May 04, 2025 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32)
Luke Brunskill
As I read the Prodigal Son parable, I can’t turn my heart away from a message of humanity’s journey from God the Father into our depravity and perversion right into the grave (Sheol). This journey doesn’t stop there; it unfolds to us in this parable of the journey from Creation, through Christ Jesus, and leaves us at the present with a question: As the older brother, what do we do with what we have been shown--that our brother “was dead and is alive again”! (v 24 & 32)
We start this story with two sons--both with the father, from the father, and like the father--all enjoying communion with the whole house, a house with many rooms (John 14:2), a place of belonging.
This is very much like life at the beginning of Creation in Genesis with God, Adam, and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Both involve communing and belonging with a purpose. Now Eve, like the younger son, gets it into her head (it doesn’t matter how) that life is not as full as it could be, that they are missing out on something, or that God may be hiding a side of the life they belong to. God’s warning in the Garden is that this path will only lead to death (Gen 2:17).
I can only imagine this warning was given to the younger son in those days when the father was compiling and dividing the inheritance. This betrayal, rejection, and curse could rightfully have been met with discipline or even death (Lev. 20:9), but the father allows the son to leave, giving him the same choice as the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden.
The next part is filled with tragedy and ultimately death. The tragedy is leaving the Love of the father for the perversion of exploiting prostitutes and debauchery until his money runs out. This is the sweetness of the 'apple,' tasteful in Eve’s (our) mouth, but poisonous to her (our) stomach (Rev 10:9-10). Like the younger son, we chase after pleasures that only bring ruin after totally forgetting about the father and His Love. The son, like Eve, eventually dies. He dies of starvation--"he longed to fill his stomach with the pods the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything" (Luke 15:16). Did you notice that twice in the parable, the Father says the younger son had died?
I have seen starvation in the poor--desperation and despair come like a wave, even for those who witness such suffering. No one had compassion for him, for compassion is not part of a distant country. It is only found in the father's house. Death has overtaken the younger son and humankind.
But the story still isn’t finished! Like Jonah, who prayed to God "from Sheol," the son finds that God hears, notices, and answers. A glimmer of hope falls to the son: a memory of the father and the abundance of His Love. This brings us to Jesus the Christ, his (our) living testament and reminder of the Father’s Love. There is a way back to the father and his Love, but only if we see it! The seeing is Jesus, a beacon for him (us) to follow back to God’s Love and provision, purpose, and belonging. This impetus to change, repent, and metanoia is seen by the father and God who longs for his lost son, or ALL of us (1 Cor 3:21-23).
The father goes out to the son, all the way to Sheol, as Jesus descended to the depths on Good Friday. From "a long way off," the father saw his young son and ran to him! The son had only hoped to serve and even eat even just the scraps that fall from his father's table. Still, we see the incredible insight and love the father expresses by cutting him off mid-sentence, ordering a new robe, a new family ring, and a large feast celebration at his return.
This is one of the largest insights we can gain from the father’s heart toward sin and betrayal. He forgives, he never stops loving, and he is overjoyed to be reunited! Jesus didn’t die to pay some sick form of justice on behalf of the son; it was a rescue mission into and out from the depths of Sheol. Jesus died on the Cross to reveal to us the massive, forgiving, and Loving heart of the Father. This heart has always searched for restoration and unity with his son (ALL humankind)!
This epic tale provides incredible insight into God's heart and stance toward sinners, betrayers, through arrogance and ignorance.
The input of the second (elder) son is a second lesson for us to mine the depths. The oldest son (Adam) tasted the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, but never really took accountability for his betrayal. He never ventured far from his father, but still went "slaving" in the field and joining his friends outside the house. This son (Adam) blames the younger son (Eve) for their extravagant betrayal… he (we) believes he's never betrayed the Father that much. He thinks instead about how little he has received. But he still won't accept accountability for his part for being outside the Father's house. Pride flows from the older son's heart, for his separation from the father doesn't seem as bad as his younger, insolent brother. He thinks his reward should be greater. Or that the Father should not have forgiven his younger son at all! One rejection deserves another--payment must be made, blood for blood. The younger brother deserves to be left to die so the older brother can feel better for not straying too far.
We hear this today in many mainstream churches. We're saved by not going too far and/or by grovelling enough to pay for our past sins. This older son is set in a division of his own making, “me” or “him”, “IN” or “OUT’, projecting onto his Father either “He (God) Loves Me” or “He hates me.” This misunderstanding of the Father's heart has led to many wars, for IF the Father can hate, then it is okay to hate who he hates and kill those the Father rejects. Any sign of rejection is good enough, even if it is only perceived rejection.
