Test Driving Theology

When the ground gets shaky (and always seems to get shaky, doesn’t it?), what are the things that hold you up? What are the beliefs…the truths…that you “stand” on when life gets hard?

This is an important question.  And to get at it, we are going to start where everything has to start. Not with what we do. But with what God has already done.

I love to people-watch. I think it is fascinating! And one of my very favorite places to do it is the airport.  So many interesting people to see.  Business travelers, families, groups…you name it. 

I especially get a kick out of the arrival area down by baggage claim.  Travelers come down the escalator, come through the glass security doors, and people wait there to greet them. Those who wait are eager… excited…some are holding signs.  My favorite was when someone who was obviously a college student came down the escalator, and their Dad was holding a sign for the whole world to see that said, “Congratulations on your parole!”  The college student’s face turned bright red and she spun and tried to go right back up the escalator.  

But when a traveler comes down the escalator, you can always tell the ones who have been away a long time, because of the intensity…and the length of the hugs. 

When our son Nathan came home from his year serving in Senegal, he came through customs and down that escalator, and Lori grabbed onto him and hugged him so tight I thought she was trying to squeeze the breath right out of him.

When there is a reunion, there is always joy.  When there is a reunion, there is always joy.

Hold onto that, because in today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel, Jesus tells a story about this exact sort of thing.

A man has two sons. The younger one walks up and says, I would like my half of the inheritance now. In that culture, at that time, for a son to say to his father that he’d like his share now was the equivalent of saying “I wish you were dead…right now.” Any reasonable father throws this kid out on his ear. But this father? He has a different take. He divides his property and lets the son go.

You know how this comes out, right? The money evaporates. It is wasted. Then a famine hits, because of course it does, and our guy ends up feeding pigs, which for a nice Jewish boy is rock bottom…as low as you could go. In a few days, this kid is hungry enough to eye the pig slop like a lunch buffet.  He gives up, and begins walking home.

And somewhere between that pig pen and home, he starts writing this speech in his head.

You know the speech. You may have even written the speech. It is the one you rehearse in the car, out loud, at every stoplight, on the way to a conversation you would rather not have. The son rehearses: “Father, I have sinned; I am not worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”

Catch what he is doing here. He is not asking to come home. He is applying for a job. He figures the best he can get is a spot on the payroll, earning his way back an inch at a time.

But he never gets to make his speech.

Because while he was still a long way off, his father spots him, is filled with compassion, and he runs. He runs full speed right at his son. Arms open wide.

Theologian Dr. Kenneth Bailey, wrote that in that culture, a man of that age and social standing simply did not run. Running meant gathering up your robe and hiking it up around your knees in front of the whole village. It was not considered dignified or respectable.  It was not socially ok. It was the kind of thing the village would gossip about for a month.

But this father…he did it anyway.

And notice, the father saw his son while he was still far off. You do not spot somebody at that distance unless you have been looking for them…unless you’ve been watching that road a long time. 

The father hugs the kid…so tightly it’s like he’s trying to squeeze the breath right out of him…When he finally lets go, the kid gets about a sentence and a half into his prepared apology before his father cuts him off to call the caterer.

No punishment. No probation. No repayment plan. A “welcome home” party. A robe, a ring, sandals, and a fattened calf.  

Now I want to fast-forward in time, to a little over 500 years ago. In the early 1500s, a young monk in Germany could not get his head wrapped around this story, and it nearly destroyed him.

Martin Luther was an outstanding student of theology. He was brilliant and focused. He was intense: he fasted until he was gaunt. He confessed for hours at a stretch, digging through his own soul for anything he might have missed, so relentlessly that his pastor, Johann von Staupitz, finally lost patience and told him, essentially, “if you expect Christ to forgive you, come in with something worth forgiving, something big…instead of all these little nothings.”

Luther was doing everything the system asked, and more. And he was miserable, because he always felt like he wasn’t enough…like there was always one more thing he was supposed to be doing.

Then he read the writings of the apostle Paul, and everything cracked open. In May of 1518, in front of a room full of unimpressed academics at Heidelberg, Luther said it out loud:

“The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it.”

In plain English, Luther is saying that as humans, our love goes shopping. We look around, find what already looks worth loving, and we love that. But God…God does not shop. God creates the lovable thing simply by loving it.

You see, the father didn’t run down that road because the boy had cleaned himself up and earned his forgiveness.  The father ran…because that is simply who this father was.

And God does not forgive you and welcome you back because you finally worked hard enough and got your act together. No, God welcomes you back simply because that is who God is.

Paul says it flat out to the Ephesians. You were dead in sin. Not underperforming. Not a fixer-upper. Dead. And then come the two best words in the whole New Testament.

But God. But God.

But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you have been saved, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast.

But God…by grace alone. By grace…alone. That is the base…that is the foundation. That is the ground we all stand on…the ground that you stand on, and everything else in our lives…and our faith… gets built on top of it.

Now, before anybody gets too comfortable, there is a second son in this story, and I suspect more of us identify with him than we would like to admit.

He is out in the field, faithfully doing his job, like always. He comes in, hears a band playing for the brother who torched the family savings, and he refuses to walk through the door. “I have slaved for you all these years,” he says to his father, “and you have never even given me a young goat.”

He is not wrong about the facts. His attendance was perfect. His work ethic was impeccable. But he is dead wrong about the way he has been keeping score.

If we’re honest, we do it too. We keep a private ledger. If we work hard enough…if we have attend church enough Sundays, if we volunteer enough hours…well, surely that adds up to something…right? 

Friends, it does not add up to anything, because you cannot earn a gift. The tragedy of the older brother is not that he was left out. It is that he stood in the yard doing the math while a party was going on for his brother.

But Paul has more to say. He says that by grace, God created us in Christ Jesus to do good works, and this is to be our way of life. Notice the order. God’s grace…and then our good works.  God’s grace…and then our good works. Good works are not the price of admission. Good works are what forgiven and free people do once they have stopped being afraid.

So yes, go ahead and do the good works. Teach in Trinity Kids. Sing in the choir. Serve the meal. Care for the sick.  But be clear. You’re not doing these things “to get in.” You are already in. You do them because the party is already going, and you get to be part of it.

Whatever speech you have been rehearsing? Asking God to take you back? You can let it go. You are not going to get through the whole thing anyway.

Because God, your Father, has been watching for you on that road a long time. And he has already hitched up his robe and is running…arms wide open…right at you. 

This is grace. And this is what we stand on.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.