Because if something is wrong with your G.o.d, if your G.o.d is loving one second and cruel the next, if your G.o.d will punish people for all of eternity for sins committed in a few short years, no amount of clever marketing or compelling language or good music or great coffee will be able to disguise that one, true, glaring, untenable, unacceptable, awful reality.

h.e.l.l is refusing to trust, and refusing to trust is often rooted in a distorted view of G.o.d. Sometimes the reason people have a problem accepting "the gospel" is that they sense that the G.o.d lurking behind Jesus isn't safe, loving, or good. It doesn't make sense, it can't be reconciled, and so they say no. They don't want anything to do with Jesus, because they don't want anything to do with that G.o.d.

What we see in the older brother is that our beliefs matter. They are incredibly important. Our beliefs shape us and guide us and determine our lives.

We can trust G.o.d's retelling of our story, or we can cling to our version of our story.

And to trust G.o.d's telling, we have to trust G.o.d.

Several distinctions are important here.

First, one about our choices. We are free to accept or reject the invitation to new life that G.o.d extends to us. Our choice.

We're at the party, but we don't have to join in.

Heaven or h.e.l.l.

Both at the party.

There are consequences for the older brother, just as there are for us.

To reject G.o.d's grace, to turn from G.o.d's love, to resist G.o.d's telling, will lead to misery.

It is a form of punishment, all on its own.

This is an important distinction, because in talking about what G.o.d is like, we cannot avoid the realities of G.o.d's very essence, which is love. It can be resisted and rejected and denied and avoided, and that will bring another reality. Now, and then.

We are that free.

When people say they're tired of hearing about "sin" and "judgment" and "condemnation," it's often because those have been confused for them with the nature of G.o.d. G.o.d has no desire to inflict pain or agony on anyone.

G.o.d extends an invitation to us, and we are free to do with it is as we please.

Saying yes will take us in one direction; saying no will take us in another.

G.o.d is love, and to refuse this love moves us away from it, in the other direction, and that will, by very definition, be an increasingly unloving, h.e.l.lish reality.

We do ourselves great harm when we confuse the very essence of G.o.d, which is love, with the very real consequences of rejecting and resisting that love, which creates what we call h.e.l.l.

Second, another distinction to be clear about, one between entrance and enjoyment.

G.o.d is love, And love is is a relationship. a relationship.

This relationship is one of joy, and it can't be contained.

Like when you see something amazing and you turn to those you're with and say, "Isn't this great?" Your question is an invitation for them to join you in your joy. The amazement you are experiencing can't be contained; it spills over the top; it compels you to draw others into it. You have to share it.

G.o.d creates, because the endless joy and peace and shared life at the heart of this G.o.d knows no other way.

Jesus invites us into that that relationship, the one at the center of the universe. He insists that he's one with G.o.d, that we can be one with him, and that life is a generous, abundant reality. This G.o.d whom Jesus spoke of has always been looking for partners, people who are pa.s.sionate about partic.i.p.ating in the ongoing creation of the world. relationship, the one at the center of the universe. He insists that he's one with G.o.d, that we can be one with him, and that life is a generous, abundant reality. This G.o.d whom Jesus spoke of has always been looking for partners, people who are pa.s.sionate about partic.i.p.ating in the ongoing creation of the world.

So when the gospel is diminished to a question of whether or not a person will "get into heaven," that reduces the good news to a ticket, a way to get past the bouncer and into the club.

The good news is better than that.

This is why Christians who talk the most about going to heaven while everybody else goes to h.e.l.l don't throw very good parties.

When the gospel is understood primarily in terms of entrance rather than joyous partic.i.p.ation, it can actually serve to cut people off from the explosive, liberating experience of the G.o.d who is an endless giving circle of joy and creativity.

Life has never been about just "getting in." It's about thriving in G.o.d's good world. It's stillness, peace, and that feeling of your soul being at rest, while at the same time it's about asking things, learning things, creating things, and sharing it all with others who are finding the same kind of joy in the same good world.

