I know it’s not true, but I still get caught up in it
anyway. I see it, and I find it so
hard to resist. I think to myself. But it’s free. But here’s the painful truth. It’s not free. It’s not free at all.
Do you ever get caught up in a BOGO, you know one of
those “buy one, get one free” deals at the grocery stores? But you do realize, it’s not really
free. It’s just half price. But if it was just half price, would you
likely buy two? But if it’s “buy one,
get one free”, well you just gotta get the other one right? You can’t let that free one just sit on the
shelf. After all, it’s free! Boy those grocery store folks are clever!
But those BOGOs make a powerful point. What looks free often deceives. What people think looks like freedom usually doesn’t
bring real freedom at all. Instead, it often
brings the opposite. Yet our world
offers those false promises of freedom all the time. And those false promises lead to
heartbreak, to brokenness, even death.
How can you make sure you don’t get caught up in the false freedoms, but
open yourself to experience the real thing?
In this famous story, Jesus shows you the way. Let’s listen and hear what Jesus has to say.
What looks like freedom often doesn’t bring freedom at
all. In fact, it can even bring the exact opposite.
So how do you avoid getting caught up
in a false promise of freedom? In this
story, Jesus tells you. How do you find
the key to real freedom? You find it by
trusting in the love.
But before you can unpack what trusting in the love looks
like, you need to see first what is it that makes a false freedom false. And in this younger brother we see someone caught
up in a false idea of freedom. But he’s
not the only one that has it. A lot of
folks in the world base their lives on that same false idea. And what is that idea? Freedom means no constraints, no
limits. And that idea of freedom can
sound awesome. In fact, even as I wrote
those words, I could sense them attracting me.
So, you can see, why they attracted the younger
brother. After all, that’s why he wants
the money. He doesn’t want the money to
invest or to manage. He wants the money
to buy him the freedom. With that money,
he can go out on his own. He can make
his own way in the world. He doesn’t
need to be confined by his family’s expectations or even his culture’s. In fact, he knew. By demanding this inheritance,
he was shattering those very expectations.
He was breaking the rules, and not just little rules, but big ones. But hey, if that’s what it took to get
freedom, that’s what it took. “Sorry
dad. I know it hurts to know that I wish
you were dead. But hey, I gotta be free.”
But is that idea of freedom: no constraints; no
limits, is that even really freedom?
Years ago, the Episcopal priest Nicky Gumbel shared a
somewhat embarrassing story on himself. He had taken his son to play in a local soccer
game. But when they got there, it
turned out that the referee hadn’t shown up. But both the teams had. So, Nicky thought. I know a bit about soccer. I can ref the game. So, he volunteered to help. But a few minutes into the game, one of the
players fell on the field. He claimed
that the other player had fouled him.
But Nicky wasn’t so sure. So, he
said. Play on. Then a few moments later, it looked like the
ball might have gone out of bounds, but Nicky wasn’t sure, so he said, play
on. And it wasn’t too long before player casualties
were everywhere, and both teams were almost at each other’s throats. Thankfully, at that point, the ref arrived,
and quickly put everything back in order.
And Nicky Gumbel’s brief and disastrous career as a ref mercifully
ended.
Do you get it? Nicky’s
way of refereeing offered just that way of freedom, no constraints, no limits. But how did that work? It didn’t.
It didn’t bring freedom. It
brought the opposite. No one could enjoy
or even play the game at all. In fact,
you can’t play any game without some constraints, some limits.
Heck, what would traffic be like, if we didn’t have
red lights or stop signs or speed limits?
Could any one even drive at all? And even if you could drive, who would want
to? Talk about chaos.
Heck, as a nation, all of sudden we are all facing all
sorts of constraints and limits. We can’t
shake hands. We have to wash our hands
all the time. We can’t even go to Disney
World. Yet, without all those constraints,
people could die. And let me tell you, death,
that pretty much ends your freedom, at least this side of heaven. While I look forward to going to heaven one
day. I’m not ready to go yet. And I sure don’t want to be responsible for sending
anyone else there. So, if I need to wash my hands a bit more and
wave at you across the sanctuary or even stop worshipping in person for a few weeks, those are limits I’m more than willing to
take.
But this younger brother is going for the no limits,
no constraints idea of freedom. So, he
gets Dad’s money, but what ends up happening?
He just trades one set of limits for another. He
ends up spending it all. But think about
that. How does that happen? He had to know he was blowing through the
money. So why couldn’t he stop? Why
couldn’t he stop before it was too late?
When I was in my mid-twenties, I went through a double
whopper with cheese phase. My local
Burger King had a late-night drive thru.
