For the past two days, we have been looking at the issue of disaffected MAGA who did not give a shit about the people they hurt until the Cult Leader they worshipped turned on them and did to them what they so eagerly did to others. Sure, now they are mad at Trump and MAGA, but so what? Screw ’em!
Or as one reader put it:
I think that there is a great deal of valid skepticism toward those who only wake up when it impacts them… and whose morals seem endlessly fungible up until the very moment the obvious lies and cruelty impact them.
The fundamental ethical construct underlying any support for Trump and friends is utterly rotten, selfish, tribalistic, so is awakening really about universal love for mankind or is it about feeling personally aggrieved?
It’s a perfectly natural response. But is it the response Jesus calls us to have?
Consider carefully this beloved parable:
“There was a man who had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that falls to me.’ And he divided his living between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in loose living. And when he had spent everything, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want. So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would gladly have fed on the pods that the swine ate; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.” ’ And he arose and came to his father. But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to make merry.
“Now his elder son was in the field; and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what this meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has received him safe and sound.’ But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf!’ And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to make merry and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.’” (Lk 15:11–32)
The Prodigal is, not to put too fine a point on it, a selfish jerk. “Give me my share of the inheritance” is another way of saying, “I wish you were dead.” He then abandons the Promised Land given by God to his fathers–a land for which generations bled and died that is now crushed under the burden of Roman occupation and famously blows his wad on whores and booze with a bunch of Gentile oppressors like the traitor he is. He even winds up feeding unclean swine (and, ew!, longing to eat their food). Serves him right! He never thought the pigs would eat his face!
And get a load of his noble moment of oh-so-sincere repentance! “How many of my father’s hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but I perish here with hunger!” He is still thinking of himself and his appetites, not anybody else! Screw him!
That is absolutely what the Older Brother is thinking and he, like the Resistance when it comes to penitent ex-MAGA, has a real point. It was the same point Jewish Christians had when Peter baptized a Roman centurion whose entire job was to enforce Roman despotism on their country. It was the same point decent Jews had when Jesus ate with traitorous Jewish tax collectors who made their living squeezing their fellow Jews for taxes on behalf of the occupiers. It was the same point the Donatists had when so-called Christians chickened out under persecution and denied the Faith while the Donatists endured torture, rape, prison, and other outrages at the hands of their pagan neighbors.
And yet, Jesus tells us the Father welcomes this jerk back. Indeed, he welcomes him back before he has a chance to make his Big Speech. The grace comes before the kid does anything, because grace is always prior. It is extended, not because we earn it, but because God is love and therefore extends grace as part of his nature as the sun extends light to the Earth no matter whether it is cloudy or clear and no matter whether our eyes are open or shut.
The Prodigal, despite his extremely imperfect contrition, does say one thing that makes it possible for the Father’s grace to enter him through a chink in his selfishness: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.” That is, he is genuinely willing to take responsibility for his sin and, what is more, to start doing the labor necessary to repair the damage he has done. But that is not what prompts the Father’s mercy, for he never gets a chance to say it before the Father is welcoming him back. In short, the Prodigal does not earn forgiveness by his work; his willingness to make reparation is the fruit of the grace given him. And what is more, that grace refuses to treat him as he had sought. The Father welcomes him, not as a hired worker, but as his son. It is the relationship, not the free labor, the Father wanted all along.
Curiously, the Older Brother is as blind to his filial relationship to the Father as the Prodigal was. His appeal is not to his status as a son, but to his Employment Record: “Behold, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me a kid, that I might make merry with my friends.” And the Father’s reply again foregrounds not work, but sonship: “‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” And it concludes by, of course, not comparing the merits of their relative work records and employment histories, but by calling the Older Son to recognize the Prodigal as his brother and, what is more, as one back from the dead (a very loaded image when we recall that every baptized person is likewise raised from the dead in Christ).
Okay, but what does that have to do with the issue of ex-MAGA and what we are are supposed to do about them?
More on that tomorrow.
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One Response
I suppose we should be forgiving and sympathetic to the MAGA jerks who finally wake up, but it does provide a little satisfaction to see them get hurt,just a little bit.