The beauty of this second lesson is in its open-endedness. It puts the hearer/reader/perceiver in the second son's position with the question, “Do I stay here in the field passing judgment or do I go back home and enter into the celebration of the resurrection of our brother, and also us?”
The choice is ours, today.
Please note, entering into the Father's house is not about solemn repentance with a downcast face, but a celebration for the salvation of the “other (ALL),” including oneself. To be in the Father's house is to be about the Father's business. His business is LOVE. We're urged to cast out all hate, selfishness, pride, and violence from our hearts and actions, to turn homeward (METANOIA)--from hate to Love, from selfishness to generosity, from pride to humility, from violence to forgiveness. Jesus then shines through us to those who can see. And if we have trouble seeing God, we're invited to look compassionately into the eyes of the poor, oppressed and disenfranchised.
April 05, 2025 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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Last week during our Open Table class (that happened to fall on Ash Wednesday), I had an epiphany. Discussing our reading of Paul during the Spring term, Douglas Campbell shared something E.P. Sanders, the eminent scholar, once said to him: anyone approaching these letters without a preconceived agenda will see that the center of Paul’s theology isn’t “justification by faith” but being “in Christ.” I realized with a start that this distinction cuts right to the heart of the matter: Paul’s theology is not a set of nouns but a family of names.
Unlike a set of abstract nouns that we define and systematize, names carry the weight of story and promise. “Justification by faith,” at least as many of us have taken it, is a closed set, nouns fixed in relation—a system requiring constant maintenance. “In Christ,” is an open-ended and unfinished construction—an invitation to discover our fit in relation to each other and God in Jesus. Paul is a man with a history, a history with God. And his entire life was consumed with what it means to know that all things are for Christ and from him. The letters we’ve received from him aren’t repositories of doctrine but living testimonies to a new way of being human, where truth is known through participation in a symphony of relationships.
It is a mistake to think of Paul as an ideas man. He was a father, friend, and co-laborer, working tirelessly to make new contacts, deepen relationships, and nurture the communities he founded. He wrote letters, remember, not treatises, for people he had met or wanted to meet face-to-face, and had them delivered and read by his most trusted companions. His work is family correspondence, as can be seen on almost every page. His words pulse with pride and frustration, concern and longing. Consider just three of many such examples:
1 Thessalonians 2.17-20 As for us, brothers and sisters, when for a short time we were made orphans by being separated from you—in person, not in heart—we longed with great eagerness to see you face to face. 18For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, wanted to again and again—but Satan blocked our way. 19For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? 20Yes, you are our glory and joy!
2 Corinthians 6.11-13 We have spoken frankly to you Corinthians; our heart is wide open to you. 12There is no restriction in our affections but only in yours. 13In return—I speak as to children—open wide your hearts also.
Philippians 4:1-3 Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved. 2I urge Euodia and I urge Syntyche to be of the same mind in the Lord. 3Yes, and I ask you also, my loyal companion, help these women, for they have struggled beside me in the work of the gospel, together with Clement and the rest of my coworkers, whose names are in the book of life.
When he talks about being “in Christ,” Paul is narrating a family history—God’s family history, which finally includes all the families of the earth. He’s celebrating the new order of relationships and new mode of relating created by God through what has happened and continues to happen with Jesus who is still present and active in the church. Having faith in Christ is not, for Paul, about making Jesus the object of trust (as if we would be capable of such a decision) but realizing his faithfulness makes faith possible. Believing in Christ is possible only because of being in Christ. To believe in Christ is not to hold true ideas about Jesus but to live like Abraham, carried along by the promise that is not of one’s own making.
When Paul calls the church “the body of Christ,” he is not deploying a metaphor for community organization; he’s reminding the faithful of their identification with Christ, their existence as his ongoing God-created presence for the world’s good. He urges his communities not to hold the same ideas about his teaching, but to have the mind of Christ, living together in ways that make the gospel intelligible and absorbing for their neighbors, so Jew and Gentile, male and female, slave and free can join together in equally full-throated thanksgiving to God as God’s kin.
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Paul’s family of names theology is clearest perhaps in Galatians 2:20, where he boasts: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” Whether we can make sense of it or not, he apparently did believe he shared an identity with Jesus, that his life and Christ’s were bound together. He talks not of a shift in thinking or practice but a total alteration of being, thrust, along with others claimed by God, into a mystical co-involvedness in Jesus’ life.
Thus, in Colossians 3 Paul urges his readers to think of Christ not just as someone for whom they are living but as their very life, sharing his oneness with God. They are to put off their old ways—anger, wrath, lies, and slander (notice, these are all sins against neighbor, violations of the second table of the Law, and just so the first)—and put on Christ, the New Human, being renewed in his image, where “there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, enslaved and free, but Christ is all and in all!” (Col. 3.11).
