The Best Life for Both Sons
A reading for Wednesday, November 18, 2015: Luke 15:11-32.
"A man had two sons..." Both sons got it wrong... The ways of the father were given in order that they might live the best life. Not so they could get a reward. Not so the father would merely be proud of them for placating the father.
The first son denied the ways of the father as having any worth. "Give me what's mine" he said, and I will go and make my own ways. Only to discover that the father's ways were best after all.
The second son lived the father's way, but it seems only to get what he wanted too. He didn't live the father's way simply because it was the best way for the best life. He got angry when he thought all his so-called "sacrifice" had gone for nought.
If this parable is about the way we are called to live by God's ways, and I think it is, then the point seems to be that God has given us an abundance of blessing in the way we can live the best life. We can turn away. We can "phone it in" doing only what's in it for us. Or we can devote ourselves and our lives to living the best life we can imagine in God's ways.
In the parable Jesus told, the father reflects the abundance of God when he says, "You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." Thank you God for the best life we can imagine!
"A man had two sons..." Both sons got it wrong... The ways of the father were given in order that they might live the best life. Not so they could get a reward. Not so the father would merely be proud of them for placating the father.
The first son denied the ways of the father as having any worth. "Give me what's mine" he said, and I will go and make my own ways. Only to discover that the father's ways were best after all.
The second son lived the father's way, but it seems only to get what he wanted too. He didn't live the father's way simply because it was the best way for the best life. He got angry when he thought all his so-called "sacrifice" had gone for nought.
If this parable is about the way we are called to live by God's ways, and I think it is, then the point seems to be that God has given us an abundance of blessing in the way we can live the best life. We can turn away. We can "phone it in" doing only what's in it for us. Or we can devote ourselves and our lives to living the best life we can imagine in God's ways.
In the parable Jesus told, the father reflects the abundance of God when he says, "You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." Thank you God for the best life we can imagine!
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