Faith in a Terrible God?

Our Faith in a Terrible God

In the “parable of the ‘prodigal son’” or of “the ‘lost son’” we read about the young man returning to the Father and preparing, in his head, a kind of “speech” declaring that he be treated not as a son but as a servant.  So he prepared saying “I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers” (Lk.15/19).  Then upon meeting his Father the young son declared, “I no longer deserve to be called your son.’” (15/21). The son was saying this in the middle of the embrace and kiss of the Father. (In fact, many biblical theologians would want to entitle the parable as the "parable of the loving Father".)

The Father seemed to have heard nothing of this “speech”. Immediately he called for a feast. The conduct of the Father shows the great compassion to reconcile always with the son. The Father’s thinking is different from the usual thinking of revenge, hatred and “getting even”. The Father is always ready to welcome, not to seek satisfaction against hurt done to him. He is happy each time there is the return to him. Here in this parable is the invitation to imitate the Father (and not the elder son). Jesus knew the stand of his auditors, the Scribes and Pharisees, then.

It can happen that the parable is not easy to deal with. There are traces within our culture of the desire to make God terrible. What do I mean?

 How can we be like the Father? In Matthew we read that Jesus tells us to be perfect like the Father : “So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt.5/48). So it is difficult to imagine the dramatic behavior of the “lost son”. We would like to think that the son was also correct to refuse his filiation with the Father. The son was “really bad” and need not be treated so well. Yes, the Father called for a feast. Might we think that he did this in spite of what the son did.
Culturally, do we hold inside our minds the desire that "bad people" be punished? Do we not hold in our minds the idea that we are sinners and do not deserve God's love unless we prove our fidelity to God? Our image of God is that of someone who wants satisfaction from our own punishment, penalty and suffering. Do we not, at times, hear it said that "it is God's will that we suffer"? It even looks as if God willed our own suffering. Do we not still read about "redemption" as a matter of Christ substituting for us--and that God the Father wanted the blood of his Son? Is redemption therefore a matter of being redeemed from the wrath and anger of the Father himself? 

In the early centuries of the history of the Church there were “theologies” that tried to protect so much the divinity of Jesus. Jesus could not have been so human as to have mixed with human fragility and weakness. Behind those “theologies” was an idea of the divine to be so “up there”, above us and everything here. And so it was thought necessary to maintain that “highness”. To look at the story of the “lost son” is to emphasize the role of the son rather than that of the Father. By some kind of extension we are made to feel to imitate the son. Of course we are to imitate the son, but not at the cost of refusing to imitate the Father.    

Yet, one can emphasize and insist—we are not worthy of the love of God. So when God loves us, it is in spite of us. God really needs to be “satisfied” from the hurt we, and originally Adam and Eve, have done to him. One might even cite the passage in the mass: “Lord I am not worthy to receive you”. This passage is not part of the parable of “the lost son” and it cannot be used to justify the unworthy status of the son. Also it does not tell about our own unworthiness in front of the Father.

The passage is from Matthew 8/ 5-13 or Luke 7/1-10. It is from the story of the Roman centurion requesting Jesus to heal his ill servant (or child, in Matthew). The story about the centurion is not the story of the “parable of the 'lost son'”.

The centurion knew about “authority” and “power”. He was with the empire. He knew the sense of authority and power wielded by his higher officials. He knew power and authority that he himself wielded. So his status allowed him to command. Jesus seemed to have accepted being commanded. The Roman officer wanted his servant (or child) healed. Jesus “obeyed” as if he was an underling of the officer.

Yet the Roman centurion called Jesus “Lord”, a title that is, by the way, post-Easter. The story makes us see the faith of the centurion. The centurion refused to take the status of power and authority. He wanted to show his desire to tie fraternal relationships without making distinction of power and authority. (Remember that he was quite a respectful officer—he respected the Jews and even had a synagogue built for them, see Lk. 7/5). So the statement of the centurion to Jesus was this: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof” (Lk.7/6). The centurion was not worthy to play the game of power and authority and he recognized the Lordship of Jesus.

Jesus was impressed by this. The story tells us about a centurion—a non-Jew—who knew fraternal love and this fraternity was an important value for him. In the Luke account we see how the centurion was so concerned with the health of his servant, yes, his servant. For the Roman centurion it is the love for others that mattered much. It was this quality that had impressed Jesus so much.

We cannot equate the message of the “parable of the ‘lost son’” with the story of the Roman centurion. But because of the tendency to protect the divine (and consequently and subtly widen this gap we have from God by insisting on our so-lowly status) we might “twist the arm” of the Bible and force a concordance. Oh, how, over so many centuries, we would rather keep faith in a terrible God who is so thirsty for the satisfaction against the “hurt” we, and Adam and Eve, have done.