Meet Yourself in the Parables. (Part 1)

In the approximately 30+ days that we have recorded in the Life of Jesus we have 40 parables told. The master teacher was the Divine story teller. No matter what parable Jesus told, you are in there somewhere. Let me give you an example from the well-known story of the prodigal. The actual meaning of the word “prodigal” is recklessly wasteful, lavish, a spend thrift. Based on this definition then there are three prodigals in this story.

The first son was a waster because he wasted his father’s inheritance by lavishly spending what was not yet his by right. He took what he thought was his, all the resources that were offered to him and caste them to the wind. He wasted his opportunities and therefore wasted his life.

The second had the sin of Laodicea, ingratitude. He had everything “everything I have is yours”, but he wanted to keep it for himself, and he was not going to share. He had everything but gave nothing. Rich and increased with goods he wasted the father’s resources on himself. Through ingratitude he wasted his father’s love and thereby became a worse prodigal. The first son was cold, but he was neither cold nor hot. He was in the father’s house, but the space was wasted.

The one who attempts to keep the Commandments from a sense of obligation merely because he is required to do so will never enter the joy of obedience. The second son did not obey! True obedience is a matter of the heart not merely outward actions.

You and I are in danger of being the first or the second son (we must always meet ourselves in the parables.) We could be the prodigal in the far country of prayerless days and passionless service. We could be living each day as it comes with no thought for the future, wasting away our lives and thereby wasting away eternity and the gifts that are lavished upon us by a seemingly distant loving father.  Or we could be the second son. In the church where “everything is yours”, because you are “blessed with all spiritual blessing in Christ” Eph 1:6 but you return none of our time, talents or resources. (remember the parable of the talents – the one talent person was in the most danger).

But there is a third prodigal in the story, the one that lavishes His love on a profane, secular, wasteful, and thankless world. He is a spendthrift who gives freely and abundantly, and it seems often as if He castes His grace to the wind and wastes it on an ungrateful world. How often does it appear as if His pearls of grace are ‘caste before swine?’ Do we show our gratitude or are we worldly, full of pride and selfishness and all kinds of evil. If you think not, then remember that the worst of sins is self righteousness. Like the man in the temple who was “not like the rest,” but Jesus said was the worst because he was a self-made man who worshiped his creator.

As you struggle with the weight of all that, remember the words of Luther who said, “when I look to myself, I wonder how I could ever be saved, but when I look to Christ I wonder how I could ever be lost.” Ten looks at the wound are worth one look at the physician.