Unjust God?

Sometimes it seems our Creator takes this “boundless love” business too far! What about the good guys for a change? Surely “we” should get preferential treatment?

Many of us, hearing the Prodigal son story (Luke 15:1-32), have sympathy for the faithful son rather than the reprobate who has blown his inheritance on wild living. Maybe that is because we feel we are the faithful sons and daughters and that, like the older son, we are maybe a bit ripped off. By our notions of “a fair go”, perhaps the younger son should get the paid servant role that he asked for; but as for embracing him, honouring him, celebrating his return with a party! Too much! This elder, wiser, faithful son feels he has a superior claim on the father and he is resentful of the usurper.

Faithful, steady, church goers can slip into the same mind-set as the elder brother. God - embracing, honouring and celebrating the return of our less savoury citizens is too much! What is God thinking about? Doesn’t he/she know how pious we are and how sub-standard these others have been? Where’s the justice?

How arrogant are we! Trying to place boundaries on God! Trying to make our almighty Creator jump to our ideas of justice; to get with our program. For that is what we do.

God doesn’t need to answer to us but, as the father in the parable reminds us, if we are truly constant and faithful, then we already live in the father’s bounty, so what is our problem about the brother?

Jesus’ core teaching is the Kingdom of a Father who loves each and every one of us equally, absolutely, infinitely and intimately, just the way we are. In this parable above all, Jesus gives us an example of the boundless mercy of the Father who loves us beyond human reckoning and upon whose mercy we all ultimately depend.

Deacon Mark Kelly