The Prodigal Son Is NOT The Lost Son 誰是真正的蕩子？

Twenty Fourth Ordinary Sunday, Year C
Theme: The Prodigal Son Is NOT The Lost Son 誰是真正的蕩子

We have been talking about God’s mercy all the time. But what exactly is God’s mercy? How does God express His mercy in the Bible? In the Old Testament, God seems to be extremely cruel. He ordered the Israelites to commit genocide, (e.g. 1 Samuel 15)! In the New Testament, God did not kill as ferociously as He did in the Old Testament. Still He sent worms to eat up Herod Agrippa because Agrippa did not ascribe the honour to God (Acts 12:23). Is the Old Testament God really an evil demigod not the one and the same merciful Father of Jesus Christ? It’s regrettable that many readers have the appetite for bloody events and ignore less spectacular ones. Perhaps it is high time we enumerated some of those merciful and yet uneventful incidents of God.

Firstly, when our First Parents disobeyed God and had eaten the Forbidden Fruit, logically God punished them. And yet before He banished them from Eden, God made them and clothed them with garments of skin (Genesis 3:21). Not only do garments keep warmth but they also give dignity! Being naked is shameful in all ages and places. Secondly, though God had warned that on the day Adam ate the Forbidden Fruit he would die (2:17), eventually Adam died at a ripe old age of nine hundred and thirty, the 4^th longest lifespan in the Bible (5:5). Thirdly, Cain killed Abel and became a fugitive on earth. God put a mark on him to protect him so that nobody would kill him at sight (4:15). Lastly, allow me to skip and fast forward to the notorious King Ahab (1 Kings 16:30-34). When prophet Elijah condemned him (21:17-26), Ahab tore his own garments and repented. God spared him (21:29)!

These are just a few examples in which God shows mercy towards individuals. What about the whole city or nation? Yes, we read of how the Israelites butchered the whole city of Ai (Joshua 8) and how Saul lost favour in God’s sight for failing to exterminate the Amalekites. In the latter case, God left no room for interpretation. His instruction was crystal clear, "Now attack Amalek and destroy completely all that he has. Do not spare them, man, woman, infant or suckling, or or sheep, camel or ass." (1 Samuel 15:3). This is clearly genocide. But let’s read the instructions God gave Joshua. God says, "I have delivered Jericho, its king, and its warriors into your power …" (Joshua 6:2). What does "have delivered … into your power" mean? Then we hear Joshua giving his interpretation to the Israelites, "The city and all that is in it shall be given in anathema to Yahweh ...be careful not to touch anything, big or small since everything shall be consecrated in anathema; do not take anything for yourself lest the curse be upon the camp of Israel and bring trouble into it. All the gold, silver, copper … are to be consecrated to Yahweh and shall go into the treasury of Yahweh." (6:17-19) Then "They seized Jericho. And with sword in hand, they killed all the men and women, both young and old, as well as the oxen, sheep and asses, and they gave these as anathema or, rather, sacrificed them to God." (6:21)
I can’t help but wonder whether God had really asked for such a sacrifice! Was Joshua over eager to show the Lord his loyalty? Or did Joshua, as a strategist, want to ensure that Jericho would never be able to rise again and to strike back? A similar over-eagerness happened in the story of Elijah. After winning the competition against 450 false prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, thus proving to the Israelites that Yahweh was the one true God, Elijah incited the Israelites, "Seize the prophets of Baal. Let none of them escape!" (1 Kings 18:40) But we’re unable to find even "I have given the false prophets into your hand"! Would it be possible that a handful of false prophets of Baal repented after seeing the miracle? It was unbecoming for God to kill the righteous with the wicked (Genesis 18:25). Who then gave Elijah the authority to kill the wicked together with the repentant, thus the righteous? Ai suffered the same fate. God told Joshua, "I have delivered the king of Ai into your power, with his people, city, and land. Do to Ai and its king what you did to Jericho and its king --- except that you may take its spoil and livestock as plunder…" (8:1-2). Does this show God’s approval of Joshua’s interpretation for annihilating Jericho? Of course, I dare not to speculate that the Israelites justified their genocides in the name of God. After all, God doesn’t need me to defend His actions, does He?

