Tina Turna’s song… “what’s love got to do… got to do with it?” brings such a HUGE question to the Christian mindset. Living as the calling of being the light of the world what does love got to do with it?
Lately I’ve been reflecting a whole lot on what it means to love and what does love mean in general? Past few weeks I’ve been reading (finished) The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller. Once again another theologian begins to tackle this wonderful parable. It is very interesting of the struggle of the older brother; someone who has always been “right” with the father. Keller brings a very interesting point that the older brother actually did not truly loves the father. In his work and in his service for the father it has nothing to do with the right and good relationship with his father. It has everything to do with his own self-desires. We see that in the conversation “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” (Luke 15:29-30)
- “All these years I’ve been slaving…” – Have you NOT seen how HARD I’ve been working all these years! So are we slaves to the Lord? that we are only servants to the work that He has granted and given us? or do we have more of a significant role? When serving God I do not think it is so much of a chore because it has so much to elicit negative connotations. But I think as we begin to learn to serve God and be submissive to His will that there is purpose and fulfillment.
- “never disobey your orders…” – Look!!! I have lived a life that’s nice and perfect!!! The danger of self-righteousness where individuals become one who lives with an attitude of holier-than-thou mentality. I have NEVER done any wrong before your eyes; the rules I have live to the tee. The question would be so what else did you do? Is the teachings of Christ live within the restrictions of the law or does it transcend and embody a lifestyle? and to say that never disobedience is already fallen short because the respond to the celebration is already disobedience to the father. It is disobeying the grace and the mercy the father has for the younger brother.
- “Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends…” – Where’s my cut in this whole ordeal? Keller encapsulate the idea of how the older son is looking for his cut in the deal. The younger brother got his but where is his? He didn’t even get some goods to enjoy? Wow! quite ungrateful especially when later the father explains that “what is mine will be yours.”
Keller’s explanation of the older brother really reveals the true attitude of the older brother. Isn’t having the love and the relationship with the father sufficient? it seems that it ISN’T enough! We want the cake too!
Love… the truth of how the Father’s reckless embrace of both brothers. Two brothers who are lost to disobedience… lost to self-love… lost to the world’s definition of love. yet the father’s love extends beyond that and covers all of that.
I am beginning to see and understand more about this kind of love; this love that in 1 John 3 – this is a sacrifical love. There is no room for self love. There is no room to orient for the self. I am beginning to learn that love embraces others and orients towards other. Love only exist when we can give ourselves to another. Without this “another” it is self-indulgence, self-fulfillment and self-purposement. There is no room to love others if we love the self. Love must be a self-denial sort of love, it must transcends looking at the purpose and self-gratification. Notice the father’s love is embracing… forget about the property, forget about how stupid his sons have been, not holding to his status and who he is but embracing two sons who just need to be loved.
The power of love… the father’s kind of love…
“Throw us in jail and we will still love you. Threaten our children and bomb our homes and our churches and as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our communities at the midnight hours and drag us out on some wayside road and beat us and leave us half-dead, and as difficult as that is, we will still love you. But be assure that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer and one day we will win our freedom. We will not only win freedom from ourselves, we will so appeal to your heart and your conscience that we will win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory.”
Martin Luther King jr. – 1963
So what does love got to do with it? LOVE has EVERYTHING to do with it!
