Loving Father and Birth Order Dynamics?

4 Lent             March 6, 2016     

Joshua 5:9-12          Ps.32           

2 Cor. 5:17-21     Luke 15:11-32     

Lectionary Link

 

Birth order theory is based upon the parenting habits influencing how a child is socially constructed based upon the child's order of birth in family.

  And as we know first time parents invent parenting because no one can be good enough for our first and most precious one.  And because of such measured scrutiny, the first born becomes a natural informer who perpetually tells on the rest of the children.

  And what do older children often tell mom and dad: "You let the younger children get away with murder.  You never let us do what you let them do."

  One might apply birth order theory to the parable of the prodigal son.  The story might be called the parable of the slighted older brother.  "Your mercy towards my little brother really dishonors me and my loyalty and my playing by the rules.  How can you do this?  It is not fair."

  We might try to understand the function of the parable of the prodigal son in the early church.  The Gospel writers believed that members of the main religious parties within Judaism were dismissive of Jesus and the Jesus Movement.  The criticism of Jesus is that he welcomed tax collectors and sinners. 

  By the time the Gospel of Luke was written, what was the make up of the Christian Church?  The churches had essentially become Gentile churches.  The tax collectors and the sinners had become celebrated members of the Christian communities.  And these communities had become separated from synagogues which consisted mainly of members of Pharisee Judaism.  Pharisees and Sadducees were less likely to become followers of Christ than were members of the community of John the Baptist.

  So the competition between church and synagogue and the separation of the church and synagogue was shown by the Gospel writer to be foreshadowed in the life and the teachings of Jesus.

  The parable of the Prodigal Son has three main characters, the Merciful Father, the younger rebellious son and the older stay-at-home brother.

  At the heart of this story is the question who does God belong to?  And who does God love?

  The Father symbolizes God who is the parent of everyone.  But it a fact of the history of humanity that many people have lived without benefit of the laws Moses.  They have  lived as people who have taken their original inheritance and lost connection with God as the original owner and parent of the world.  They have lived on the largesse of God but they lived their lives as though the appearance of "possession is nine tenth of the law."  Without guidance and connection with God, they have wasted their lives.

  The Jews are a people with an ancient written tradition.  They know who they are.  They have the ancient Hebrew Scriptures which gave them a self-understanding as being God's chosen and favorite people.  They were God's first born and as such had special inheritance rights.

  St. Paul came to understand that God belonged to everyone.  He came to understand that the main witness of Jesus Christ was to reconcile all people, not just the Jews to God.  And the main Christian ministry was to be ambassadors of Christ in proclaiming this reconciliation of God and humanity.

  This parable was used by the church to reveal the main difference between the synagogue and the church.  The synagogue was committed to maintain the religious and ritual purity identity of Jews; the church existed to take the message of the love of God in Christ to all people.  Those persons long regarded to be tax collectors and sinners, Gentiles and some Jews without religious status,  and who were regarded to be far from God's love and grace as expressed by ritual conformity, came to be celebrated as the long lost members of God's family who had come to be reconciled to God their original parent.

  One can see in this parable the seeds for what has become a historical reality.  The Christian mission was to the entire world and the Jewish mission has been to a smaller number of people, to those who could commit to the requirements of their ritual purity.

  One of the functions of the New Testament writing was to show how Christianity became significantly different from Judaism while at the same time borrowing and adapting freely from the Judaic tradition.

  Christians borrowed the universal aspects of Judaism found in the prophets which proclaimed that God's house was a house for all people.  Christians borrowed the tradition of the messiah from Judaism, but not the tradition which regarded the messiah to be a Davidic king who would immediately restore the nation of Israel; the Christian interpretation of the messiah was the suffering servant messiah who died for the sins of the entire world, the world of those who inhabited the Roman Empire.  For Christians, Jesus was the messiah of the world and not just of nation of Israel.  Christianity became a universalization of various strains within Judaism.  The early Christians believed that John the Baptist and Jesus were prophets who came to bring about a world mission to bring about the opportunity of reconciliation between all humanity and God.

  As Gentiles, you and I can be thankful that we have been included in this mission of reconciliation began by Christ.  But you and I can be different than the early Christians.  The early Christians were so dominated by their separation from Judaism that they often presented  the various parties of  Jews in an unfavorable light.  We no longer as Christian need to define ourselves by contrasting ourselves with Jews.  And we can also come to new applications of the parable of the prodigal son.

