Tim Keller, the Prodigal Son(s) and The Modern Church
Tim Keller, Senior Pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in NYC, has recently come out with a new book called the Prodigal God. The book is an examination of Jesus’s parable commonly called the prodigal son, found in Luke 15:11-32.
He points out in the book that both the sons care more about what they can get from the father, than they do about their relationship with him. The younger might be more brash, but the old is more subtle and in the end unwilling to change.
The thing that I have found interesting is that Keller points out that Jesus was surrounded by more people who would fall into the brash Younger Brother category.
The question that I am wrestling with is how do we interact with the older brothers and the younger brothers? To be more specific how do we learn to forgive apologetic younger brother and still try to show the older brothers that they also need to be forgiven. Forgiveness is something that people want. Take for instance yeasayer’s track on the Dark Was The Night album:
“So your wishing that you never did all the embarrassing things you’ve done? and you wishing you could set it right?”
Do most Non Christians even think that grace–forgiving and forgetting mistakes–is something that Christians do well? If not why? What are we preaching instead? What are we living out instead? What crap has taken the place of the message of Christ forgiving people no matter how deep or stupid or life altering their mistakes.