Scripture

Romans 12:14-18 Matthew 5:38-45

When you read scripture, you can trace the development from a religion of vengeance to a religion of forgiveness. The apostle exhorts his readers to overcome evil with good, echoing a word of Jesus recorded in that part of Matthew called the Sermon on the Mount. First the epistle; then the gospel.

While in England during January, my wife and I went up to Cambridge, where there were several people I needed to see. We had not been there previously, and it was quite a thrill to visit the chapel of Kings College, which has such a distinguished choir.

Browsing in the chapel shop, I picked up a history of the choir school, which I opened at a section describing one principal's obsession with discipline and punishment; not a very pleasant episode in the history of the school.

I could not help wondering what sort of image those boys had of God. Was God somehow like their headmaster, watching every move and waiting with cane at the ready to inflict punishment? I know numerous products of private schools, and I find many came out of that experience not liking God very much. Why? Partly because they formed the impression that God did not like them very much. How come? Because it appeared that those in authority in their schools did not like them very much!

One of them, whom I met last year at a wedding reception, said, 'God has always represented for me something to be vaguely feared. Even though I've put that to the test a bit, and haven't yet been struck dead, I reckon it's probably still the way I think about God. Give him a wide berth, and hope that when the end comes, someone will speak up for you at the pearly gates'.

Jesus, it seems to me, speaks very differently of God; he speaks of a divinity who loves opponents and works indefatigably for their change of heart. Listen to Matthew 5:44. 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may become the sons (and daughters) of your Father in heaven.'

That is the clearest possible statement about the nature of 'the cosmic paterfamilias' (the progenitor of everything that is) - and the clearest possible statement of what it means to bear the family likeness. In a moment I want to recall a great story Jesus told, which addresses both of these issues, but first a word about the term 'father'.

1. God as father

This term, as used for God is more ferociously guarded than any of the others. Why? First, it seems to have been Jesus' favourite term. Second, it's enshrined in a theological formula (the doctrine of the Trinity) which most churches regard as fundamental. Third reason it's on the 'protected' list (if we are to heed feminists) is that it helps perpetuate male ascendancy by equating maleness with godness.

What both the guardians of orthodoxy and their feminist critics must remember is that 'father' is a metaphor. It can no more be taken in a strictly literal sense than any of those other metaphors - like grapegrower, shepherd, monarch and so on. If we insist on interpreting them as literal and exact, they become absurd.

Something else has to be said here. It's that the 'father' metaphor is for some people not a help to faith but an obstacle. I think of a graduate from here, whose marriage I celebrated. His father was an alcoholic, and savagely violent in the home. I think of a woman graduate and her four younger sisters, all preyed upon sexually by their father. Not surprisingly, the metaphor of 'father' is unlikely to represent anything positive in cases like that.

But the other thing both guardians of orthodoxy and feminist critics must remember is that this is not a statement about the gender of God. It was my privilege while on study leave to visit Krister Stendahl several times. Professor Stendahl was Dean of Harvard Divinity School before becoming Lutheran bishop of Stockholm for ten years; he is now back in the U.S. He is one of the great New Testament scholars. When I raised the feminist criticism of our over-dependence on male imagery in speaking of God, he acknowledged the point; then he said, 'When Jesus spoke of God as "father", he was not interested in the gender of God. He was contrasting the notion of "parent" with that of "potentate"'.

What this means is that getting mired down in disputes about whether we call God 'father' or 'mother' is to be diverted from the important issue; namely, that Jesus imaged the relationship between the human and the holy in terms of the bonding between parents and offspring. To make the point, he told a story - of a man who had two sons.

2. The son who sowed his wild oats

I find I have more sympathy with the younger one since our own grew up. Mind you, I occasionally say to them, 'I hope you have horrible kids, who keep you lying awake and wondering if they're okay!' But there's really something of that younger brother in all of us, or at least there should have been at one time.

He feels the oppressiveness of sticking around home, and doing things in a well-regulated and orderly way. He has read a bit of existentialism, wants to find his own levels, and feels this will be increasingly difficult if he continues to live at home. He has this idea that freedom means 'doing your own thing', and he wants to give it a try.

There's a bit of a hitch. He doesn't have any savings to speak of. But he has this crazy idea: to ask for his share of the inheritance in advance. It could just work. He waits for what seems like the right moment, and floats the idea with his father. The father says, 'You could be disappointed, son, but maybe you have to discover that for yourself. Are you sure this is what you want?' By this time the son is obsessed with grabbing what he can and heading off. He has talked with his friends, and they all say, 'Go for it!'

