Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Prodigality
As I read Michael's post I see three essential points
- Christ's vision is for community, not individuality
- whether inside or outside that community, we have a way to go
- no matter where we are in relationship to the community, we must decide to join, whether as the prodigal walking the road, or the older brother deciding to join the party.
iMonk's regular readers know that he battles some of the more problematic developments of evangelicalism regularly, and this is a prime example of that. We have become lousy at community in the church today. In fact, we design our churches now to allow people to come-and-go, to maintain autonomy instead of to give into genuine community.
Some of the is natural, much mischeif has occurred in the name of community - some purposefully manipulative, some well-intended, but extremely harmful. We tend to confuse the institution with the community and the result is often that the community is trampled by the institution. Why is this true? Why have we as the church lost the art of being community?
I would submit to you that this is true becasue as leaders we fail to follow the example of the father. We guard our communities instead of open them up. We push away instead of welcome. We demand instead of give. We look to the good of the institution/community instead of the good of those we welcome.
Let's look at the parable this way. The father gave up half his wealth to the prodigal. His bottom line took a huge hit when the guy left. It would be natural for him to then concentrate on rebuilding what he had lost. But when the prodigal returns, he does not welcome that prodigal to join his rebuilding efforts, he instead throws more money at him in the form of a welcome home party. He builds up the prodigal and worries not about his household. Why is that?
The father understands two very important things
- The father knows that in builkding up the prodigal he in fact builds up his household
- The father knows that he has infinite resources on tap.
Do we know these things? Based on most of the behavior I have eaperienced in the church we do not. Maybe it is time we learned them.
Related Tags: prodigal son, parable, community, church, institution, welcome