  Each of us at times have been those who have been like the prodigal son.  We have been those who have used our freedom to squander the divine gifts.  Sometimes we have had to learn that we will not change our losing patterns of life until we come to end of ourselves.  For people who have been successful at recovery from addiction, they confess that they had to come to the end of themselves in reaching the place where their habits ruined their lives and their relationships.  Sometimes we will only change when we hit the bottom.  And when we hit the bottom, we need to know the Higher Power of God's mercy.  God's mercy is expressed as a loving regard for who we were made to be.  God's mercy is expressed as a welcoming grace to give us another opportunity to repent and change our lives to be better.  We also know that all of us can relate to the older brother and his strict sense of justice.  Sometimes in our areas of strength we can be very unforgiving of people who fail in our areas of strength.  We can be hypocrites, in that we often want forgiveness and mercy in our weakness while not offering that same mercy to others.   We sometimes can use our own resume of good deeds as a justification for not being merciful.  "I have played by the rules so I deserve more credit and celebration than those who have just decided to start playing by the rules again."  What we don't realize is that playing by the rules is its own reward.  We don't play by the rules to get a reward; the reward is that we already have the grace to be able to do the right things.  And we should rejoice whenever anyone discovers this wonderful grace of the reward of being able to do what is right and pleasing in God's eyes and for our own benefit and the good of the community.

  So the parable of the prodigal son had a function of explaining the dynamic separation of the church from the synagogue but the parable of prodigal son also has current meanings for us today as we find projected upon the characters aspects of our behavioral tendencies.

  When we have gotten to the very bottom, let us remember God as the original parent is loving, kind and merciful. This God invit Birth order theory is based upon the parenting habits influencing how a child is socially constructed based upon the child's order of birth in family.

  And as we know first time parents invent parenting because no one can be good enough for our first and most precious one.  And because of such measured scrutiny, the first born becomes a natural informer who perpetually tells on the rest of the children.

  And what do older children often tell mom and dad: "You let the younger children get away with murder.  You never let us do what you let them do."

  One might apply birth order theory to the parable of the prodigal son.  The story might be called the parable of the slighted older brother.  "Your mercy towards my little brother really dishonors me and my loyalty and my playing by the rules.  How can you do this?  It is not fair."

  We might try to understand the function of the parable of the prodigal son in the early church.  The Gospel writers believed that members of the main religious parties within Judaism were dismissive of Jesus and the Jesus Movement.  The criticism of Jesus is that he welcomed tax collectors and sinners.  Any one who did not live a ritually pure life was regarded to be a sinner or "unclean."

  By the time the Gospel of Luke was written, what was the make up of the Christian Church?  The churches had essentially become Gentile churches.  The tax collectors and the sinners had become celebrated and welcome members of the Christian communities.  And these communities had become separated from synagogues which consisted mainly of members of Pharisee Judaism.  Pharisees and Sadducees were less likely to become followers of Christ than were members of the community of John the Baptist.

  So the competition between church and synagogue and the separation of the church and synagogue was shown by the Gospel writers to be foreshadowed in the life and the teachings of Jesus.

  The parable of the Prodigal Son has three main characters, the Merciful Father, the younger rebellious son and the older stay-at-home brother.

  At the heart of this story is the question who does God belong to?  And who does God love?

  The Father symbolizes God who is the parent of everyone.  But it is a fact of the history of humanity that many people have lived without benefit of the laws Moses.  In the biblical narrative they have  lived as people who have taken their original inheritance and lost connection with God as the original owner and parent of the world.  They have lived on the largesse of God but they lived their lives as though the appearance of "possession is nine tenth of the law."  Without guidance and connection with God, they have wasted their lives.

  The Jews have been a people with an ancient written tradition.  They know who they are.  They have the ancient Hebrew Scriptures which gave them a self-understanding as being God's chosen and favorite people.  They were God's first born and as such had special inheritance rights in the biblical narrative.

  St. Paul came to understand that God belonged to everyone.  He came to understand that the main witness of Jesus Christ was to reconcile all people, not just the Jews, to God.  St. Paul believed that  the main Christian ministry was to be ambassadors of Christ in proclaiming this reconciliation of God and humanity.

