How to become an expert at Hide and Seek in one easy lesson. . .
One game that never seems to go out of style . . . one game that children never seem to grow tired of playing is the game of Hide and Seek.
Some of the children in the church where I served often wanted to play hide and seek with the rector, and I was always happy to oblige. Usually it would happen this way: the kids would put their little heads down on their little arms somewhere out by the parking lot, with their little eyes closed, and they would count as best as they could. I, not being very creative, would almost always hide in the same place, namely, inside the parish hall closet. The children never quite seemed to get it, and they would almost always look everywhere but in that closet.
After a while, I began to panic because I became certain that I would starve to death in there before anyone would ever find me. So, I would begin to make some noise. I’d rattle a few books, shuffle a few things around, and if that didn’t work, I’d let part of my foot stick out of the closet door . . . in plain sight. . . and finally I would be found. If the truth be known, it’s really not that hard to be found, if we really want to be.
And Jesus said, There was a man who had two sons. And he goes on to tell us one of the most famous stories in all the Bible. He goes on to tell us about TWO lost sons.
The younger of the sons asks for his inheritance ahead of schedule. Dad, I want my money before you die.
How utterly contemptuous and selfish; what bad manners! This boy should have been grounded for at least a month, had his ipod locked away, and his telephone and Internet privileges restricted until he learned some respect for his elders. I mean that’s the equivalent of saying, Dad, you’re as good as dead to me.
But get this. . . his father indulges him and gives him the money, and you know the rest. He leaves home and spends it like both pockets are full of holes.
Broke and hungry, he decides maybe good old Dad wasn’t so bad after all; maybe he should have been more respectful of the love that his father had shown him all along. He is completely lost in the painful closet of a foreign country, but he comes to the realization that it’s not really that hard to be found if you really want to be.
He rehearses his speech. He clears his throat, and he practices his confession: Father, I have sinned against you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.
When he got it down pat, he heads for home. He sticks his foot outside of the closet if you will, and his father finds him. In fact, Dad doesn’t even wait until he comes up to the house, he runs down the road to him to let him know that love has found him, and that he won’t starve to death in that closet.
Of course, his father should have said, You’re darn right you’re not worthy to be called my son, and by all rights, by every conventional piece of wisdom in the book, he should have made him work his knuckles to the bone to pay back every shekel. But the father didn’t even want to hear his confession.
I don’t think this father seems to know very much about parenting, do you? Someone needs to recommend that he go to a Tough Love clinic, maybe talk to a probation officer or something. He needs to get some advice.
But instead of charging him rent for his old bedroom, he puts a ring on his finger, and sandals on his feet, and orders up a BBQ and drinks on the house!
Now, you should be outraged by this father’s pitiful permissiveness and reckless forgiveness. You should be outraged that he let him win the game so easily. Why he should have starved him for a few more days in that closet of selfishness and lust for possessions. It shouldn’t have been that easy to have been found.
Now, if you agree with any part of that, you are not alone, because there’s an older brother who has been out in the fields just like he has every day for as long as he can remember. He punches his timecard – on time – every time.
As he comes closer, he smells the ribs cooking and hears the glasses clinking together, and he is outraged to the point of disbelief.
He will have nothing to do with such permissiveness and irresponsible forgiveness, and he WILL NOT enter the party.
He hides outside with his arms folded and a snotty look of righteousness on his face, with his back to the front door. Who wouldn’t do the same under those conditions?
But, as I told you, it’s not all that hard to be found, and his father finds him, and notice what his father says to him: Son everything I have is yours. It always has been.
In other words, he’s saying, I will give you everything EXCEPT. . .except my right to be a father who lets his children win the game. . . except my right to be recklessly forgiving. You can’t take that away from me. I do draw the line there. . . but everything else? It’s yours!
And the father goes on to say, We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.
My dear friends in Christ, that is a very fancy way of saying, Son, get over it! The party is going to continue. Now, you can stay out here in the closet of lostness, or you can just stick your foot through the front door and join the fun.
What do we have here in this parable? We have one incorrigible father who loves to a fault. There isn’t much else we can say about him is there? I doubt he’ll ever change. I’m afraid he’s just going to continue to kick up dust running down the road after people, seeking them out, indulging them in permissive love, forgiving them when they don’t deserve it, and throwing parties with invitations to everyone without regard for the cost of it all.
And we have not one, but TWO lost sons, one found, and we don’t really know about that older son, do we? Did he finally come in out of the cold and join the party? The choice is his to make. Like most of Jesus’ parables, this one is to be continued; it’s to be continued in our lives, for we can find ourselves in both these characters.
I have so often been the Prodigal who has wasted so much time in the world doing reckless and thoughtless things, and I have also been the older brother who needs a little cheese with his whine — the bean counter who likes to keep score and complains when it doesn’t add up in his favor.
We sometimes get lost – just as both of those sons were lost. But in the Kingdom of God, as Jesus presents it, we can be reassured that it really isn’t that hard to be found if we really want to be.
Because of the grace of an indiscriminately loving Father, the choice is always ours to make.
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