LETTERS FROM TRINITY
<See also Past Articles of Letters from Trinity [2003] [2001/02]>
Here's a special one-off article from Leonard. True to his usual style, it comes with a challenge to take a closer, candid look at ourselves. Share with us what you think! Ed
Sibling Rivalry
15
December 2003
I know that I have written on the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) before. This time round, I think it is time to address the relationship between the wayward prodigal, the younger son, and his older brother - the righteous, angry one who stayed home. Not so much that there has been an increase in the manner in which Christians disagree among themselves over matters of theology, social behaviour, ethics, dogma, and so on and so on, but rather I have begun to feel more and more that there are two general categories or moulds in which Christians are starting to fall into, in the course of disagreement.
The first is the one that is critical of the wayward, unbecoming actions of the prodigal. In a complex world that is ours, with the increasing amount of conflict and controversy appearing on the social-cultural horizons due to science, technology and information, Christians seeking to hold on to the pillars of their faith are also similarly buffeted by changes of human norms and behaviour. And so we have Christians, fervent and enthusiastic in their beliefs, becoming aggressive towards the accursed actions of prodigals, of errant sinners, of others who differ from them. As a result, their reactions have at times taken a very combative tone, a kind of siege mentality that seeks to warn everyone and anyone, to beware of the pitfalls and the snares of this present evil age.
I hear things like “love the sinner, hate the sin”, and I think that I have also been guilty of sprouting such clichés - clichés meant to give me a foothold for maintaining some semblance of standing true to the fundamentals while also expressing a kind of human empathy. Come on…! Who are we trying to kid?!!! Most of the time, if not invariably, we intentionally or otherwise, judge the prodigals in our midst with “love the sinner, hate the sin” pronouncements; if not at a conscious level then in some obscure way at the level of our sub-consciousness. Don’t tell me when we “love the sinner”, at the back of our minds we are not already trying to formulate some kind of action plan in which to counsel, indoctrinate, persuade, convince, sway the errant brother to our point of view, to our point of doing the “right” thing, to our fundamentally righteous side of good and bad.
And so while we might hate what the prodigal has done (especially to our Father), we try to love him albeit grudgingly, judgementally, tainted by the veneer of suspicion, doubt and an all too pressuring need to try and ensure that he reforms and becomes one of us. How is this different from the attitude of the older brother who at least was openly honest with his contempt for his prodigal sibling?
On the other side of the coin, there are those of us who might sympathise with the prodigals of the world. I sometimes feel that as Christians we should be a bit more accepting and perhaps supportive of our brothers who have still not returned home, and am angry at the attitude displayed by the first group mentioned above. Then I too, with my fervour and enthusiasm, fall into the trap of accusing those who lobby harsh judgements on prodigal types as being “self righteous”, “sanctimonious”, “condescending”, etc; forgetting in the meantime that I too have been “self righteous”, “sanctimonious”, and “condescending” in judging them for judging others.
And so the cycle of judgements (direct or subtle, conscious or unconscious) goes on, turning and turning as it widens any hope of harmony that a Christian community is suppose to struggle and strive towards. At this point let me just say that I might regretfully conclude that this is a no-win situation, perhaps an even hopeless inevitability because we might not be able to help ourselves from falling into either one of the two vortexes of human ugliness.
To stand in defence of our Christian faith against the various assaults of sin, of compromise, of “selling out” in the complicated, dynamic world of men, means that inadvertently we might be labelled as draconian traditionalists, text-book types with righteous statutes for our bones and steel for our hearts. But to be more accepting, sympathetic, and gracious also means that our fundamental position is at risk of becoming watered down, diluted - and in our defence we judge back in retaliation to give our frustrations a voice, our sense of helplessness a focus.
Our background, our environment, our personalities might cause us to behave in one way or the other depending on various situations in life as they are presented to us. We might have fallen prey to the elder brother’s brand of righteous indignation, or be angry for those we perceive as underdogs being levelled with prejudice, or both. Yet the Father in the parable loved both the stiff necked, self-righteous older boy as well as the offensive bungling younger son. God so loved the world, a world so filled with both types of brothers intent on never seeing eye to eye, that He sent Jesus to make that walk to Calvary so that both could be saved.
And because God loves both brothers, just as the Father in the parable loved both his sons, I wonder whether the Father would have wished that his sons with conflicting personalities would be able to get along, and perhaps love each other without constantly complaining and judging, bitching and biting the other. I wonder whether God would wish to have His church, His people love and accept each other without constantly giving offence and taking-offence and making counter-offences against one another, without the defensiveness and counter-defensiveness, without the justifying and re-justifying, without the tit for tat. After all, Jesus told his disciples who were a hodgepodge of diverse personalities to “love one another”, just as he loved them.
Sadly, history has shown us different. Sadly, it seems that we have little chance of rising above the trap of judgment and prejudice either one way or the other. Sadly it appears that we would not be able to drag ourselves from the undertow that threatens to continually spin our lives in that vicious swirl of grudging bitterness, veiled hostility, and stifling intolerance. Sadly, it looks like the winter of our discontent would not see spring for a long while yet.
It is almost as if the Good Samaritan were to get embroiled in an argument with the Priest and the Levite about who was in the right… That is, the Priest and Levite would be claiming that they were only being lawfully correct by avoiding what might be a dead body, deemed unclean by the Laws of Judaism; and the Samaritan claiming that it would be correct to bend the rules in order to do a good deed. In the midst of their rather heated and long drawn out argument, the injured man dies… This might be a somewhat farcical take on the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37), but it is more sad than funny when it is actually happening around us…
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