Prodigal Son Homily II
About 1000 years after the birth of Christ the unified historical Christian Church split into two parts: the East and the West or as they are more well known - the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox. The reasons for this split are not as important to this homily as the knowledge that this split occurred. From the Western half of Christendom (Roman Catholic) came the Protestant Reformation (Lutherans) about 500 years later and then the innumerable denominations over the last 500 years that include evangelicalism, the pentecostal church, independent churches and the general religious landscape that we know today. Most of us that have lived our lives in places with significant Roman Catholic influence in their founding or settling don’t question or think about the religious influence of the church.
But the West only represents one half of the church’s historical influence.
Interestingly, in the western world that we know, we find ourselves troubled by certain theological problems that the eastern world never encountered. One of those problems is the atonement theory called penal substitutionary atonement. This atonement theory in its simplest form says humanity is full of sin and cannot be reconciled to God on its own; God’s wrath needs to be appeased regarding humanities sin; the only thing that can appease God’s wrath is blood ergo a sacrifice or death; Jesus, having no sin but being fully human is able to be sacrificed for our sin, on our behalf or in our place and this appeases God’s wrath.
This is exactly what I grew up hearing. What’s worse is that this is what I grew up hearing was THE GOSPEL. Ugh…this was the “good news?” The good news was that God was angry and because I was so bad I needed to die but thank God that Jesus was willing to be murdered by his father in my place so that God would forgive me? This is definitely NOT the gospel. And this is definitely NOT true.
Why can’t God just forgive sin?
Oh, wait…He can. To believe in Penal Substitutionary Atonement is to believe that God’s wrath is somehow more powerful than God’s forgiveness. That God is somehow subject to sin and its effects are stronger than the effects of God’s forgiveness and mercy. To believe in PSA makes God subject to a process of filicide to obtain forgiveness rather than just forgiving. Which is silly. How silly? To show how silly lets just retell the story of the prodigal son and overlay PSA on top of it.
Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
“Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
“When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.’
“But while he was still a long way off Jesus met him on the road and said to him, I know what an angry man your father is so let me go home with you and speak to him on your behalf. Jesus led the son into the fathers house where the father demanded a life be taken to satiate his anger. Jesus willingly laid down his life so that the son and father could be reconciled to one another. Once the father saw that Jesus was dead he called out to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
Now go to Luke 15 and read the real version. Does the father just forgive the son or does the father have to go through a whole process? Does the father appear wrathful? Is there even a Jesus/Christ figure as an intermediary in the story? Does the twisted tale that PSA weaves make even a hint of an appearance in this story?
Perhaps a better question is - why doesn’t the church in the east have to wrestle with this?