B.W. I'm terribly sorry to hear the news and hope that you and your family have increased strength in this time, as well as ever growing faith that despite the sad and even painful episodes of this life, in the grand scheme of things we're all in good hands.
I also haven't been able to get back here much in recent weeks. I won't get ahead of your opportunity to post, we don't have to be speed demons in figuring out these interesting concepts. Whenever you want to get back to the topic, that's fine, I get these email reminders about the new posts and will come back.
In the meantime, Locker, I'll at least give my answer to a question you asked me before, and it also gets into what you just asked in your last post. How things seem from my perspective, at least. Maybe you can share your view as well (in your spare time between eating chicken soup and getting plenty of rest
).
Locker wrote:Cook - how do you view God's love?
I said a few posts ago on 12/18 that I had another thought about the parable of the prodigal son, and afterwards I didn't have a chance to write about it. Also it was maybe an observation that was not relevant to how the thread was going at the time. But it answers the question you asked, so I'll offer this other thought that came to me.
In Luke 15:11-32 Jesus tells us the story. The aspect of it I think that most gets our attention is how this lost son, despite his severe errors and his wasteful squanderings, is lovingly received by the Father beyond all expectations. The Father is overjoyed to have the son back safely. I think many of us can identify with the lost son, and the parable is a much appreciated source of hope and encouragement. Maybe we haven't messed up as badly as the prodigal son did, but we're no angels, and it is reassuring to know that the Father is on our side even when we have made mistakes and don't feel like we deserve his affection.
How do I view God's love? I view God's love as Fatherly.
But I can say that and still it is not a sufficient answer quite. The second half of the parable is a strange one but holds an important lesson in my view. We are told about the dutiful son's reaction to this display of the father's love -- the son is completely confused and angry! His reaction to his father is, to paraphrase: "I've be working my fingers to the bone for you! Whatever you say, I do. You say jump, I say 'how high.' And for what? When have you thrown a party for me? Now my dumb brother who partied and spent all his inheritance on whores has come back and you throw
him a party!?!"
I am sympathetic to this other brother's confusion.
What I note is that though the brother is dutiful he has made the same error as the prodigal son. The prodigal son reasoned to himself as he was starving, before coming back home, "My father has servants who do better than this. I'll go back and tell him, 'Dad, I'm not worthy of being your son anymore. Just let me be like one of your servants.'" He repented and came back. And he was entirely unprepared for the father's reaction because he had not realized the true depth of fatherly love.
The dutiful brother also is thinking in terms of what is right and wrong, what is "fair", what is the appropriate judgment that should be rendered on the prodigal son, since he also does not fully appreciate the depth and true significance of the Father's love.
How do I view God's love? I view it as Fatherly, but since we are likely mere babes and children before him spiritually, how are we able to fully grasp the significance and true extent of His affection? When we are kids we sometimes see our good parents on earth here as stern and angry, not penetrating that they are angry, for instance, when we run across the street without looking both ways not in a way that a judge or cop would view a jaywalker but from far-sighted parental love. How in the world can finite little bits of dust like us ever hope to come to a full understanding of the infinite and eternal Father in this life?
I do not know the answer, and I am wary about those who think that they do. I'm wary when people say this or that judgment is a requirement, especially judgments of eternal torture, because this is the talk of the dutiful son. Here is the supreme wisdom, in my view, when the Light of the World taught us, "Judge not." I have a viewpoint that this pronouncement is very much for our good because when we judge we demarcate the limits of our understanding of love and mercy and not God's actual limits. Some will point to old verses about such and such a judgment being necessary or this or that apostle's pronouncement but I go by the words of the Light of the World with this and I leave the judgment to God. Not because of permissiveness but because my heart and mind and soul sees in the temptation to judge a temptation to presume to think I know the limits of the Father's love. Instead I return constantly to the supreme commandment from the Son of God and it is to love others as he loved people, even our enemies and those who curse us.
