Читать книгу Nail Scarred Hands Made New - John Shorack - Страница 10

Imagine the father’s sorrow as he looks down the road day after day, waiting for his “son that was dead” to return. Grief over his son’s foolish heart keeps him awake and vigilant. Though overcome with joy enough to throw a party when the son comes home, his grief continues. He laments his older son’s refusal to join the celebration.

Before Caligallo was killed, I knew his days were numbered. My grieving had already begun. After he was gone, my compassion for Caligallo translated into sorrow for my neighbors. Their exuberance at the news of his elimination stabbed me in the heart.

I can imagine the father’s sorrow also peaking, like Ryan’s and mine, at the likely comments from the incredulous townspeople. “What on earth’s going on?” “I can’t believe what I’m seeing!” “How could a father do such a thing?” “What a disgrace!” “What that boy needs is a good spanking!”

The dad in the parable is wealthy, a man of dignity and respect in his village. Imagine the son’s entry into town. Typical of that time was an affluent core where the wealthy homes stood. Men of such stature wore robes down to their ankles. They moved gracefully in keeping with their social position. To run to his son, the prodigal’s father gathers up his robe, exposing his legs as he runs. This creates a scene that humiliates him before the neighbors. Yet his compassion compels him to gladly suffer public ridicule for his returning son.

Though nothing I experienced compares to the father’s humiliating act, I felt foolish and was treated as naive for pursuing friendship with a criminal. After Caligallo’s death, Ryan and I made attempts at defending Caligallo as a human being and God’s love as being big enough to reach such a “bad guy.” Neighbors wrote us off as out of touch with the real world. In a small way we shared in Caligallo’s humiliation.

Corrie’s joy in the hospital, though nothing like the father’s, was still remarkable. She exuded a gladness that welled up in her as praise and thanksgiving for a lost child of God who received her forgiving presence. As Corrie honestly reported, this joy came only after overcoming her fears. True love risks stepping out as the father does, running and embracing first without knowing how such a lavish display of compassion will be received.

We can imagine the villagers knowing of the son’s dishonorable departure. The young man’s reputation is in the mud. The shame attached to his disgraceful request is unimaginable. Such a step is unheard of and irreparable. His father’s careful eye on the road reflects a genuine concern that if his boy reaches the village and is recognized, the people may ridicule if not assault him.

As they stand together in the road, reuniting and restoring that which was broken, the young man no longer fears the hostile townspeople and their rejection. His dad’s overwhelming display of approval powerfully disarms the onlookers.

All the younger son hopes for, in his own words, is a measure of compassion from his father: “Treat me like one of your hired hands.” Jesus’ hearers no doubt resonate with this prospect. They, like many of us, would reason, “Yes, let the boy first acknowledge his guilt and then regain his father’s good graces as a hired hand.” The villagers will surely want to cut the young man off from community life, believing that the father, at best, might relent enough to allow him to work on his estate. They likely envision the father’s response to the approaching son as one of disgust and anger. But that’s not what happens.

Remember Corrie’s ring? He held my hand, the same hand from which he tried to rip my promise ring. Yet because God is good, there we were again. With a glance I could tell him that he is forgiven. Remember Ryan’s poster? He gave it to Caligallo with the words, I know you take things from others. But this is something that I want to give you. It symbolizes all the good gifts that the God who loves you wants to give you without you having to steal them.

Ryan and Corrie tapped into the beauty of the parable’s father. They acted like the forgiving dad, who freely gives the wandering heartbreaker what he has taken. By asking for his share of the father’s estate, the son wishes his dad’s death. He takes his dad’s life. Remarkably, the father says “yes,” giving him what he asks for. Upon the son’s return, his dad’s hug, not unlike Corrie’s extended hand with the promise ring or Ryan’s unmerited gift to one who had stolen, boldly declares to the son, “Here! I give you—freely and, yes, costly—more than the inheritance you wrongfully took from me. I give you my love, my trust—my very self!”

