth trying to rid myself of any careless assumption that I have nothing under the surface of my spirituality, or under my (*blush*) goodness, such as it is, that God knows about, but I don’t. I am not free to assume that there is no – to me – unknown disease of the spirit that could stunt my ability to "grow into salvation". (1 Peter 2:2.)
Maybe we who pray should pray for all of the elder sons of the world. In praying for them, we might be praying for ourselves.
7. Prayer.
God, let me be humble. Free me from the self-centered desire to rise above others in riches, in honor, in recognition, in rank, in spirituality, even in love and in holiness. Let me pray from the heart that I might live among giants, that they might help me be a giant like they are. Amen.
Paul writes about husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:21-33. A lot of people hate the part about wives. It seems to encourage subjugation of women.
But the hated passage might be lighter than often thought. The reason is simple.
The part about wives is for wives. It's not for husbands to confront wives with. It's for wives to consider and, as they see fit, to apply. And the part about husbands is for husbands.
But you be the judge.
1. The passage.
This passage launches with the husband and wife's mutual duties. Then it briefly counsels wives. The greatest and last part of this passage counsels (mostly) husbands:
Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.
Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind – yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband. [NRSV.]
2. The shifting audience of the passage.
I'm not married, but this seems right for a husband: to live and breath part 1 (mutual duty) and part 3 (husband’s duties). These would apply to husbands.
Part 2, the wife’s duties, is not the husband's business. It doesn't apply to him. Unless a husband has a special ministry of judging others, it serves him no purpose. The part in the prior sentence about the "special ministry of judging others" was meant ironically.
The wife’s duty is to examine part 2, to interpret it, to decide if it applies to her, and, as she sees fit, to adopt it as her practice. A wise woman doesn't need anyone else's theological pathfinding skills to find her way in this. Though like all of us, she's free to reach out.
3. The guiding principle.
The principle is simple: the Bible is written for all people at all times, but not all parts pertain to every person. And a part might pertain to a person at one time, but not at another. For the student of the Word, discernment and the Holy Spirit are the indispensable helpers.
And, subject to the Holy Spirit, the narrower principle is this: the Bible wasn't written as a tool to hector people with. It wasn't written to help the husband to control his wife, or for a wife to control her husband. It was written to bring both under the control of God. Husband and wife need to reflect on how God wants them to treat their spouse.
Since the husband controls what he does, he needs to seek God to know his duty to his wife. Since the wife controls what she does, she needs to seek God to know her duty to her husband. And this seeking doesn't end in an answer. It's a conversation. The conversation involves, but is not limited to, the life story of the husband and the wife, the Holy Spirit, prayer, and many parts of the Bible. It neither begin nor ends in Ephesians.
4. The guiding principle in another context: rich and poor.
And it’s a principle that makes sense in other contexts, too.
For example, Proverbs is full of instructions and warnings to the lazy.
The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing. [Proverbs 20:4 (KJV).]
Or:
How long will you lie there, O lazybones?
When will you rise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
and want, like an armed warrior. [Proverbs 6:9-11 (NRSV).]
Or:
The lazy person buries a [fork] in the dish,
and will not even bring it back to the mouth. [Proverbs 19:24 (NRSV)(Where I write "fork", the original wording is "hand".)]
But the Bible is also full of admonitions to the rich and powerful about the poor. For example:
You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in their lawsuits. [Exodus 23:6 (NRSV).]
Or:
You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God. [Leviticus 19:10 (NRSV).]
Or:
'I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ [Matthew 25:43-45.]
I don’t think that the proverbs were written to excuse the rich or the powerful when they overlook the poor. I don’t think that the passages from Exodus, Leviticus, or Matthew were written for the poor to use to hector the rich and the powerful. I think the proverbs are God’s special word for the poor or the lazy; I think the other passages are God’s special word to persons of means about their duty to the poor.
5. A contradiction to the principle?
Having said that, here’s this. Some would say it goes against my point.
Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. [2 Thessalonians 3:10.]
6. Maybe not.
But let me say three things.
First, context matters. And that context shows (arguably) that Paul is addressing those who are "unwilling to work".
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. [2 Thessalonians 3:10-12.]
Second, in another context, Paul says things opposite to and similar to the 2nd Thessalonians passage about working and eating:
Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. [Galatians 6:2 (NRSV).]
And:
For all must carry their own loads. [Galatians 6:5 (NRSV).]
These seems paradoxical and contradictory. Unless, three verses apart, Paul addresses different people.
7. But maybe.
But third, I accept that you plausibly could reject explanations 1 and 2.
Yet the larger idea is that scripture is written for all people at all times, and for particular people at particular times. Maybe in Thessalonians 3:10, God addresses me, and people like me, and he says, "Make your neat principles. I am God. And I burst out of neat principles."
Amen.
