Am midway through Henri Nouwen’s The Return of the Prodigal Son, which are his reflections on the parable in the Bible (Luke 15 : 11 - 31) as well as Rembrandt’s painting of the same name.  In respect of the prodigal son, Nouwen muses that the son’s shame at his disobedience may only be part of his reason for deciding to return home as a servant.

The other might be the prodigal son’s misapprehension of the depth of the father’s love for him.  The prodigal son did not know if his father would accept him and fearfully expected that, even if the father did, a sharp rebuke, to be shamed before relatives, and relegated to a lower status in the house.  In anticipation of this, and out of desperation, the son decided to offer his services to his father as a servant; he had run out of money and would soon die of hunger if he did not do so.

When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father. (v 17 - 20)

Which, I think, is also a common (mis)perception of god / God - an austere judge who hands down divine punishment on sinners, hence the need to repent to avoid the consequences of our sin.  Better to be the lowliest servant in god’s house, than die a starving sinner elsewhere !

Repent or die.  Very horribly.  In Surah 8 : 12 - 13, for example, it is written -

"I [ god ] will instil terror into the hearts of unbelievers : smite ye above their necks and smite all their fingertips off them".  This is because they contended against [ god ] and his messenger, [ god ] is strict in punishment.

(For the ignorant, let me clarify that "Surah" is not a book in the Bible.  Go figure the rest on google.)

Just as most of us baulk at the thought that a Government might be oppressed into changing its policies because of the fear of terrorist attacks, many of us and particularly liberals baulk at the thought that a person should be converted to another belief because of a fear of divine punishment.

But the God of the Bible is not a one-dimensional, vengeful figure who relishes in using fear and shame to bring about obedience.  To the prodigal son’s surprise, and pretty much the rest of his household (including his jealous elder brother), the father (who symbolises God) warmly welcomes the return of the prodigal son, slaughtering the fattened calf in the celebration that follows his repentance, and restores the son to his position as son and master of the house.

So while many people may turn to God out of fear or to avoid punishment, expecting to be consigned to the place of lowest standing in the court of the Divine Judge, God in fact boisterously welcomes sinners to their true home with great joy and fanfare, giving them the best clothes, bringing out the best food (v 22 - 23), and elevating them to the position of sonship.  We see here not a vengeful God, but a loving Father who eagerly awaits the return of His lost child. 

The Bible repeatedly reminds us that the God who judges sin is above all the Father of love, and that the uniqueness, the attractiveness, and the power for salvation in the Christian faith lies not in fear, but in God’s all-embracing love for and acceptance of sinners, as ultimately demonstrated through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross.

"This is love : not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. … God is love.  … There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment.  … We love because He (ie. God) first loved us."  (1 John 4 : 10, 16 - 18)

Those of us who have turned to God, or who keep a wary distance from God out of fear, need to understand the Father’s heart, so that we can unlock the fullness of our divine inheritance as prodigal sons who have been fully accepted into God’s household as His children.  And none of us should misrepresent God, by neglecting to project the Father’s perfect love in how we live and in what we say about God.

God -

"Who is this that darkens My counsel with words without knowledge ? … Will the one who contends with the Almight correct Him ?  Let him who accuses God answer Him !"

Job -

"I am unworthy - how can I reply to You ?  I put my hand over my mouth. … You asked, ‘who is this who obscures My counsel without knowledge ?’.  Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. … Therefore, I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes."

I’ve always found the conclusion to Job, in chapters 38 to 42, somewhat unsatisfactory.  God, in reply to Job’s complaint of injustice (ie. why the good suffer while the bad prosper), seems to be almost saying - "I am God.  So ?". 

To which Job can only reply - "OK, so I’ll shut up and crawl back to into my hole now."

Reading Job afresh, I don’t think God was simply saying "because I am God, you have no right to question Me".  (The mere fact that God listened to and answered Job, and regarded Job’s questioning more favourably than the self-righteous cogitations of his friends, suggests that God did not take offense at being questioned).

"Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation ?  …
Who shut up the sea behind doors
  when it burst forth from the womb,
when I made the clouds its garment
  and wrapped it in thick darkness,
when I fixed limits for it
  and set its doors and bars in place,
when I said, ‘This far you may come and no farther;
  here is where your proud waves halt ?’"

Instead God was telling Job "I am the Creator and Sustainer of the earth, I fix the limits for everything; nothing happens without My knowledge, and participation or permission.  Would you then not trust that the wicked are also under My control, and that I will bring about justice in My perfect time ?"

In Matthew 6 : 25 - 34, Jesus says the same using less obscure words.

"Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes ?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. …  And why do you worry about clothes ?  See how the lilies of the field grow.  They do not labour or spin. … If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith ?  … But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."

Re-read The Second Coming between assignments.  In this climate of quirky weather (floods in England, scorching summers elsewhere in Europe), dengue outbreaks in Asia, avian influenza waiting to leap from fowl to men folk, jihadist kidnappings, killings and suicide bombings, it seems that things fall apart; the centre cannot hold.

Almost a hundred years since the First World War, the world continues to spiral out of control, Yeats’ words continue to haunt us.

TURNING and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

- William Butler Yeats (1919)

Reply to a extraordinarily difficult client at 0100 hours, with as much courtesy as I can muster :

1. It is unfortunate that this particular project has kept many of us working over weekends and on many nights.

2. As a favour, may I request that before you send us an entire set of tender documents in the future, that you read through the documents as if you are a prospective tenderer to see if you understand what goods / services you are expected to provide under the tender ?

3. If you have difficulties understanding the tender documents, then I suppose a prospective tenderer is likely to feel the same way too. If so, then those mysterious provisions or parts which are missing must either be corrected to ensure consistency with the rest of the tender requirements or, if the provision relates to a legal issue (eg. meaning of "liquidated damages"), our assistance may be sought as to what that particular provision means.

4. Let me now turn to the tender documents which you have forwarded to us below. I have difficulties understanding what is expected of a tenderer under this tender, primarily because of missing parts and inconsistencies in the documents. Let me point out a few :

…

5. Please make the necessary corrections to the provisions highlighted above. In addition, please go through the tender documents to ensure that a prospective tenderer is able to understand what goods / services he is expected to provide under the tender. This will help expedite the tender vetting process.

The first chapter of the first gospel of the Bible, Matthew, records the ancestry of Jesus Christ.  It would be a boring list of who was the father of who was the father who who eventually became the de facto "father" of Jesus Christ (ie. Joseph), but for the fact that it mentions four women in addition to Mary the mother of Jesus.

The fact that those women are included in the list is, I suppose, partly significant because women did not enjoy much prominence in the largely patriarchal society of that time.  But of greater significance is the fact that these women were not of noble lineage or of high moral standing.

Abraham was the father of Issac,
Issac the father of Jacob,
Jacod the father of Judah and his brothers,
Judah the father of Perez and Zerah,
whose mother was Tamar,
…
Nashon the father of Salmon,
Salmon the father of Boaz,
whose mother was Rahab,
Boaz the father of Obed,
whose mother was Ruth,
Obed the father of Jesse,
and Jesse the father of King David.

David was the father of Soloman,
whose mother had been Uriah’s wife
….

Tamar was the daughter-in-law of Judah.  She schemed her way into sleeping with her father-in-law (when, as was the custom at that time, he refused to allow her deceased husband’s brother to sleep with and impregnate her in order to bear him children … eewe gross), by which she conceived and bore Perez and Zerah.

Rahab was a prostitute and an outsider - a citizen of the fallen enemy city of Jericho and not an Israelite.

Ruth was also an outsider, a Moabite and not an Israelite.

Uriah’s wife, Bathesheba, was an adulterer (there was no other way she could have been King David’s wife at the same time).

I can think of better families to choose to be born into.  It can’t be very pleasant to be told that great-grandmother was an adulteress, that great-great-grandmother was an outcast and a prostitute, and that great-great-great-grandmother had an incestuous liason with great-great-great-great-grandfather.

But the Messiah chose to be born into as ordinary (or more accurately, as dysfunctional) a family as any of us could have been born into.  This is meaningful to me on two accounts.

The first is that Jesus, through this, chose to identify and affiliate Himself not with royalty or that segment of society which enjoys high status or wealth.  Instead, He chose to affiliate Himself with our brokeness and dysfunction.

The second is that Jesus, through this, demonstrates that He had imparted His grace not because of our perfection, but despite our imperfection.  This holds out the hope of forgiveness and acceptance by God for even the most undeserving person (or the person who feels that way).

Joyce and I are at it again.  Discussing, or perhaps arguing, over what our second one - boy or girl we don’t know yet - should be named.  My criteria is that the name should be meaningful, rhyme with "Jed", and preferably have Hebrew origins.  Suggestions, anyone ?

For all the good money that we spent on the trip, what Jed enjoyed most was not the resort facilities, or the food, or the shoping, but his room bathtub !

Didn’t get much of an opportunity to take nice shots of the place and people, but here are the few that I caught :

Well, the butterflies below certainly took more than just two minutes - long enough for us to capture them in action !