Jesus calls disciples to keep entering into this shared life of peace and joy as it transforms our hearts, until it's the most natural way to live that we can imagine. Until it's second nature. Until we naturally embody and practice the kind of att.i.tudes and actions that will go on in the age to come. A discussion about how to "just get into heaven" has no place in the life of a disciple of Jesus, because it's missing the point of it all.

An entrance understanding of the gospel rarely creates good art. Or innovation. Or a number of other things. It's a cheap view of the world, because it's a cheap view of G.o.d. It's a shriveled imagination.

It's the gospel of goats.

It's bound up in fear and scarcity, so people are left having to explain why others seem to be having so much fun and actually enjoying life while they aren't. This can be especially true in missionary settings or in pastors' families or in church communities where people have picked up along the way the toxic notion that G.o.d is a slave driver. A quiet resentment can creep in that comes from believing that they're sacrificing so much for G.o.d, for G.o.d, while others get off easy. h.e.l.l can easily become a way to explain all of this: "Those people out there may be going to parties and appearing to have fun while the rest of us do 'G.o.d's work,' but someday we'll go to heaven, where while others get off easy. h.e.l.l can easily become a way to explain all of this: "Those people out there may be going to parties and appearing to have fun while the rest of us do 'G.o.d's work,' but someday we'll go to heaven, where we won't have to do anything, we won't have to do anything, and they'll go to h.e.l.l, where and they'll go to h.e.l.l, where they'll get theirs. they'll get theirs."

I have sat with many Christian leaders over the years who are burned out, washed up, fried, whose marriages are barely hanging on, whose kids are home while the parents are out at church meetings, who haven't taken a vacation in forever-all because, like the older brother, they have seen themselves as "slaving all these years."

They believe that they believe the right things and so they're "saved," but it hasn't delivered the full life that it was supposed to, and so they're bitter. Deep down, they believe G.o.d has let them down. Which is often something they can't share with those around them, because they are the leaders who are supposed to have it all together. And so they quietly suffer, thinking this is the good news.

It is the gospel of the goats, and it is lethal.

G.o.d is not a slave driver.

The good news is better than that.

This distinction, the one between entrance and enjoyment, has another serious implication, one having to do with how we tell the story.

When you've experienced the resurrected Jesus, the mystery hidden in the fabric of creation, you can't help but talk about him. You've tapped into the joy that fills the entire universe, and so naturally you want others to meet this G.o.d. This is a G.o.d worth telling people about.

This is the problem with some G.o.ds-you don't know if they're good, so why tell others a story that isn't working for you?

Witnessing, evangelizing, sharing your faith-when you realize that G.o.d has retold your story, you are free to pa.s.sionately, urgently, compellingly tell the story because you've stepped into a whole new life and you're moved and inspired to share it. When your G.o.d is love, and you have experienced this love in flesh and blood, here and now, then you are free from guilt and fear and the terrifying, haunting, ominous voice that whispers over your shoulder, "You're not doing enough." The voice that insists G.o.d is, in the end, a slave driver.

Have nothing to do with that G.o.d.

We're invited to trust the retelling now, so that we're already taking part in the kind of love that can overtake the whole world.

This leads us to another distinction, one that takes us back to the recurring question, What is G.o.d like?

Many have heard the gospel framed in terms of rescue. G.o.d has to punish sinners, because G.o.d is holy, but Jesus has paid the price for our sin, and so we can have eternal life. However true or untrue that is technically or theologically, what it can do is subtly teach people that Jesus rescues us from G.o.d.

Let's be very clear, then: we do not need to be rescued from G.o.d. G.o.d is the one who rescues us from death, sin, and destruction. G.o.d is the rescuer.

This is crucial for our peace, because we shape our G.o.d, and then our G.o.d shapes us.

Inquisitions, persecutions, trials, book burnings, blacklisting-when religious people become violent, it is because they have been shaped by their G.o.d, who is violent. We see this destructive shaping alive and well in the toxic, venomous nature of certain discussions and debates on the Internet. For some, the highest form of allegiance to their G.o.d is to attack, defame, and slander others who don't articulate matters of faith as they do.

