A Non-Transactional God
A Non-Transactional God
I love spring time. All the green that is starting to come out. We see new life not only in plants, but birds and bees are happening all around as well. More new life on the way!
One of Easter’s message is new life. The butterfly has long been a symbol of Easter. The Transformation of life from a caterpillar and apparent death, only to give way to a butterfly and new and vibrant life.
A recent study by the Pew foundation found that Christianity’s decline in America has come to an ebb. It appears we hit a point where people are no longer leaving churches in droves as we have seen in the past few decades. This decline has always caused me to reflect on why? Why did Christianity lose its relevance? Does Christianity help people live their lives? Does it not speak to contemporary issues that we all struggle with? This has been my quest. My answer…Christianity needs to make clear its understanding of God. Yes as a Lutheran, I will always hang my hat on GRACE. God’s love that is not earned, but only needs to be received. Grace is God’s nature. Grace is who God is. Grace is non-transactional.
This Sunday we are looking at the parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11ff. Prodigal means “Wasteful”. We often think that the young son who squandered all his inheritance is the wasteful one. I think most scholars accept that Jesus told this parable to shock people into a new understanding of God. “The Parable of the wasteful father”, might be a better name. Parables have a shock value. The shock comes when the Father see his son returning home and run to greet him, no questions asked. The parable says, the father “Saw the son from a far”, and ran to greet him. Wow that speaks to the father’s heart. No questions or inquiries from the father…read the story. There are other important verses often over looked as well.
What a welcome this wasteful son received. The wasteful father dressed his wasteful son with a robe, a fattened calf was slaughtered, a ring was put on the wasteful son’s finger and everyone had a party…except the older son. The older son lived a transactional relationship with the father. He expected better treatment because he stayed behind, worked on the farm, and was always by his father’s side. The older son is the one who should get the party, the ring and the robe.
The crux of the parable hangs on verse Luke 15:17, the young wasteful son “came to himself”, in other words he had a revelation. His revelation was a deep understanding of his wasteful father’s nature. He came to an understand that his father was wasteful with compassion, forgiveness, and love. This realization, this coming to himself, transformed him, and he changed direction and headed home, to a new life. He changed. The wasteful father was who he always was and will be. Sometimes it takes the bottom falling out for people to see things from a new perspective.
Christianity today has a belief that we receive grace from God because Jesus died for my sins. This is a transactional relationship and misses the point of much of Jesus’ teachings. Jesus died because he lived his principles, stayed true to himself, and spoke and acted for justice. That is what got him killed.
Did the father demand an animal sacrifice to forgive his son? Did the father expect his young son to kneel at his feet and kiss his ring? Did the father need a human sacrifice to forgive? No, No, No. It was the father’s nature to be wasteful with forgiveness, love, and compassion.
My personal faith or belief, is that when I come to this transformational understanding of God it will change me as well. I have left behind transactional Christianity, and it has breathed new life into me.
This type of Christianity can change lives. This type of Christianity is transformational. This type of Christianity is non-transactional. This is the center of the Easter transformation that is possible for each of us. Welcome our wastefully loving and compassionate God into your life this Easter.