The Elder Brother II

“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” – Luke 19.10

It is very difficult, if you are in the class of people whom society would likely term (even moderately) ‘successful,’ ‘intelligent,’ or ‘morally upright,’ to read the story of the Prodigal Son without feeling some measure of indignation at the father’s treatment of the Elder Brother. We feel that he was treated unfairly; that he was, as so often happens in families when one child screws up and the other sucks it up, overworked and underappreciated; and we shake our heads knowingly and mutter something about how “such people” (by which of course we mean, ourselves) are always getting the short end of the stick.

And yet our very act of commiseration tacitly reveals and confirms our guilt. Those, like myself, who at first glance read the story of the Elder Brother only to find themselves overcome with a sense of vicarious self-righteous anger must recognize the smoke and follow it to the fire: for the fire is fueled by our belief that we are good, that we have proven our goodness by our actions, and that these actions entitle us to a certain standard of treatment. In this our hearts are exposed as Pharisaical, brimming with pride and self-righteousness.

We have not only failed to grasp the meaning of the Cross, but our need for it. Our faith, however sincere, is largely misguided, being built on an improper foundation (Luke 6.46-49).

Whereas the Prodigal is a personification of Immoral Man, the Elder Brother personifies the Moral or Religious person. Each is in error, each has ‘turned to his own way’ and, apart from the divine intervention of a gracious father, each is headed for an eternity separated from him.

Whereas the prodigal is preoccupied with gratifying the needs of his flesh, the Elder Brother is preoccupied with gratifying his own ego. He is out to prove his own goodness or rightness before his father and as a result becomes obsessed with his sense of what he believes is owed him – namely, his father’s recognition and his father’s things.

What is more, he is oriented toward obeying a set of rules and performing to meet a set of standards, rather than cultivating a relationship with his father. As a result, he is filled with a sense of entitlement: 'Look! For so many years I have been serving you and…{yet} you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends; but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.' When he does not get what he believes he deserves, he is filled with malice and self-pity.

The Elder Brother simultaneously demonstrates his hubris – for who but Christ can justly say to his father, ‘I have never neglected a command of yours?” – as well as his total failure to comprehend that the primary means of acceptance in any relationship is grace and not works. Because of this failure, the Elder Brother proves incapable of genuine love and compassion, toward his brother or anyone else. He is too busy judging the failures of others to realize his own (Romans 2.1).

But perhaps the primary difference between the Prodigal and his Elder Brother is their varying levels of self-awareness. The first ultimately apprehends that he is lost and returns to his father begging mercy; the other, as far as we know, remains entrenched in his own false perceptions of himself and by the end of the story has drifted further astray than when we first met him. In the end, he is more to be pitied.

Certainly, the abruptness with which Christ ends the story - relaying the earnest Father's appeal without mention of the Elder Brother's response - is meant to serve as a kind of stimulus. Perhaps we are meant to finish and act out the ending in our own lives.

How will we respond? Will we allow ourselves to be truly converted, or will we harden our hearts, to God and men?

A God Worth Fearing

“And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.” – Exodus 1.21

David and Solomon understood that: “The fear of the LORD [is] the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 1.7). Thus one of the most obvious indicators that a man is lost is his total absence of any fear of God. In his condemnation of all men, Paul uses the words of David as a proof: “There is no fear of God before there eyes” (Rom. 3.18).

The fear of God is critical to being rightly related to Him. To fear God is not merely, as our society would like to think, to display reverence – though of course we should conduct ourselves reverently in His presence. God is awesome and should therefore inspire awe. However, to fear God also and more precisely means exactly what it says: to be stricken with fear or terror, exceedingly frightened, terrified.

When Christ was transfigured before Peter, James, and John, the Scriptures tell us that “they were terrified” (Mark 9.4). Peter was so filled with fear that he began to mumble nonsensically. Similarly, when the disciples saw the wind die down in response to Christ’s direct order “they became very much afraid” (Mark 4.41). Both words – “terrified” and “afraid” – come from the same Greek root, phobos, from which is derived the English word phobia. It literally means “to be struck with fear or to be seized with alarm.”

But objects of fear are also sources of hope. All human beings tend to display fear toward those persons or thing in which they also invest hope. For example, I may fear for the safety of my child because I also hope in her future well-being. My husband may fear his employer because he hopes the man will one day grant him a raise. In this sense, fear and hope are conversely related; the more I fear X, the more my hope is in X.

