The Pretenders

Copyright: dirkercken / 123RF Stock Photo

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Rev. Peter Faass

​The Prodigal Son is one of the two best known parables of Jesus in the scriptures; the other is The Good Samaritan.

The Prodigal Son is also one of the two least liked parables in scripture; the other the The Parable of the Workers in the Field, the story where all the workers are paid the same wage regardless of the amount of time they spent laboring in the field. The Prodigal Son may be so disliked because we don’t like God’s economic system, justice – or radical forgiveness.

Most people who hear these parables immediately identify with a particular character. In The Prodigal Son, the elder son is the good and faithful one who never did anything to disobey his father (yeah right, at least in his own mind!) In Workers in the Field, people identify with those who were hired at dawn and worked hard all day in the fields under grueling conditions.

We seldom see ourselves as the prodigal son – that greedy, reckless party boy who squandered away the family money. None of us has ever been a spendthrift, greedy or reckless, right? Nor do we tend to see ourselves as not applying ourselves fully to doing a day’s labor, because none of us spend time at work on Facebook or Instagram, texting, chatting on the phone or just hanging out at the water cooler, right?
 
We are hypocrites when we think like this, pretending to be something we are not.  The reality is, we’ve all had our moments of dissolute living to some degree. We all have received more compensation for what we have done… or maybe better stated, left undone.

In Henri Nouwen’s famous book, The Return of the Prodigal Son, the author asks the reader to examine each character in the story. According to Nouwen, we are, at various points in our lives, the father, the prodigal, and the elder son. I think that’s right. I would also postulate that of the two sons, the prodigal ends up being spiritually healthier at the end of the story, while the elder son remains spiritually sick.

Father Richard Rohr, a Roman Catholic priest, writer, and lecturer, states “if there is such a thing as human perfection, it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially our own.” This is one of the key lessons about The Prodigal Son: recognizing how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially our own. That is why I believe the prodigal son was more spiritually healthy at the end of the parable and the elder son was not. The prodigal had finally come to terms with his own imperfections. The elder son, well, not so much.

Christian author and speaker Brian McLaren writes,

 “The fact is, we are all hypocrites to some degree. None of us wants to be known for our worst moments… Sometimes we find that the best way to keep guilt at bay over our own inconsistencies is to pour guilt on others. As we do so, our souls go dark and dangerous.”

McLaren labels people who do this as “pretenders.”

 (They are) “false prophets projecting an image by which (they) hope to rack in profits-financial, social, relational, spiritual… We all need to come out of the closet (from being pretenders). We don’t have to hide the real us – the sexual us, the insecure us, the doubtful us, the angry us, the complex, different, tempted, actual us.”

McLaren’s point is that when we hide in the closet, we deny our essential selves, working hard to project a pretense of whom we are rather than being our authentic selves. As a result, we are not spiritually well. The cure for this is self-examination, confession and repentance is closing the gap between the artificial pretender we project and our authentic actual selves.

McLaren continues,

 “Through confession we say, ‘God, I will not hide anything from you. You know already. Pretending in your presence is pure and pathetic insanity. I want to be who I am in your presence.’”

This is the scenario we have in the parable of The Prodigal Son: We have two pretenders working hard to project false images of who they are before God. They are both in the closet about their true identities – and as a result, their souls are dark and dangerous. They are lost souls.

The prodigal son projects a cocky, confident, arrogant and self-reliant image. He says to his father, “I can be the best tender of my own life and resources. Give them to me because I don’t trust you any longer.”

Meanwhile, the elder son projects a small-minded, moralistic image of arrogant superiority derived from his perceived selfless, sacrificial life of service. Both sons believe they are perfect and beyond reproach. They have so artfully constructed their false selves that they end up deluding themselves.
They are pretenders.

How much of these two sons’ personalities do we see in some of the current presidential candidates? How much of this delusional pretending they exhibit is also in their supporters? Like the two sons, the candidates and their followers are truly lost in their relationship with God... They are pretenders.