I think humankind has long engaged in the struggle to understand the real nature of God. I think sometimes people have prematurely claimed to have found the limits of the Father's love and one way this manifests is in their declarations of how the divine and eternal God judges. But they are not divine, not eternal, not the Father.
I say I don't know the answer about what are the limits of God's love but I find the clearest example of the Father's love in the life and in the teachings of his Son Jesus, the true vine, the good shepherd. He who has seen the Son has seen the Father.
The thought I had about the story of the prodigal son is that I could imagine the insertion of Jesus as a third son into the story. Not that he is our equal, but that he is a pattern for what a good son does, and what we must strive to become, even in this dark world. A good son knows the father perfectly and loves his brothers with a full affection as does the father. When the prodigal son presumes to foolishly leave and take his inheritance, the divine son also asks for his inheritance that he might spend it all in a search for the lost brother, in service toward the Father's will that "none should perish." And the Father so loves the world that he sends his son into the world to search for the lost.
The divine son even journeys through the same foreign lands and temptations that the lost son has journeyed through and succumbed to, but the faith of the divine son is perfect, and in all ways he is tested, even as the prodigal sons are tested, but in the end he is able to "conquer this world" and he becomes the living way, truth, and the life through his perfect life and love and his service. His way is to love the Father with all your heart, your mind, and your soul, and to love your neighbors as yourself. And in the completion of his life work and the fullness of his search, he even is willing to provide the ultimate service and act of love for even the lost children of his Father who are in darkness and the foreign land. He even is willing to give his life to bring light to those in darkness.
When this light is brought before the prodigal son, that imperfect son still must muster his faith that Jesus is a correct representation of the Father's love. The divine Son does not coerce and in all his efforts only can ultimately "knock" and delight that the prodigal sons answer and repent and come back to the Father. Unlike the parable, to extend things in this modified version, the prodigal son is still is in the foreign land and on accepting the light of the divine Son, on being born of the spirit, there is also a realization that others in the land are also without light and like the divine Son he has to labor in the foreign land before going to the Father. And this labor is one of service and of becoming a light to those in darkness.
Meanwhile the dutiful son is back at the ranch, what is his reaction when it comes to the realization of what the divine Son has dared to do? Not to only stick to what is personally safe but to put all inheritance on the line in the difficult search for the lost brother. Even to give His life itself for the search of the wasteful and fallen brother. The dutiful son also must repent and come to realize that his self-righteousness is not of the Father but of his own imperfect view of justice that is developed in an imperfect comprehension of love, mercy, and far-sighted understanding. The divine Son is a challenge to both the prodigal son and the dutiful son. The dutiful sons must be able to forgive and put aside personal conjectures and anger about judgment for selfless service instead and growth in a realization of the Father's true love.
Locker, you ask, "does God's love mean unbridled tolerance and acceptance?" ... And you also made a comment before about "not being too much like doormats".
I can only offer my personal perspective on this and think everybody is responsible for their own actions before God, each person has to arrive at their conclusion as best they can. I always err on being more tolerant and on forgiving others rather than judging and condemning. I consider God looking at me as a part of his family and so am compelled to see others in this way also -- consider others as in His family, even if lost or in darkness -- and not a judicial governmental way. I have further to go in getting better in this practice, it is tricky and not easy, but what I notice is that others to me now seem like they pull back on tolerance much too quickly. Often it is not for what I consider good reasons, but mainly because they personally don't want to be "made a fool". It is impossible to be "made a fool" if you accept by faith the dignity of being in God's family. In being passed a bitter cup by unthinking and unbelieving other people, prayer is the same as Jesus' in Gethsemane, "Not my will, but Your will be done", and trust and faith in the divine Son's teachings to us to return good for evil, be a light. And often I consider how trivial my ego and so forth is compared to the pattern of Jesus, that good Son who even submitted to the rankest injustices and humiliations without complaint, even death, with love toward his enemies until the end.