When he talks about being “in Christ,” Paul is not describing a private spiritual experience; he is celebrating the new order of relationships and the new forms of relationality created by God through what has happened with Jesus of Nazareth. The truth he’s concerned with isn’t abstract or transactional but active and transformative, changing not what we think or feel about the idea of God but how we actually relate to God and each other. He can move so fluidly between what we call doctrine and practice because for him they are never separate.
This explains why he can say “there is neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal 3:28) while honoring distinctive Jewish beliefs and practices and blessing others for doing so. In a system of ideas, this would be a contradiction. In a network of relationships, it’s wisdom—the kind of both/and give-and-take that families and long-lasting friendships require. Paul is inflexible about including both Jews and Gentiles in one community, yet remarkably flexible about practices like dietary laws and circumcision because his priority isn’t maintaining a system but nurturing relationships that embody Christ’s reconciling love. The practices and structures he insists on are necessary for sustaining these new patterns of relating, which open up the nations to the promises of God.
In this light, we see too that the words on love in 1 Corinthians 13 are not an odd digression from a lecture on “spiritual gifts” and “church unity,” but the beating heart of the new and renewing way of life that the gift-giving, crucified God has made possible. This, then, is the culmination of Paul’s family theology: knowledge must pass away because it’s abstract; love endures because it’s personal.
The apostle’s “practical” instructions are determined by this commitment. In discussing worship, he’s concerned not with correct doctrine but whether the baptized build up the community of faith in hope and love. Speaking in tongues is worthless if it doesn’t strengthen that belonging: “I would rather speak five words with my mind to instruct others than ten thousand words in a tongue” (1 Cor 14.19). His teaching about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 11 shows this same pattern. The problem that moves him isn’t deficient theology but damaged relationships. The same goes for how he handles the problem of meat offered to idols. Rather than dictating a solution, he requires the faithful to attend to the truth of their relatedness in Christ, warning the Corinthians not to “sin against Christ” (1 Cor. 8.12) and urging the Romans to “welcome those who are weak in faith but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions” (Rom. 14.1).
This clarifies Paul's approach to authority. His letters combine strong correction with deep affection, aiming to strengthen bonds between believers. When he exercises apostolic authority, it is not to enforce rules but to protect the way of life needed for mutual flourishing in love. And this also explains why Paul insists on the resurrection being bodily (1 Corinthians 15). A family is known by names and faces in moments of bathing and washing, shared bread, and open embrace. And the promise of all people joining that intimacy cannot be real if the body isn’t really perfected.
•••
Some hear in all of this the notion that Christianity is “not a religion but a relationship.” But this contrast is a category mistake, missing the point entirely. Religion is essential precisely because the relationships created in Christ require such a dramatic reorientation of life. We cannot sustain these new patterns of relating without practices that reshape our awareness, beliefs that challenge and overturn our assumptions, and authorities that guide our transformation. Religion provides the necessary scaffolding for relationships and ways of relating we cannot otherwise sustain.
What is particularly striking—as a friend has helped me see—is how the Eucharistic liturgy culminates in a doxological supplication. At the end of the epiclesis, the presider prays:
All this we ask through your Son Jesus Christ: By him, and with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and forever.
This prayer is immediately answered by the Great Amen—the entire congregation’s emphatic and overwhelming affirmation of the goodness of God’s will, leading into the Lord’s Prayer, prayed with one voice.
It is no accident that this supplication emerges at the heart of our Eucharistic offering. The liturgy does not simply describe but enacts the truth that defined Paul's life: the mystery “hidden throughout the ages and generations but now revealed to his saints” (Col 1.26) is not a system to be mastered but a relationship to be entered, a communion to be received and given. The cascading praises of the prayer—by him, with him, in him—captures exactly what Paul wants us to understand about our life with God. We live because he lives, included in his intimacy with the Father, and we are joined to his ongoing intercession for the healing of the world, so that we might “know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge” and be “filled with all the fullness of God,” exactly as he is (Eph. 3.19).
Finally, then, this shift from nouns to names not only opens up a truer way of reading Paul but also a more faithful way of doing theology and speaking the faith. If we operate with systems of nouns, we grasp at control. But if we are met by a family of names, we are invited into communion, welcomed home. And that is what Paul’s theology is all about in the end, a shared life made possible by the One who gives himself to us as bread and wine, making us one body with him and with God.