But if I am rightly related to God I fear nothing and no one but Him because I hope in nothing and no one but Him. In Christ we are liberated from the fear of “those who kill the body and after that can do no more” (Luke 4.3). Instead, as Luke instructs, “Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him” (Luke 4.4). It is to God, not man, before whom we will one day give an account; and whatever praise we receive will come from Him. Thus we also hope in Him, believing that He alone – through Christ – is capable of offering us salvation from Hell and grace to help in time of need (Heb. 4).

The Egyptian midwives demonstrated this kind of fear; and God rewarded them for it. They protected the Hebrew women at their own risk because they feared God more than Pharoah. Those who truly possess a fear of God will often demonstrate this kind of courage because they know either explicitly (via God’s word) or implicitly (through the work of the Holy Spirit) that only God is worth fearing.

The Abolition of Fear

"To those who reside as aliens…who are chosen…to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood...” --1 Peter 1-2

To those who are chosen. To do what? To obey. And to be sprinkled with His blood. This is well worth repeating because it sheds profound light on the vocational purpose of those who would identify themselves as Christians. We devote exorbitant amounts of time and energy to talk of vocation, and of finding one’s purpose, without recognizing that the predominant part of our purpose on earth, our raison d’etre, so to speak, is simply to obey Christ and to live as marked men and women in a world that is perishing.

Peter goes on throughout his epistle to highlight the various ways in which Christians are called to demonstrate their allegiance to Christ by submitting to earthly authorities: citizens to governments, servants to masters, wives to husbands, and young men to elder men. The application may differ depending on one’s station in life, but the essential call is the same for all people: obedience to Christ displayed through obedience to authority, even when that authority is unreasonable.

Lest there be any confusion about this, Peter states very clearly: “…this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly’ (2.19). He goes on, “For you have been called for this purpose, since Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example for you to follow in His steps” (2.21).

We do not submit because we feel like it; in fact, if submission corresponded with our natural inclination it would not be submission at all but preference. Neither do we submit because we are convinced that, in doing so, we will achieve the particular outcome we think best at the time.

We submit because we believe that the best things emerge from obedience. Just look at the Cross and all it accomplished. Every single act of obedience, however small, is a profound demonstration, an overt testament of our belief that God’s way is the best way, that His ‘good’ is the only good worth having, and His ‘freedom’ the only kind that truly makes us free.

“Sarah obeyed Abraham and called him her lord;” but just because she called him lord does not mean that she mistook him for the Lord. Sarah’s hope was in God just as Christ’s hope was in God. She knew, just as Christ did, that obedience to any earthly authority – in this case, her husband – could only work in her favor. Perhaps preempting the words of the Psalmist, “This I know that God is for me,” Sarah, when threatened by Hagar, called upon God to be her advocate, not Abraham. She knew that no man, not even her husband, could thwart His purposes for her as long as she remained submitted to Him.

When in faith we obediently submit to the leadership of any earthly authority it requires us, at a certain point, to confront our deepest fears. But if we remember the words of God – “Do not fear…I am a shield to you; your reward shall be very great” – we will prove ourselves master over them.

Making History

“…Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.” – 1 Peter 3.6

What sort of children are Sarah’s? They are those who “do what is right without being frightened by any fear;” in this context, they are submissive to their husbands. For the modern woman, this is a bitter pill which slides crookedly down the throat, if it slides down at all. If, however, we choose to place ourselves in the category of those who choose to submit, we can expect to face adversity, both within and outside ourselves. But it is imperative to remember that all Christians, regardless of sex, are called to submission, even when doing so results in suffering, not vainly, but in order that we may “obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled…reserved in heaven for [us]” (1 Pet.1.4).

The same Peter who wrote these words stepped out of His boat and – contrary to reason and instinct – walked on water in obedience to Christ’s bidding (Matt.14.29). Like so many before him, Peter understood that believing God means obeying Him, regardless of cost. He learned from experience that when we obey God we may be assured of two things: 1) we will suffer; 2) we will be afraid. When we choose to obey God by submitting to those in authority over us we are filled with a sense of unease. Call it anxiety, nervousness, or apprehension, the root of the emotion is the same: we are afraid.