In the parable, the father desires his sons to authentically be who they are, which is why the father, before he dies, gives the prodigal son his portion of the estate. The father allows his son to go on this Amish Rumspringa adventure with the hope that he will find his authentic self. In the father’s mind that alone is worth the money and all he has.

The prodigal son has to experience a major crisis before he can engage in the self-examination required to get to his real self. He eventually loses all the resources he clearly was unable to manage on his own, finally hitting rock bottom when he has to slop hogs. To understand this, for a nice Jewish boy from a good family, slopping hogs is as low as he could go.

The prodigal son returns to his father humbled. He expresses sorrow for his misdeeds, for not being himself, and for causing so much pain and anxiety. His words are a confession for having projected a false image of who he was – a pretender.

“'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his servants, 'Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.”

“For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!”

What the father actually meant was, “this son of mine was a pretender, but he has found his authentic self. In so doing, he has discovered his perfection, his humanity and his holiness.”

Who wouldn’t celebrate?

This is why the prodigal son is spiritually healthier at the end of the parable. He has engaged in the critical process of self-examination. Through his confession, he has bridged the tragic gap between his phony appearance and his actual self. Because he has done so, he is forgiven and restored to fullness of life with God. He is given a life that he never thought was possible.

The elder son is still pretending, his anger inflamed by how easily this miscreant younger brother is forgiven and feted. The elder son whines, judges and condemns, drawing comparisons between his own righteousness and his brother’s sinfulness. Instead of seeing the abundant grace in his brother’s transformation, the elder brother becomes more entrenched in projecting the world as he wants it to be:

• A life of scarcity, not abundance.
• A life of judgment, not forgiveness.
• A life of punishment, not restorative justice.
• A life of artifice, not authenticity.

The father is anguished by his elder son’s response, pleading his son to relent and join the celebration for his younger brother. The father then states the core truth of our life with God:
“Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”

Son, everything I have is yours: the forgiveness, the restorative justice, the abundance, the love. All you have to do is take it. I give it freely to you. The only condition is, you must stop being someone you are not and be authentic…  just like your brother has.

I can’t think of a more critical message at this time of our national aloofness, our national pretending. We all desperately authenticity to save ourselves from ourselves. I mean all of us because we are, all of us – Democrats, Republicans, Independents, voters, non-voters, conservatives, liberals, Tea Party, progressives, religious, non-religious - complicit in getting to where we are today. This is a pretty low place; as low as slopping those hogs.

I can’t think of a more critical message at this time of our national aloofness, our national pretending. We all desperately authenticity to save ourselves from ourselves. I mean all of us because we are, all of us – Democrats, Republicans, Independents, voters, non-voters, conservatives, liberals, Tea Party, progressives, religious, non-religious - complicit in getting to where we are today. This is a pretty low place; as low as slopping those hogs.

Copyright: shaunwilkinson / 123RF Stock Photo

Do you remember the old merry-go-rounds that used to have brass rings you could touch with each rotation? If you reached out from your horse just far enough, you could grab that brass ring and win a prize. The expression of “grabbing the brass ring” entered the lexicon, and now means striving for the highest prize, or living life to the fullest.

The brass ring is a great metaphor for our life with God, representing the fullness of an authentic life with God, a life that is holy, allowing us to stop pretending and be who we really are. It is the highest prize.

Each day as we ride the merry-go-round of life, we can grab the brass ring. We have to make an effort and lean out with our hands if we are going to grab it. That means we must let go of the superficial images we have of ourselves. We have to stop pretending.

The Prodigal Son is that brass ring for us.

The only thing we can do to redeem our country from the depraved, vile and virulent hatred and demagoguery we are currently witnessing is to lean away from our complacency. If we grasp the symbolic brass ring to be our authentic selves, we can face down this beastly ugliness infecting our nation.

We CAN and we MUST grab that brass ring as both faithful Christians and as proud citizens of the United States of America. When we do, believe me, we’ll roast the fatted calf, the band will play, and we’ll roll the carpets up so we can dance. There will be eating, merriment and great celebration, and God will proclaim, “Once these children of mine were dead and now they are alive again; once they were lost and now they are found!”

Who wouldn’t celebrate?

Amen.

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