And about ten pm, I’d feel the craving come on. So, I’d hop in my car and order one of those 1000 calorie burgers along with fries and a drink of course too. I gotta tell you. Biting into that burger felt like sheer
bliss. But it only took a few days before I began to feel,
well, not all that good. I thought to
myself. I better hold off for a while on
this double-whopper drive thru thing. But
then 10 pm came around. And I felt like
my body was screaming at me. “Get me my
double whopper now!” It took all the
willpower I had not to go. I even think
that one night I went so far as to get in the car and drive there. Thankfully, the drive thru had a really long
line. So, I thought it best just to head
back home. But if that line had been
shorter, I don’t think I could have resisted.
And I’ve avoided ordering double whoppers for
years. It’s not because I don’t like
them. It’s because I like them way too
much.
People are always
getting caught up like that. You look
for something that promises you freedom, satisfaction, fulfillment. And
at first, it seems to deliver. But all it delivers is a hook. And once that
hook grabs you, it doesn’t want to let you go.
It doesn’t bring you freedom. It
brings you the opposite. And it can
happen with anything a drug or a double whopper, a relationship or even an idea
of success. Someone described addiction
this way. It’s anything that you need
more and more of to make you less and less happy. And that can happen well, with pretty much
anything.
So, if freedom doesn’t come in those ways, how does it
come? When this younger brother wakes up
and decides to head home, Jesus shows you.
He goes home prepared to give up his freedom, to
essentially become a slave to his father, until he is able to pay off the
debt. But that doesn’t happen at
all. His father rushes to him and
embraces him. He invites him in and welcomes
him with his best robe and a lavish feast.
And in doing those things, Jesus is showing you the way to true
freedom. True freedom comes when you
trust the love.
In our house, our son has to deal with a lot of
constraints. He has to brush his teeth. He has to clean the table. He can’t always play with legos or watch youtube
kids when he wants. And boy, does he get
frustrated.
But what if we didn’t do that. What if we said to him? Patrick, we don’t care what you do. For a while it might feel awesome. But after a while, I wonder if it would keep
feeling so awesome. Or instead, he would
begin to think. Do these people really
care about me at all? He might end up
doubting the love.
As it stands, he puts up pretty well with the constraints. In fact, he often seems to get a sense of satisfaction
about them in the end. And that
happens, I like to think because, even when he disagrees with the constraints, he trust that we are doing them because we
love him; that we want the best for him; that we are for him.
And in those moments, when that younger brother feels
his father’s embrace, he realizes that too.
He realizes. His father loves him
more than he ever imagined. He realizes. His dad is for him. His dad is really for him. And in that embrace, Jesus is telling you, you
only enter into the true path to freedom when you trust the love, when you
trust God loves you like that.
Have you ever wondered why God put that bad tree in
the Garden in the first place? Wouldn’t
it make sense to not have any bad tree there at all? But God wanted people to be free, to be free
even to make the wrong choice. And as I
have shared here before, the point of the tree wasn’t even the tree. It was the trust. God was saying to Adam and Eve. Trust me about this tree. Trust that I love you, that I want the best
for you.
And in the story, that’s exactly what the snake attacks. He first asks. Did God say you couldn’t eat
from any tree in
the garden? Now Eve corrects him. She says to the serpent. No, God only said we couldn’t eat from this
tree. But do you see the seed the serpent
plants? This God wants to constrain
your freedom, wants to hold you back.
God is the everlasting killjoy. You
can’t trust the love of this God. And so Adam and Eve believe that lie and eat. But the fall doesn’t come from biting the
fruit. It comes from not trusting in the
love. And when Adam and Eve can’t trust
the love of God, distrust enters the world.
They find it hard to even trust each other, to even trust
themselves. They don’t find freedom.
They find separation, disconnection.
They find a world that isn’t free at all.
And ever since then, God has been on a rescue mission
to free you in the only way true freedom comes, by trusting in the love. Don’t you see? That’s why God came and
become one of you. That’s why God in
Jesus even gave up his life for you. He lost
his freedom so he might win yours. He
took on the chains of imprisonment so he might break the chains that bind
you. He lost even his own life so you
might find yours. In all those things, God
was showing you in the most breathtakingly, powerful way possible. I love you.
You can trust in my love. I will
not betray you. It will not walk away
from you even when you try to kill me. Nothing
will take away my love for you, not even death.
And when you realize that, when you open yourself to trust
in the love, you become more and more free.
Constraints become expressions of care.
Limits become acts of love. And a
freedom finds you that is so deep, so true that you realize. You will never find the end of it. You discover a freedom that not even death
can defeat. And all you need to do is find
the freedom is to trust the love, to feel, like that son, God’s embrace, to
know this profound, beautiful truth. God
loves you, truly and completely. You can
trust it. You can trust that this God loves you no matter what.
No comments:
Post a Comment