As Jesus tells it, he does just that. The hearers of this story would immediately think of Alexandria of Rome, or some other foreign metropolis, and of every imaginable hazard for the young person. He doesn't settle for a little of this and that; it's full-on debauchery! It has to be - because he manages to spend his share of the family goodies in full. Taverns, casinos, massage parlours ... until it's gone.

Meanwhile, things deteriorate and famine strikes. He is luckier than some; gets a job feeding pigs, and basic shelter in exchange. But that's all. No wages, no food; just a pile of straw in the barn. When things are that bad, pig food can be pretty good!

He cries himself to sleep; feels a proper idiot doing that, but can't help it. Thinks of the old home, wonders about the folks, envies his brother with steady work and warm bed and healthy diet. It really wasn't that bad. In fact, it sure beat picking through pig swill. He knows he's had it. Tried the high life; fun while it lasted, but phony too. Lonely as well, this doing your own thing.

He throws together his little bundle, and clears out before dawn. It's a long and painful trek. He is emaciated, filthy and scarcely able to walk when he gets his first glimpse of the old home. He goes over the speech he has been rehearsing. 'Father, I have sinned against heaven ...' But it doesn't matter. When he does insist on making a speech, it's an anti-climax. You see, Jesus says, 'While he's still far away, the father sees him and runs out to embrace him'.

3. The son who stayed at home

It's commonly called 'The Parable of the Prodigal Son'. My old college principal preferred to call it 'The Parable of the Hostile, Unloving Brother'.

You see, over a third of it focuses on the elder son, who is dutifully going about his chores when he hears the sound of celebration. What's this? Has Jericho won the head of the river? The Roman army soccer team been cleaned up in Jerusalem? It's that kind of din. Unusual at this time for there to be a party. He calls a servant to find out what is going on.

'Haven't you heard? It's your younger brother; the one who cleared out. He's back. Looks a bit of a wreck, but he's alive, and your father is beside himself. He's killed the prize calf, dressed up your brother like visiting royalty, and invited everyone from miles around. They're still arriving.'

The elder brother is livid. He stays outside, sulking in the barn, until the father comes out and pleads with him to join in the fun. He says, 'But I've sweated my guts out for you, and you never even gave me a little goat to throw a party for my friends. But when that son of yours rocks in, the one who has spent your money in taverns and casinos and massage parlours, you fawn him! For him you kill that calf we've been fattening!'

We've a whole new story line here. Now it's not the younger brother's estrangement from parents and family, but the elder brother's estrangement. He doesn't say 'This brother of mine is back'. He says, 'That son of yours!' Helmut Thielicke, one time theology professor at Hamburg and a great preacher, once said in a sermon on this parable that it's precisely in these words 'that son of yours' that the elder brother is now estranged.

The father is overjoyed to have this dreadfully endangered son of his back again. His heart is simply leaping for joy. Doesn't the elder brother see that with all his respectability and faithfulness he is estranging himself from his father just because his heart in not beating in tune with his father's?

(Helmut Thielicke, The Waiting Father: Sermons on the Parables of Jesus, London: James Clarke & Co., Ltd, 1960, p.38.)

To put it a little differently, it's a photo finish between the two brothers as to who has besmirched the family likeness more. The younger one was ratty and irresponsible, but has come to his senses. The older one is hostile, nasty and unforgiving: the opposite of his father.

Recently I went home after a meeting on a later train than usual. Only one carriage was lit. Two interesting characters boarded at Parliament Station. Both would have been in their sixties.

One was very drunk, very loud and tiresome. His comments became more and more raucous, prompting a young man opposite me to suggest he 'shut up'. That elicited a predictable response: a string of obscenities, denunciation of those with no respect for their elders, and an offer to fight anyone who cared to take up the challenge. It was quite nasty.

The other elderly man had a violin case. In an accent I guessed to be German or Austrian, he asked permission to play. Then he took out the instrument and played continuously to Heidelberg, where he bowed to the applause and left the train. With consummate verve, and smiling countenance, he played ballads, classics, and music from opera and operetta.

While one man brought aboard the train discord, animosity, resentment and general unpleasantness, the other brought harmony, warmth, appreciation, and community! I would have been tempted to take my violin case and smash it on the head of the one who polluted our little world, but not so the man with the violin. He played on, like a smiling visitor from another world who couldn't imagine why people should get so uptight.

One of those men reflected the likeness of the cosmic paterfamilias; the other defaced it.

Reproduced here on the Warragul Uniting Church web site with the permission of the author,
Rev Dr John Bodycomb -2004.