we won’t see God’s kingdom come or his will done.
Consider this passage from Jesus’ most famous sermon (Matt 5:43–48):
You have heard that it was said, “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? . . . Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Verses 43 and 48 are clearly linked in Jesus’ train of thought. Our heavenly Father’s perfection is his divine capacity to love those who oppose him. Yet to pursue reconciliation with my offender in imitation of the Great Lover requires a conversion of the heart.
After Caligallo stole his shoes, I discussed and prayed with José about God’s love for Caligallo. Later, I found out that he went to his offender and gave him fruit as a gesture of good will. José also asked for his shoes back. His request was denied.
What enabled José to approach the unapproachable Caligallo with a peace offering instead of a pistol? In conversations with him before his bold act, José was honest about his struggle. He didn’t brush over the conflict as if it were nothing. It was extremely difficult for him to view Caligallo with anything other than harsh judgment and condemnation. I don’t believe José felt anything close to compassion toward his enemy. He more or less accepted the idea that God could view Caligallo with mercy.
Thin as this foundation felt to him, José was open to new perspectives as we talked through the situation. Contrary to his instincts, and even a bit begrudgingly, he was willing to treat his assailant as a person with a name. To come in peace would require this. Finally, José took a risk that looked foolish to others. By stepping out in unexpected vulnerability, he granted Caligallo the chance to respond in kind with perhaps a surprising word or gesture that could make reconciliation a possibility. What happened in actuality was closer to a truce.
More important lythan the results or lack of them was the faith that José exercised. His modest step represented a movement in the spirit of Jesus’ primacy over the absolutizing of good and bad people. As the “older son,” he reached out to the “younger son,” though hesitantly and cautiously. I can’t say that José went into the party. Yet his initial move in that direction can be affirmed as a hopeful sign of God’s shalom through the breaking down of dividing walls.
Resistible Shalom
This movement—first to the street to receive the wayward younger son, then to the older son who remained outside the party—is powerfully demonstrated by Jesus who “suffered outside the city gate” (Heb 13:12). On the cross, God’s act of unexpected vulnerability and surprising forgiveness echoes the heart of the running and pleading father. For God’s peace/shalom is incomplete without both expressions of his compassion.
Curiously, the writer of Hebrews takes this next step: “Let us, then, go to him outside the camp, bearing the disgrace he bore” (13:13). This is a hard step for us to take, one we resist. We don’t want to follow Jesus “outside the camp” as a “cursed one” or an “unclean one” (Gal 3:13; Lev. 13:45–46). This is when being “in Christ” is the last thing we want.
The dilemma we face as the elder sibling is not only estrangement from our adversary (“this son of yours”). Our rejection is more fundamentally a rejection of God’s lordship (the father’s authority), evidenced in our refusal to reconcile with those we’re at odds with. We don’t want to celebrate together as family.
In the parable, the father demonstrates his authority by bearing the shame of the younger son in such a way that blindness is exposed, prejudices revealed, and self-interests laid bare. With the words “this brother of yours,” the dad exposes his firstborn’s true heart while reasserting his authority to define the relationships. Then, in the heat of the moment with emotions running high, the father’s shockingly tender response to the older son’s abusive treatment shakes his hearers to the core: “my dear son.”
The elder sibling tries to redefine the relationships by taking himself out of the family equation. The father then exercises a loving, mature authority without shaming the son for his insolent behavior. He simply reasserts the true nature of the family.
God’s vision of restored humanity requires more than converting the masses that, like the younger son, know they are in trouble and need restoration. What the Bible describes variously as shalom/peace, justice, the new man/humanity, or new creation remains incomplete without restoring the decent, law-abiding, proud ones, too. Nobody gets left out of this kingdom equation.
Yet this doesn’t come without a cost. I liken it to a holy clash with the Almighty. In biblical terms, this offense is called a “stumbling block.” The father and his two sons embody this divine conflict.
This, of course, leads us to Jesus, the storyteller himself. For he is the one to whom the parable points and whose mission it portrays.
1. Bailey, “Four Misconceptions.”
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