Friends, Foes and Families

Lenten Meditations On Bible Characters And Relationships

Judith Dimond

• Publisher: SPCK Publishing
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780281069583
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

This Lent book will explore biblical stories and characters that exemplify a whole range of relationships, in good times and bad. Relationships will be defined very widely, to include even people who don't see themselves in relationship. The stories will be related to common emotions - love, friendship, rivalry, conflict, trust, hatred, fear - and linked with 21st-century attitudes, culture and moral dilemmas. The book will cover OT stories as well as NT, and explore dysfunctional as well as functional relationships to make clear how experiences of loss and failure - which culminated, for Jesus, in the Cross - are inevitably part of our relationships, but can be healed by the Resurrection. The making of choices is pivotal in our life journey and these meditations will focus on key moments of decision, and their consequences. This will often involve reflection on the power of temptation: the ways in which biblical characters respond to it, and their varying success in withstanding it. The reflections will range widely, but will start with Jesus' temptations and conclude with stories from Holy Week and Easter, so that the relevance to Lent is maintained.

WEEK 1: FATHERS

Ask your father and he will tell you, your elders, and they will explain to you.

(Deuteronomy 32.7)

Sunday	A change of mind: the Parable of the Lost Son	Luke 15.11–31
Monday	Joseph was a righteous man	Matthew 1—2; Hosea 11
Tuesday	Listen, my sons, to a father’s instruction	1 Samuel 1—3
Wednesday	Two torn robes: Samuel, Saul and David	1 Samuel
Thursday	Abraham, father of nations	Genesis 16, 22
Friday	The Lord will provide	Genesis 22, 25, 27
Saturday	Good gifts: the Lord’s Prayer	Luke 11.1–13

A change of mind: the Parable of the Lost Son

Luke 15.11–31

Father God, when I make a life-changing decision,

help me leave mere inclination behind

and realize the danger of unexamined desire.

Some of us in life know exactly what we want, and others never really do. Our first story is of a young man who has no trouble knowing what he wanted, or going after it. We only ever make decisions on less than perfect information for we never know how things will work out. Life isn’t an experiment which allows us to operate a control version. The younger son who asked for his share of the inheritance had the confidence of youth that all would work to his advantage. But the difference between being decisive and being headstrong is very fine indeed. Everything the younger son did, he did wholeheartedly, a quality we know Jesus wants us all to share. Think what it means to be ‘wholehearted’: your self is united and energized. But rather than controlling his passions, he allowed himself to be led by them. So:

In a moment of calm, ask yourself:

what am I wholehearted about?

Is God part of it?

The story starts briskly: ‘Father, give me my share of the estate’ (v. 12). We don’t hear the father try to dissuade him. But we can guess his trepidation and imagine his conversations with the young man’s mother late into the night. How hard it is to watch our children make their own mistakes.

Father, give parents the confidence to trust that if they let go of their son

he may return as a man.

And indeed, after seeing his hopes collapse, and wandering in a wilderness of loneliness and destitution, ‘he came to his senses’ (v. 17). What a marvellous phrase it is, to ‘come to our senses’. Our physical senses are the faculties through which we experience the outer world, but here it’s used in the further meaning of reaching wisdom based on experience – the senses of our intellect and soul. He learnt to appreciate and understand the ramifications of his actions, accept his disappointments, and turn back to his father. Here is the second major decision he made, a decision that led to him becoming more like the person God really wanted him to be.

Of course, another word we could use for ‘coming to our senses’ is one we use a lot in Lent – ‘repentance’. And it was the change within the son and the journey back that was more important than the speech, for the father, ‘filled with compassion’, forgave him even before he heard the words. Here is an image of our God and Father throwing his arms about us. The son did get to say his words of repentance but the father was too busy preparing the banquet of reconciliation to bother to reply.

Father, when I need to repent,

help me realize that actions speak louder than words.

Because we invest so much pride in our decisions, it’s very rare for us to have a complete ‘change of mind’. How often we castigate people and politicians particularly for making U-turns. We criticize people who ‘climb down’, when in fact maybe we should praise their ‘climb up’, for changing one’s mind is as arduous and painful as climbing a mountain. Of course, it’s not admirable to change if it’s for short-term success, but if it’s a genuine change of mind and heart, based on careful assessment of new circumstances, why should we be so critical? Youthful ideals are so important, for we must have a vision to live by, but often they become a fixed ideology which governs us, and we need shaking out of our obstinacy.

Can you remember what it was like as a child when you’d been rude or thumped your little sister, and dad told you to ‘say sorry’? How very difficult it was to say the words, how much the heart rebelled and pride resisted. Do we get any better at apologizing as we get older? Not always, maybe not often, which is why we find the younger son so attractive – he’s able to do what we so often find hard. The younger son travelled the journey we all make at some time of our life: he’d searched for fulfilment in the wrong way, he’d been hopelessly lost, but found wisdom in that wilderness, and was transformed.

Ever-loving Father, bind fathers and sons together with trust and friendship.

May the father be the pattern to the son

and the son the delight of the father.

Amen.

Joseph was a righteous man

Matthew 1—2; Hosea 11

The angel of the Lord said ‘Get up.’

So must I leave behind all that is certain

and respond to your call.

If we look back at the Christmas story for a moment, we find that the ‘star’ in every nativity play is, ‘of course’, Mary, and the best supporting actor award goes to Joseph. But if we only had Matthew’s Gospel, the roles might well reverse. In Matthew we learn nothing of Mary’s response to the promise she carried in her womb. The focus is on Joseph and his relationship to the angel of the Lord, who visited him no less than three times.

God chose the earthly father of Jesus with as much care as he devoted to the search for his mother. Joseph was a righteous man, we are told, which meant at that time someone who kept the law and was what we’d call ‘upright’. What is it that keeps us the right way up – like one of those children’s wobbly toys that won’t be knocked over, however often the toddler tries, and always bounces back up? We remain upright when we are stable enough not to be blown over by the ups and downs of life. When we have a centre of gravity in which our emotions, our mental outlook, and the guidance of God, all cohere, then our external experiences may rock us, but not overturn our stability.

So what influenced Joseph’s thinking at this moment of crisis? The obvious decision, based on the expectations of his time, would have been to divorce Mary immediately. No one would have blamed him. But Joseph was not only righteous, he was compassionate. His reaction was not limited just by rules and laws, but broadened by empathy with Mary’s predicament. Joseph held back from his initial impulse, and remembered his father’s advice – sleep on it; things might look different in the morning.

While he was still tussling with this dilemma, his understanding was taken to a new level when an angel appeared in his dream with startling new information. The baby was, in a very special way, from God, and for a special purpose – to ‘save his people from their sins’ (Matthew 1.21). Through an inner experience, his insight was confirmed and Joseph took Mary home as his wife.

The angel of the Lord said ‘Do not be afraid’:

Give me courage to do the difficult thing, if it is right.

Joseph...

Table of contents

• Cover page
• About the author
• Title page
• Imprint
• Dedication
• Opening words
• Table of contents
• Introduction
• Ash Wednesday and introductory week
• Week 1: Fathers
• Week 2: Couples
• Week 3: Siblings
• Week 4: Mothering
• Week 5: Friends and strangers
• Week 6: The powerful (Holy Week)
• Week 7: Relationship restored (Easter Week)
• Appendix: An alternative order for Holy Week
• Sources and acknowledgements
• Index of biblical stories and references