However, we should not ignore the stories that God had allowed Abraham to intercede for Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:23-32) as well as Moses’ intercession for the Israelites who had grown impatient and made a golden calf while Moses was negotiating the Covenant with God for forty days and nights on Mount Sinai (Exodus 32:7-14). Abraham’s intercession failed because he was not confident enough to demand more. Had Abraham played safe and had set the number below five, Sodom in which Lot’s family lived would have been spared! Perhaps Moses had learnt from the "failure" of Abraham. Today, we read of his story in which Moses interceded for all, both the innocent as well as the guilty! Subsequently, Moses succeeded in saving 600,000 while he ordered the execution of 3,000 idolaters (32:28).

This story is thought provoking in another aspect which is worth meditating.
God told Moses, Go down at once because your people, whom you brought out of Egypt, have acted corruptly." (32:7) Wait! "your people", i.e. "Moses’ people"? When did the Israelites become Moses’ people? When God called Moses in the burning bush, God said, "I have witnessed the affliction of my people in Egypt and have heard their cry against their taskmasters …" (3:7). Later, through Moses and Aaron God told Pharaoh, "… Let my people go that they may hold a feast for me in the wilderness." (5:1) God instructed Moses to say to the Israelites, "I am the Lord … I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God…" (6:6-7) All along, no less than 17 times from chapter 3 to chapter 12, did God call the Israelites His own people. Why the sudden change?
A similar tone can be detected in the following stories. When God asked Adam why he had eaten the Forbidden Fruit, Adam replied, "The woman whom you put here with me …" (Genesis 3:12). When God asked Cain the whereabouts of Abel, Cain retorted, "Am I my brother’s keeper?" (4:9) In the parable of the Prodigal Son we read today, the elder brother complained in the face of the father saying, "All these years I served you … but when your son returns …" (Luke 15:29-30) In the cases quoted above, the speakers seem to abdicate all responsibilities and even to sever all relationships. They put the blame onto the others, or declared that it was none of their business.

Now, was God so angry that He intended to abdicate all responsibilities and sever all relationships with the Israelites? Or since the Sinai Covenant had not yet been rectified, the Israelites were not yet God’s people? No, we cannot argue in this manner because God is timeless and eternal. Once He has spoken, it will be done regardless of the costs. Moses served the ball tactfully back to God’s court. "Why, O Lord, should your anger burn against your people, whom …" (Exodus 32:11) Then Moses appealed to the faithfulness of God, "Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel …" (32:13). But does God need our reminders? No, I think God was actually playing the devil’s advocate in this case. When He revealed Himself in the burning bush to commission Moses to liberate the Israelites in Egypt, Moses declined five times until God imposed His will on him (4:14-17)! At that time, Moses the fugitive Egyptian prince was unable to relate to the Hebrew slaves in Egypt with whom he had lost touch for forty years. On Mount Sinai, God wanted to strengthen his relationship with the Israelites and his identification as the Hebrew Liberator. He was to be the keeper of his brothers, his people!

Indeed, we have been wrong in calling the 3^rd parable the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Read this parable in the context of all three parables, we see that the lost sheep does not know the way home. It needs the good shepherd to leave 99 sheep behind to seek it. The lost coin, though it was still inside the house, needs the woman to clean up the house to seek it. But in the 3^rd parable, the younger son was able to remember his father and to return home on his own initiative, albeit a rather low motive! Thus, the younger son is NOT the lost son. Then who was the lost son? The elder brother was! Though he was living in the house, he was unconnected with the father. Like Abraham, he did not have the faith/confidence to demand even a young goat, not to mention a fattened calf (Luke 15:29-30)! God’s mercy is brilliantly illustrated in the father’s words, "My son, you are here with me always, everything I have is yours" (15:31).

Brethren, how paradoxical that we always complain God for not hearing our demands/prayers when God makes it clear that we have the whole known universe at our disposal! We should be grateful because the Son of God goes all the way out the seek us. We were baptized and partake in His threefold ministry of king, priest and prophet. Let us rejoice with heavenly angels for our being lost and found. Let us put our faith in the mercy of the Father and go out to seek other lost sheep, lost coins and lost sons with Christ.
God bless!
2019 Reflections
Picture Credit: wikipedia