The story never ends when the curtain falls, when the credits roll, or when the final page is turned. This is something I often think about with my favorite stories, whether it's a film that especially moved me or a book that kept me entranced from cover to cover. Whatever happens after that final scene or page, however, we can only trust to our imaginations.
A few weeks ago in church, our pastor asked us to consider the story of the Prodigal Son from the book of Luke. It ends with the father rebuking his elder son for being upset at the celebration for the younger son's return. The father urges him to embrace his brother because he was once dead to them but now is alive. The question I have is, did the older brother ultimately accept his father's decision? Whatever jealousies or grudges remained after that point, we don't know; we can only wonder. Pastor asked us, what if the prodigal son had met his older brother on the road home?
The older brother erred in that he was being judgmental; the younger brother had sloughed off responsibility, loyalty, and sacrifice in order to live a hedonistic lifestyle. When the money ran out, and along with it the fickle friends that come with money, he had nowhere to go but home. He truly had been lost and now is found, but the older brother judges him for his choices. The father asks him not to question his warm welcome of the prodigal son, but to accept that his younger brother has returned and is safe. Too many Christians act like the older brother in this parable. They judge. Some people make their mistakes and lead lives that are apart from Christ. Who are we to question them when they finally do find Christ? The important thing is that they have found Christ.
Many people get their only exposure to Christ when they spend a small part of their Sundays in church. What good does it do for them to enter hostile territory? If they want into the sanctuary to face a crowd of people who feel superior to them, it truly becomes hostile territory. I know how I feel when I’ve missed church for a few weeks; I feel nervous, guilty that I hadn’t been there. I know that I won’t be judged by my church family -- because they are my family and they know me. We wouldn’t want to scare away new members, new brothers and sisters, by judging them on their attendance.
As a church, it should be our goal to help these people find Christ outside of church. Pastor talked about various people with their spiritual gifts. He quoted the famous Southern Baptist leader Adrian Rogers: "Spiritual gifts are not toys but tools, not for your enjoyment but for your employment." This is a comment that brought me to a point where I was sitting in church remembering a certain piece of literature from my college days.
When I think about the story of the Prodigal Son and about the idea of spiritual gifts, my mind immediately darts to the beginning of Book VII of Plato's The Republic ‑‑ the famous "Allegory of the Cave." I remember reading about the men and women who live in the cave, the few who escape and see the true forms of reality, and the idea of the philosopher king. Something has to occur in order for the prisoners to escape the cave, yet we rarely know what that thing actually is. Once Plato’s philosopher king does escape the cave, where does the story go from there? Plato tells us how he is obligated to return, but one could easily understand him remaining outside to bask in the sunlight. In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, Guy Montag says, "Maybe books can get us half out of the cave." It is books in Bradbury’s fictional world and it is the love of Christ in our world that bring us into the light of salvation. There’s now the question of who chooses to answer the calling of Christ and then there’s the question of when they should answer it. Some people have embraced Christ from an early age, while others have do so in their later years, and even still others have found Him, rejected Him, and then rediscovered him. People leave the cave at a young age, and they leave at an old age. They leave the cave, return half-way, leave again, and engage in a yo-yo cave experience.
What if one person spends his whole life making sacrifices so that he may lead a Christian life while another person leads a life of sin only to find Christ much later than the first one found Him? Would it not be fair? Well, as my old Pappy used to say, “Life’s not fair.” I don’t think that Christ was ever about fairness. All too often, fairness involves blanket considerations for a mass of people. Fairness negates the worth of the individual. When love is involved, rarely should fairness come into play. It's not up to us to make judgment on those who have chosen to follow Him. The important thing is that they have found Christ in their lives.
The strength of prayer and the dedication to Christ contains a certain parallel to things I’ve seen during wrestling practice. A regular drill I employ at practice is having the wrestlers do push‑ups to failure. I don’t count for them, it’s not on my call that they go up or down, and I don’t walk around making them re-do poorly executed push-ups. Some kids do ten push‑ups over the span of a minute while others do push‑ups for ten minutes straight. Some yell and grunt loudly, while others can only be heard making the slightest noises as they exhale or inhale sharply. As a coach, could I possibly compare little Johnny with little Jimmy? No, I cannot, but things do balance out in the long run. One boy may be strong enough to do push‑ups galore while another may be swift and well-conditioned and thereby excel at running sprints. The dedicated athlete will recognize where he is strong and capitalize on it. He will also work to improve on his weaknesses. The dedicated Christian will do likewise. He will recognize his weaknesses and seek to improve them while at the same time he will seek to make use of his strengths.
James 3:6 reads, "The tongue is also a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body." A snarky or judgmental comment can breed a host of hateful or hurt feelings. For a coach to compare two athletes, he would only be setting the boys up for failure. He wouldn’t be looking at the bigger picture, nor would he be respecting the athletes as individuals with merit. For a Christian to judge a fellow Christian is to start a fire with his tongue. It begets a fire that consumes and chars and melts away the hope and love that Christ has given us. The older brother could have drastically changed things had he encountered his younger brother on the road home. Had he been able to speak freely, and without censure from the father, who knows what would have happened with the Prodigal Son. The philosopher king of Plato's allegory could have failed miserably by remaining out in the sun, basking in all of the reality he had previously been denied, but it was his moral duty to re-enter the cave and “partake of [the prisoners’] labors and honors, whether they are worth having or not”. Essentially, he needs to re‑enter the cave to employ, rather than enjoy, his spiritual gifts.
Pastor illustrated his point by talking about Christians being like bricks. A brick by itself can be kicked around; a stack of bricks can be knocked over; a wall of bricks sealed with mortar is strong. But what provides this mortar? It could be the father’s joy at seeing his once-lost son returned, or it could be the moral obligation of the philosopher king to return to his brethren, or it could simply be the love and trust we put into one another.
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