Deny Yourself

These past few days, I've been more conscious of instances when I had to bracket my own feelings to deal with someone who has approached me about something I myself am involved in. It's easy to give advice and counsel someone if you're approached as an external observer but it's much, much harder when you yourself are involved.

It is through this lens that I listened tonight to the Gospel of the Prodigal Son. I've been thinking lately the father in the Prodigal Son is completely centered on his son. I'm pretty sure he was hurt by what his son did. Maybe he was mad.

But as a father myself, I can understand that he was also struggling between giving his son freedom and protecting him. And he was mad but in the end, he was also worried for his son. So much so that he was probably hoping against hope that his son would return. That's why he saw his son from a far way off and ran to him. That's why he did not let his son finish his prepared speech.

The father did what he did because he was completely centered on his son. He was completely centered on an other.

It is in this context that I begin to appreciate the elder son. The elder son was loyal and obedient. But he was centered on himself and his grievance.

The generosity implied in this narrative is absolutely radical. It takes grace to achieve this kind of other-centeredness.

Faith of Our Friends

I can't help but notice (again) that in today's Gospel, Jesus notices the faith of the friends who broke through the roof of a house to bring down their paralytic friend. 

Now I'm wondering, what if the house whose roof they destroyed (tiles in fact!) was Jesus' house? Then it would have been audacious on their part to break through the roof and risk incurring Jesus' ire. That may have been why Jesus admired these friends' faith.

This reminds me of the Canaanite woman who had that testy exchange with Jesus (who called her people 'dogs') or the woman with hemorrhage who dared to touch Jesus and in effect made him unclean. They also had to dared to do something that would anger Jesus. 

But they had faith that Jesus could (and wanted to) heal them, their friend, or their daughter and they wanted this badly enough that they risked incurring Jesus' wrath. Because they took the risk, Jesus granted them their petition.