Sarah’s life demonstrates this principle. She began her marriage by following a man who admittedly “did not know where he was going.” Twice he asked her to enter the household of King Abimelech; she went (for all we know) willingly – with no assurance as to whether she would be left unharmed. Later, weary from Hagar and Ishmael’s mocking, she did not demand that Abraham comply with her wishes and expel the pair, but insisted that God act as judge an arbiter between them. Lastly – and perhaps most tellingly – Sarah watched her only child, the son of promise, the boy for whom she had waited so many years, depart with Abraham to Mt. Moriah to offer sacrifices with only a saddled donkey and a thatch of split wood. We cannot help but wonder whether she knew what word God had spoken to Abraham to test him by commanding him to offer up Isaac as a sacrifice? Certainly, if anyone understood that submission is frightening, Sarah did!

The history of Christianity is filled with such persons, flawed persons without knowledge of the future, yet standing up against extraordinary odds, all because they believed God enough to put themselves at risk in order to obey Him. Moses stood before a hard-hearted Pharoah; Esther risked her head by entering the court of the dreaded King Ahasuerus; and David, full of passionate zeal for God, fought the giant Goliath and endured persecution under the voluble king Saul. None of these people were perfect; but all were obedient. It is worth considering that we might not know their names if they had said, ‘no’ or ‘I will not,’ to God. The landscape of biblical history would be just as variant and rich, but it would be peopled with other names and stories.

God does not need us to accomplish His purposes; but in His goodness He offers us opportunity to obey and become part of the great lineage of those who, like Sarah, “considered Him faithful who had promised” (Heb. 11.11).

Do you trust God enough to submit to the leadership of your husband? Do you believe that He is not only sovereign, but good? If you do, you will submit, not dejectedly or resignedly, but with a hopeful glimmer in your eye. You will be among those blessed few who realize that He is not out to get you, but to remake you, and in so doing make you a living part of that Great History that is, most simply, His.

God's Authority; Our Safety

“…Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him lord, and you have become her children if you do what is right without being frightened by any fear.”

-1 Peter 3.6

If you are a typical modern woman you likely choked on the first half of this verse, making it nearly impossible for your eyes to remain fixed long enough to make any sense of the second. The very idea of obeying one’s husband not only jolts the mind, it turns the stomach. We begin to feel lightheaded and queasy, certain somehow that Scripture cannot actually mean what it seems to be saying. To submit is one thing. In his epistle to the Ephesians Paul instructs both wives and husbands to “submit to each other in the Lord.” But, we say, trying to calm ourselves, obey? Isn’t that what children do to parents? Or, still worse, slaves to masters? But wives to husbands? The mere suggestion is offensive to most women. It is what our society calls: backward, misogynistic, and – perhaps not least -- utterly ridiculous.

Our eyes fly to the nearest photograph of our dearly beloved – on the face of our flip-phone or the screen of our office computer. Suddenly his imperfections are thrown into high relief: the slightly crooked teeth, the goofy grin, the asymmetrical tilt of the head. ‘What,’ we think, ‘Obey, him?’ We feel an ambivalent mixture of discomfort, even perhaps latent fury, as we attempt to conjure up some wild scenario in which we might, in all seriousness, garner the courage to call him “lord.”

I say ‘courage’ because that is exactly what is required if we are to submit to the leadership of any man who, by nature of the fact that he is human, is thereby fallible.

If all men are fallible, why does God call us to submit to them? On one level, the answer is rhetorical: we submit because He says so. Everything hinges on the authority and reliability of the One who speaks.

Either God is trustworthy or He is not… If He is not trustworthy, then we can justly say, “To hell with your standards.” But if He is trustworthy, and still we insist on having our own way, then – to put it in the most terrifyingly obvious terms – we put ourselves in danger of hearing Him say, “To Hell with you.” I mean no disrespect; surely, God is not as flippant as the preceding phrase makes Him out to be. On the contrary: God is Love. He is Love’s perfect embodiment. Being such, He demands – for our own good and His glory – that we be conformed to His image, the image of the One who “humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2.8). If He truly has our best interests at heart, then we can – along with Sarah – find the courage to do that which we have no desire or inclination to do. We can submit to our husbands “in the Lord” or “as unto the Lord,” believing that God is big enough to lead us through them.

But still, you say, it can’t be stomached.

