Ever have the feeling that God's grace was for the lost, but not for the saved?
The lost, represented by the Prodigal Son get a party, but once you're 'in' it's work, work, work. And you'd better work or lose your favoured state! Perform or get kicked out of the grace club. This parable has always taught us a lot: that God is so gracious he will not just embrace the lost, but those who were found then lost, then found again. But it also suggests that even the favoured can lose their gratitude for the privilege of being a 'son'.
While our mindset is primarily our own responsibility we don't attain the attitude of ingratitude purely on our own. As a former full time minister I can relate to the desire to see everyone righteous. Why? Because it makes your job easier. Because it makes you look better. Because it's God's will, and a blossoming church full of righteous people surely means major points on the cosmic scoreboard.
What does this mish-mash of motivation lead to? Well, it leads to a cautious offering of grace from the pulpit. Too much grace, and people will indulge in sin and ruin the church. Ruin your job. Mess with your track record. So, it becomes easier, at least in the short run, to tell people to be disciples rather than teach them. That would mean leaving them to grasp an understanding of grace themselves - and who knows what that could lead to? Independent thought maybe? And independent individuals are harder to control.
So, we must shore up God's grace with some (un)healthy and regular doses of conditions and threats. Threats of hell, loss of blessings and ultimately grace. We end up teaching people to earn God's grace after the initial complimentary grace only offered to first time customers.
Apart from a paranoid and controlling leadership, the cause of this grace-for-works programme is the saved individual himself, but not necessarily because he is ungrateful, but because he is forgetful,
"The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, 'Look! All these years I've been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!'
" 'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours'.
One thing we often forget to do as the saved is throw ourselves a party. We wait for God to do it when he's saying you have all the party favours, the venue and even food. If you wanted a 'fattened calf' you could have just gotten it yourself.
It should also be noted that the father made no threat to either son. The implication is that we suffer at the hands of our own attitudes and choices - not at God's all too eager application of punishment and discipline. The Kingdom as a wedding suggests we are invited as guests - not that we are invited as guests and when we get there are immediately commanded to serve the wine and wash the dishes. This bait-and-switch Christianity is a fast road to bitterness. Jesus came so we could 'live life to the full' (John 10) and we hear that, but feel behoved to qualify it with a myriad of conditions and quid pro quos lest we enjoy life too much.
I'm not saying that we should wait to be served by others - no. But we should allow ourselves to enjoy the service of God's grace through Jesus. He washed Peter's feet and is trying to wash yours. The message in short is that the party doesn't end at the gate, that is where the party starts.
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