  This parable was used by the church to reveal the main difference between the synagogue and the church.  The synagogue was committed to maintain the religious and ritual purity identity of Jews; the church existed to take the message of the love of God in Christ to all people.  All people meant that those long regarded to be tax collectors and sinners, Gentiles and some Jews without religious status. People were regarded to be far from God's love and grace because they did not express ritual conformity to Judaism, came to be celebrated as the long lost members of God's family who had come to be reconciled to God their original parent.

  One can see in this parable the seeds for what has become a historical reality.  The Christian mission was to the entire world and the Jewish mission has been to a smaller number of people, to those who could commit to the requirements of their ritual purity.

  One of the functions of the New Testament writingw was to show how Christianity became significantly different from Judaism while at the same time borrowing and adapting freely from the Judaic tradition.

  Christians borrowed the universal aspects of Judaism found in the prophets which proclaimed that God's house was a house of prayer for all people.  Christians borrowed the tradition of the messiah from Judaism, but not the tradition which regarded the messiah to be a Davidic king who would immediately restore the independence of the  nation of Israel; the Christian interpretation of the messiah was the suffering servant messiah who died for the sins of the entire world, the world of all people who inhabited the Roman Empire.  For Christians, Jesus was the messiah of the world and not just messiah of the of nation of Israel.  Christianity became a universalization of various strains within Judaism.  The early Christians believed that John the Baptist and Jesus were prophets who came to bring about a world mission to bring about the opportunity of reconciliation between all humanity and God.

  As Gentiles, you and I can be thankful that we have been included in this mission of reconciliation began by Christ.  But you and I can be different than the early Christians.  The early Christians were so dominated by their separation from Judaism that they often presented  the various parties of  Jews in an unfavorable light.  We no longer as Christians need to define ourselves by contrasting ourselves with Jews.  And we can also come to new applications of the parable of the prodigal son.

  Each of us at times have been those who have been like the prodigal son.  We have been those who have used our freedom to squander the divine gifts.  Sometimes we have had to learn that we will not change our losing patterns of life until we come to end of ourselves.  For people who have been successful at recovery from addiction, they confess that they had to come to the end of themselves in reaching the place where their habits ruined their lives and their relationships.  Sometimes we will only change when we hit the bottom.  And when we hit the bottom, we need to know the Higher Power of God's mercy.  God's mercy is expressed as a loving regard for us to achieve what we were made to be.  God's mercy is expressed as a welcoming grace to give us another opportunity to repent and change our lives to be better. 

  We also know that all of us can relate to the older brother and his strict sense of justice.  Sometimes in our areas of strength we can be very unforgiving of people who fail in our areas of strength.  We can be hypocrites, in that we often want forgiveness and mercy in our weaknesses while not offering that same mercy to others.   We sometimes can use our own resume of good deeds as a justification for not being merciful.  "I have played by the rules so I deserve more credit and celebration than those who have just decided to start playing by the rules again."  What we don't realize is that playing by the rules is its own reward.  We don't play by the rules to get a reward; the reward is that we already have the grace to be able to do the right things.  And we should rejoice whenever anyone discovers this wonderful grace of the reward of being able to do what is right and pleasing in God's eyes and for our own benefit and the good of the community.

  So the parable of the prodigal son had a function of explaining the dynamic separation of the church from the synagogue but the parable of prodigal son also has current meanings for us today as we find projected upon the characters aspects of our behavioral tendencies.

  When we have gotten to the very bottom, let us remember God as the original parent is loving, kind and merciful. This God invites us to repentance and God's mercy is the higher power of loving regard to change our lives.  This parable can also remind us that we can be unforgiving from our areas of strength, just like the older brother in the parable.  But finally, let us know that God is merciful and forgiving and the forgiveness and mercy was expressed in the life of Jesus Christ.

   We now are ambassadors for the reality of expressed in the parable of the prodigal son.  We are ambassadors for the proclamation the reconciliation of the world to God through Jesus Christ.  We are called to be ambassadors for a loving, merciful and forgiving God. Amen.es us to repentance and God's mercy is the higher power of loving regard to change our lives.  This parable can also remind us that we can be unforgiving from our areas of strength, just like the older brother in the parable.  But finally, let us know that God is merciful and forgiving and the forgiveness and mercy was expressed in the life of Jesus Christ.

   We now are ambassadors for the reality of expressed in the parable of the prodigal son.  We are ambassadors for the proclamation the reconciliation of the world to God through Jesus Christ.  We are called to be ambassadors for a loving, merciful and forgiving God. Amen.