Let us, for a moment, examine the issue in more neutral terms. God asks us to do X, insisting that X is the very best thing for us. X is instituted – not to constrain and belittle – but to protect in the same way that a hat and sunglasses, combined with a thick slather of sunscreen, protect the desert dweller from the sun’s rays. Conversely, not to do X is to place our souls in the gravest jeopardy. Sounds simple, right? In the abstract, it is. The problem arises when we define X. True, God knowingly asks us to do the very thing which comes least naturally to us. But if it came naturally it would not be a command. God does not command us to eat when we are hungry or call a friend when in need of a good chat for the simple reason that these things are both natural and pleasurable. If He knew how hard it would be, He must be after something larger and more important than we can imagine. He is, I believe, after our hearts.

Lest we get carried away with false notions about the rotten ‘plight of women,’ let us remember that the call to obedience – to submission – is not exclusive to sex. 1 Peter is oriented toward calling all people to a posture of submission “for the Lord’s sake” (2.13). Citizens are called to submit to governments; servants to masters; young men to their elders; and, yes, wives to husbands. Peter is clear that such submission – and the pattern of suffering and endurance which it begets and inspires – is not merely preferable. His language is starkly authoritative: “For such is the will of God…” (2.15); “For you were called for this purpose that you might inherit a blessing” (2.21).

Christ is, of course, the ultimate example of this kind of obedience. He lived His life in perfect submission to His Father; and although doing so required Him to submit to the earthly authority of depraved men, His death and resurrection prove that God’s purposes are not in the least obstructed by the fallibility of men.

Ultimately, as Pilate and Judas prove, we are His instruments whether we place ourselves under His authority or not.

When the stakes are highest, on whose authority will you stake your future well-being? Yours or God’s?

Oh, To Be the Friend of God...

“You are my friends if you do what I command you.” – John 15.14

All human societies are arranged according to hierarchies. Employer to employee; teacher to student; parent to child. We moderns tend to resent such hierarchies for their own sake. Authority and corruption are practically synonyms. Apartheid, genocide, and infanticide are not merely possibilities; they are inherited memories or ongoing events. We have seen the greatest atrocities committed by the most powerful tyrants; or, worst of all, by men who “thought all along they were doing the right thing.” Thus we are skeptical of authority whether we wield it or whether we find ourselves subject to it. Why else do you find so many parents asking their children for advice on how to raise them? We don’t want to be in charge; we want to be friends. We don’t want subjection, but freedom.

The Cross has given us opportunity for both of these things. God, in Christ, reaches out His hand and offers us friendship; but it is friendship unlike the kind we are accustomed to on earth for: “we are His friends if we do what He asks.” His friendship presupposes surrender to His authority. Now, under normal, earthly conditions, people who talk in this way are usually of the Bullying or Queen Bee variety. They have a hint of the masochist in them. They are palpably delighted by exercising authority over others, by making them admit and own their weakness. This “strength,” however, is really just veiled weakness because it needs the other to subsist. It is parasitic; like the physically large but insecure boy who feeds off the fear he inspires in his smaller classmate. Or the attractive young girl whose superiority depends on surrounding herself with other, relatively less attractive or emotionally pliable girls whose will she can bend to her own, and whose ‘weakness’ she can exploit.

But the friendship of God is precisely the opposite. His strength is His own; He does not need us to maintain or uphold it. Christ offers us friendship – which is reconciliation with God – at His expense, not ours. He died so that we might have it. In fact it is we who are invited to feed on His body – His flesh and His blood – so that the life within us, His life, may endure eternally.

By His strength, we are strong. By His beauty we are made beautiful. Moreover, God delights in granting us these things. It is His nature to do so. All we need do is accept. For Him to insist on having it His way, then, is not tyranny. It is pure mercy. Whatever ‘constraints’ Christ places on our friendship by asking us to submit to Him, as well as the earthly authorities He institutes, are there for our protection.

Friendship with God begets freedom, but it is freedom with constraint. John’s gospel says, “Whom the Son sets free is free indeed.” And yet we are called to use our freedom to act as bondslaves of God (1 Pet. 2.16). At the heart of Christianity lies paradox: to live you must die; to be free you must obey.

Thus we obey, in faith, believing that this not only finds favor with God, but that we, along with those under whose authority we stand, will someday give an account to “Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead” (1 Pet. 4.5).