March 12, 2025 | Permalink | Comments (1)
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In this interview with Matthew Steem, Ron grandly explicates the following points:
*This interview will appear in Radix Magazine in the Spring Issue of 2025
Names mentioned in this interview:
C. S. Lewis, Thomas Merton, Evelyn Underhill, Bede Griffiths, George Grant, Stephen Leacock, Erasmus, Roger Scruton, Jordan Peterson, Friedrich Nietzsche, The Beats, Timothy Leary, Noam Chomsky, Dorothy L. Sayers, Jim Forrest, Gary Snyder, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Philip Whalen, Martin Heidegger, Martin Buber, Seneca, Cicero, Plato, Walt Disney, Julie Andrews, German Pietism, Augustine of Hippo, Homer, Hesiod, Jacob Burckhardt, T.S. Eliot, J.R.R. Tolkien, Oswald Spengler.
Books mentioned:
A Preface to Paradise Lost (C. S. Lewis)
The Chronicles of Narnia (C. S. Lewis)
The Great Divorce (C. S. Lewis)
The Divine Comedy (Dante Alighieri)
The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
Hermann Hesse: Phoenix Arising (Ron Dart)
Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse)
Steppenwolf (Hermann Hesse)
The Glass Bead Game (Hermann Hesse)
Peter Camenzind (Hermann Hesse)
Journey to the East (Hermann Hesse)
Under the Wheel (Hermann Hesse)
Demian (Hermann Hesse)
If The War Goes On (Hermann Hesse)
I and Thou (Martin Buber)
War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)
Confessions (St. Augustine)
The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien)
February 28, 2025 in Author - Ron Dart | Permalink | Comments (0)
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In prayer and meditation, I have given this month to asking the Lord, “Show me where I am being tempted to despair and where I am being invited to despair.”
In the current Great Regression—social, political, and religious—I am recognizing both aspects. First, the temptation to despair speaks of hopelessness, despondency, paralysis, and gloom. Many, especially vulnerable folks on the margins, feel afraid, under assault, traumatized. Despair lurks.
But conversely, I also sense Jesus inviting us to a despair of a different register. I suspect we should despair of imagining we can fix our world, our nation, and even the Christian brand through worldly ways via partisan politics, culture wars ideology, and religious nationalism. These have proven ineffectual and have increasingly mutated Christianity into something foreign to the Jesus Way.
What then? Enter Stanley Hauerwas. For a long time, he’s being urging the followers of Christ to be “resident aliens,” where the church is not trying to “take the seven mountains” of cultural influence and certainly not to found a theocracy as a political power. But neither is Hauerwas calling us into a Christian conclave as lumps of tasteless salt and bucket covered lamps.
In Jesus Changes Everything, Hauerwas asks us to despair of cultural control and political power. Like Jeremiah, we are not citizens of the empire, but strangers from another world, planted wherever we live as yeast in the loaf. In only that way, “a new world is possible.”
In this tight (133 pages and just $10), clear manifesto, the author reorients us to Jesus, in six movements as simple that they are radical and provocative.
Hauerwas makes it hard to be a Christian (because, of course, basics such as radical forgiveness and enemy love involve a kind of death to self), and he makes it hard to not to be one, as the person of Jesus and his story are intensely compelling. This book shows us how Jesus’ story can be my story, our story, and from that center, trust the ripples. A keeper.
Here is an interview with Dr. Hauerwas about the book (with Charles Moore of Plough Publishing).
February 12, 2025 in Author - Brad Jersak, Book Reviews | Permalink | Comments (0)
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In a polemical world of anger and fear, of noisy fighting for self-preservation and domination, what does Jesus teach us through the Pericope Adulterae (PA), (the story of the woman caught in adultery) about the practical outworking of consent and participation in kenotic love, in the face of opposition and oppression?
The Feast of Tabernacles celebrated God’s provision in the desert. Placed in the middle of the drama of rising anger and danger, exacerbated by Jesus’ claims to be the fulfillment of the Feast’s ceremonies, is the controverted Pericope Adulterae, which I see as a portrayal of Jesus’ kenotic love.
At considerable risk, Jesus humbles himself before the woman caught in adultery (the Adulterae) and the religious leaders, choosing the way of protector, revealer of hearts, wisdom and love over retaliation and self preservation. He respects the woman’s God-given dignity in her need for de-escalation and reflection, for thoughtful metanoia, as she faces her decision to consent and participate in union with God in His Kingdom.
By reading the story as history and metaphor, considering the significance of the Feast of Tabernacles, I will explore how Jesus demonstrates unpanicked kenotic love, and invites us to consent to and participate in that love, both for ourselves and for the oppressed around us.
CLICK HERE to download the full essay: The Pericope Adulterae
February 10, 2025 | Permalink | Comments (0)
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