With Corrie, Caligallo received more than the ring. He received a hand—a hand extended in forgiveness, love, and trust. With Ryan, Caligallo received genuine forgiveness for wrongs committed and acknowledged: I know you steal, because that is what life has come to. The father too knows his son’s follies. He doesn’t sweep his wayward ways under the rug as if they never happened. He knows that what the son needs is a gift greater than his sin.

Calvary Love Revisited

How can a father be so happy in forgiving a scoundrel like that? Yet could this be what God in Christ did at Calvary? “God demonstrates his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom 5:8). What a foolish God we have! While we were still street thugs, uppity religious snobs, and well-intentioned but misguided crusading believers—so unworthy of mercy—God surprised us by suffering the humiliation of a Roman cross for us.

If my neighbors are right, this means that God is out of touch with the real world. Does the father wait to see if his youngest child has repented before starting to run? Before taking him in his arms? Before showering him with kisses?

No. The father forgives the younger son before the boy confesses his sins. Dad initiates. He opens his arms in an unexpected act of forgiveness and reconciliation. The son simply falls into them. His repentance doesn’t open the dad’s arms. According to Kenneth Bailey, even this gives the son too much credit.1

Bailey believes that, according to the text, the son’s reason for going home is to fill his empty stomach, not to reconcile with his father. The phrase that he “came to his senses” is more accurately rendered, “the son returned to himself.” In other words, he realizes a way to save himself from his predicament. He crafts a speech to manipulate, not to repent. It resembles Pharaoh’s speech to placate Moses to stop the plagues. The son doesn’t ask to become a slave; he wants to become a worker so that he can repay his own way. In this condition the son starts his journey back to the father—with dirty rags and a contrived speech.

What a foolish dad! According to my instincts as a father who wants to raise sound children, the father’s behavior smacks of poor judgment and irresponsibility. Don’t I first confirm that my gestures of reconciliation will be received, that my efforts to make things right will be reciprocated? Contrary to such logic, the father in Jesus’ parable believes his love will be enough. His forgiveness will transform.

Scripture supports this view of God’s work on Calvary. Hebrews 9:26 states, “He has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to do away with sin by the sacrifice of himself.” The reference to sin in this text doesn’t highlight my sin and yours so much as the big problem of sin: that of humanity’s. God, in Christ, did away with the sin that separates us from God. This brings to mind John the Baptist’s declaration upon seeing God’s anointed one, “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

God’s Shalom

The father in the story stands with the restored younger son, taking the verbal abuse upon himself, yet without turning his back on the older son. There’s not a shade of dispassion or neutrality on the father’s part. He stands with one while moving toward and calling the other. His loving action toward one never compromises his obvious love for the other.

In the father’s love for both sons, witnessed first in his running out to the younger one then in his stepping out from the party to plead with the older, we are endowed with a breathtaking glimpse into the vastness of God’s nature. With the former, he embraces the one who wills his death for selfish gain. With the latter, he initiates reconciliation with the one who, in self-righteous decency, tries to destroy the restoration of the family by insulting his dad with public ridicule. This provides a beautiful window into God’s covenant faithfulness, a snapshot of God’s righteous, saving actions that restore us to the shalom for which we were created.

A Small Sign of God’s Big Shalom

Caligallo held up my friend José at gunpoint. While his buddy held the gun to José’s head, Caligallo took my friend’s shoes. A few days later, José told me about the incident. I was struck by the shame he felt walking home barefoot through the web of slum homes where nothing happens covertly. From José I learned how hard it is for a moderately macho man who follows Jesus to consider alternatives to plain and simple revenge.

Let me be clear. We need to reach the Caligallos of the world. Yet we must also reach the “decent” people with the gospel of the pleading father. Without a church that renounces the absolutizing of Christian decency and uprightness over against the unworthiness and badness of the Caligallos, we won’t see God’s kingdom come or his will done.

