"Love is patient and kind," Paul wrote. In Jesus' story of the lost boy, we have seen so graphically the patience and kindness of our Father God for us, even when we wander away from him. But it is not only his love for us - it is the kind of love he means us to have for others.
True love is also seen in sharp contrast to so many of the attitudes that prevail in our society and world. Paul goes on to write, "Love is not jealous or boastful" (1 Cor. 13.4).
This attitude, too, is clearly depicted in the story of the lost boy.
The boy had come home, making no claim to his father's love and sympathy, just a place as a hired servant. But love was watching and waiting, ready to receive and restore him.
The party was in full progress when the elder brother came in from the field. "What's all this about?" he asked. "Your brother has come," he was told, "and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound" But he was angry and refused to go in.
Why was he angry? After all, this was his brother. Shouldn't he, too, have been glad to welcome him back?
I guess he had never really got on with that younger brother. Their personalities, their outlooks, their ambitions, their likes and dislikes - all were so different. That younger brother had never liked farm work - perhaps never liked work of any sort! It was good riddance that he had wanted to split and go his own way. Now the farm would be a better proposition all round. And if rumours brought news of his brother's foolishness and destitution - only what he deserves, teach him a good lesson!
But - welcome him back? "Why should I? We owe him nothing! The farm owes him nothing!"
The father came out to reason with him - "But he's your brother!" And we can hear him snap back, "Don't call that son of yours my brother!"
"Love," Paul wrote, "is not jealous or boastful." But note this elder son's profession of "love" for 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!"
Did he really love his father? Did he know his father loved him?
True love cannot be bought or sold, though some people seem to think so. The false idea of love - "ice-cream love" if you like - focusses on me and my needs, and assumes this sort of response on the part of others too - a kind of you've-got-to-love-me-after-all-I've-done-for-you attitude, where "I love you" means "I want you to think I'm great." This false kind of love gets very irritated with the love that is patient and kind. It has little place for forgiveness.
Yet the father loves this son, too. "My love for your younger brother is not greater than my love for you because he has gone away and come back again. My love for you is not any less because you have been a faithful and good son to me. Come, let your love receive him gladly, too!"
"Love is patient and kind; it is not jealous or boastful."
Two groups of people were listening when Jesus told this parable - "tax collectors and sinners" and "the Pharisees and teachers of the Law" (Lk 15.1,2). The parable had something for all of them.
And for us too. For if we have truly tasted of the Lord's patience and kindness, we will seek his grace for a love that is not jealous or boastful.
| PRAYER: There are times, good Lord, when I have not viewed the misfortunes of another with compassion, nor joined in the happiness of someone else's success with free and open joy. Too often I seem to jump quickly to my own defence and too readily to another's condemnation. Good Lord, forgive. Help me to see your patient and kind love to me. Make me clean and new in Jesus. Amen. |
Somewhere deep within,
self-satisfied,
secure,
I feel uneasy.
I do not say in words,
and yet I think
that what you mean to me
is such
that I resent
what you may mean
to yourself
or to others.
I have an unnamed fear
that the life of the world
might cease to centre
on me.