Chapter 88 The Wild Christ Nobody Owns The Good Father Age 31 The chief Rabbi was a good man with an open heart and mind. He asked Jesus to come to the school and speak to his students the next day so that they could discuss and debate all that he said. So Jesus came and stood amidst a circle of students with his disciples, but the women were not allowed to enter. The Rabbi thanked him for coming and for his courage to see old truths with new eyes. Jesus looked on the old man with much Love. One of the students asked, “Teacher, you say we should not strive to be righteous, and yet it is so easy to be evil to each other and hard at times to be good. How can we walk the path of true good without striving and much effort? If this is truly possible it would be a very great truth to know.” Jesus said, “This can only come through a deep change of your heart. I will tell you a story. Once there was a wealthy man, much respected in his town, who had two sons. The older son always strove to be good, to respect his father’s wishes and to do all things in an orderly way. The younger son was wild and free in his spirit, and longed to see the world and know adventure. And the younger son said to his father, ‘Give me my inheritance now so that I may go my way and live as I wish.’ Though this was a great grief to the father, the father gave him all he asked. But the older son was angry with his brother and would not bid him well, for he had brought shame upon their father as if he were wishing him dead, Then the younger son went his way while the older son stayed with his father and served him night and day and cursed his brother for the grief that he had brought to his father’s heart. And the younger son spent his money on travel and drink and with the whores of every village until he had spent it all. Then he lay down in despair. But a man, who was not a Jew, gave him a job herding pigs. So he lived in filth and squalor, and at times was so hungry he even ate food from the pig’s troughs; and those who saw him despised him as the lowest of creatures. “Then at last, when he had suffered all he could bear, he said to himself, ‘I will return to my father’s house, though I am not worthy to be received, for I have shamed him and brought shame upon my good name as well. But I will ask to be as a hired servant, for at least I will have decent food to eat and a clean bed for sleep.’ So he returned, dressed in rags with the stench of pigs upon him. His father was watching for him every day, and when he saw him he recognized him, though others could not. So he ran to him and kissed him again and again, and commanded his servants to wash him and dress him in colorful robes and to put bright rings of gold on every finger. “Then he made a great feast and invited all his friends to eat and dance and sing for he said, ‘My son who was dead is alive!’ The young man’s heart was filled with love for his father, and he sat with great humility in the chief seat, for this is what pleased his father, and he knew he would live from that day forth to bring his father joy. “But the older son would not join them. So the father searched for him until he found him and said, ‘My son, come to the feast, for your brother who was lost has been found!’ But the older son said, ‘All my life I have striven to be good and to please you — and this son of yours has abused your good and disrespected you in every way. He has wasted his inheritance with whores, and yet you receive him back freely and put rings on his fingers, and honor him in ways you have never honored me.’ “The father said, ‘Are you grieved at my mercy? If you love me my son, come now and rejoice with me, for the gift your brother has given me is worth more than all the silver and gold I own, for his actions have created in me a heart of compassion and mercy and the gift-giving that alone restores a lost soul to its home.’ “But the older brother would not come, so the father smiled at him a little sadly and said, ‘So, you too shall teach me much about how to love.’ Then he returned to the feast.” Jesus nodded to them all, then to the Rabbi and said, “I will not say more than this today, for this story is enough to debate for many years. Truly, if you understand its truth it has the power to transform you.”
Posted on: Sun, 01 Sep 2013 12:07:29 +0000
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