Consider this passage from Jesus’ most famous sermon (Matt 5:43–48):

You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? . . . Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Verses 43 and 48 are clearly linked in Jesus’ train of thought. Our heavenly Father’s perfection is his divine capacity to love those who oppose him. Yet to pursue reconciliation with my offender in imitation of the Great Lover requires a conversion of the heart.

After Caligallo stole his shoes, I discussed and prayed with José about God’s love for Caligallo. Later, I found out that he went to his offender and gave him fruit as a gesture of good will. José also asked for his shoes back. His request was denied.

What enabled José to approach the unapproachable Caligallo with a peace offering instead of a pistol? In conversations with him before his bold act, José was honest about his struggle. He didn’t brush over the conflict as if it were nothing. It was extremely difficult for him to view Caligallo with anything other than harsh judgment and condemnation. I don’t believe José felt anything close to compassion toward his enemy. He more or less accepted the idea that God could view Caligallo with mercy.

Thin as this foundation felt to him, José was open to new perspectives as we talked through the situation. Contrary to his instincts, and even a bit begrudgingly, he was willing to treat his assailant as a person with a name. To come in peace would require this. Finally, José took a risk that looked foolish to others. By stepping out in unexpected vulnerability, he granted Caligallo the chance to respond in kind with perhaps a surprising word or gesture that could make reconciliation a possibility. What happened in actuality was closer to a truce.

More important lythan the results or lack of them was the faith that José exercised. His modest step represented a movement in the spirit of Jesus’ primacy over the absolutizing of good and bad people. As the “older son,” he reached out to the “younger son,” though hesitantly and cautiously. I can’t say that José went into the party. Yet his initial move in that direction can be affirmed as a hopeful sign of God’s shalom through the breaking down of dividing walls.

Resistible Shalom

This movement—first to the street to receive the wayward younger son, then to the older son who remained outside the party—is powerfully demonstrated by Jesus who “suffered outside the city gate” (Heb 13:12). On the cross, God’s act of unexpected vulnerability and surprising forgiveness echoes the heart of the running and pleading father. For God’s peace/shalom is incomplete without both expressions of his compassion.

Curiously, the writer of Hebrews takes this next step: “Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore” (13:13). This is a hard step for us to take, one we resist. We don’t want to follow Jesus “outside the camp” as a “cursed one” or an “unclean one” (Gal 3:13; Lev. 13:45–46). This is when being “in Christ” is the last thing we want.

The dilemma we face as the elder sibling is not only estrangement from our adversary (“this son of yours”). Our rejection is more fundamentally a rejection of God’s lordship (the father’s authority), evidenced in our refusal to reconcile with those we’re at odds with. We don’t want to celebrate together as family.

In the parable, the father demonstrates his authority by bearing the shame of the younger son in such a way that blindness is exposed, prejudices revealed, and self-interests laid bare. With the words “this brother of yours,” the dad exposes his firstborn’s true heart while reasserting his authority to define the relationships. Then, in the heat of the moment with emotions running high, the father’s shockingly tender response to the older son’s abusive treatment shakes his hearers to the core: “my dear son.”

The elder sibling tries to redefine the relationships by taking himself out of the family equation. The father then exercises a loving, mature authority without shaming the son for his insolent behavior. He simply reasserts the true nature of the family.

God’s vision of restored humanity requires more than converting the masses that, like the younger son, know they are in trouble and need restoration. What the Bible describes variously as shalom/peace, justice, the new man/humanity, or new creation remains incomplete without restoring the decent, law-abiding, proud ones, too. Nobody gets left out of this kingdom equation.

Yet this doesn’t come without a cost. I liken it to a holy clash with the Almighty. In biblical terms, this offense is called a “stumbling block.” The father and his two sons embody this divine conflict.

This, of course, leads us to Jesus, the storyteller himself. For he is the one to whom the parable points and whose mission it portrays.

1. Bailey, “Four Misconceptions.”