We shape our G.o.d, and then our G.o.d shapes us.

A distorted understanding of G.o.d, clung to with white knuckles and fierce determination, can leave a person outside the party, mad about a goat that was never gotten, without the thriving life Jesus insists is right here, all around us, all the time.

Jesus was very clear that this destructive, violent understanding of G.o.d can easily be inst.i.tutionalized-in churches, systems, and ideas. It's important that we're honest about this, because some churches are not life-giving places, draining people until there's very little life left. That G.o.d is angry, demanding, a slave driver, and so that G.o.d's religion becomes a system of sin management, constantly working and angling to avoid what surely must be the coming wrath that lurks behind every corner, thought, and sin.

We shape our G.o.d, and then our G.o.d shapes us.

Our beliefs matter.

They matter now, for us, and they matter then, for us.

They matter for others, now, and they matter for others, then.

There is another dimension to the violent, demanding G.o.d, the one people need Jesus to rescue them from. We see it in the words of the older brother, when he says he "never even disobeyed." You can sense the anxiety in his defense, the paranoid awareness that he believed his father was looking over his shoulder the whole time, waiting and watching to catch him in disobedience. The violent G.o.d creates profound worry in people. Tension. Stress. This G.o.d is supposed to bring peace, that's how the pitch goes, but in the end this G.o.d can easily produce followers who are paralyzed and catatonic, full of fear. Whatever you do, don't step out of line or give this G.o.d any reason to be displeased, because who knows what will be unleashed.

Jesus frees us from that, because his kind of love simply does away with fear.

Once again, the words of the father in the story, the one who joyously, generously declares: "You are always with me, and everything I have is yours."

There is another truth here, beyond heaven and h.e.l.l and anxiety and violence.

It is a truth at the heart of the gospel, a truth both comforting and challenging, both healing and unnerving.

Each brother has his own version of events, his own telling of his story.

But their stories are distorted, because they misunderstand the nature of their father- we've seen that.

But there's another reason their stories aren't true, a reason rooted less in the nature of G.o.d, and more in the sons' beliefs about themselves.

The younger brother believes that he is cut off, estranged, and no longer deserves to be his father's son, because of all the terrible things he's done.

His badness is his problem, he thinks.

He's blown the money on meaningless living until he was face down in the gutter, dragging the family name through the mud in the process. He is convinced that his destructive deeds have put him in such a bad state that he doesn't even deserve deserve to be called a son anymore. to be called a son anymore.

Now, the older brother believes that the reason he deserves deserves to be a son is because of all of the good he's done, all of the rules he's obeyed, all of the days he's "slaved" for his father. to be a son is because of all of the good he's done, all of the rules he's obeyed, all of the days he's "slaved" for his father.

His goodness is to his credit, he thinks.

The younger brother's wrongs have led him away from home, away from the family, deep into misery. This is true.

His sins have separated him from his father.

The second truth, one that is much more subtle and much more toxic as well, is that the older brother is separated from his father as well, even though he's stayed home.

His problem is his "goodness."

His rule-keeping and law-abiding confidence in his own works has actually served to distance him from his father.

What we learn in his speech to his father is that he has been operating under the a.s.sumption that his years of service and slaving were actually earning him good standing with his father.

He thinks his father loves him because of how obedient he's been.

He thinks he's deserving because of all the work he's done.

He thinks his father owes him.

Our badness can separate us from G.o.d's love, that's clear.

But our goodness can separate us from G.o.d's love as well.

Neither son understands that the father's love was never about any of that. The father's love cannot be earned, and it cannot be taken away.

It just is.

It's a party, a celebration, an occasion without beginning and without end.

It goes on, well into the night, and into the next day, and the next and the next.

Without any finish in sight.

Your deepest, darkest sins and your shameful secrets are simply irrelevant when it comes to the counterintuitive, ecstatic announcement of the gospel.

So are your goodness, your rightness, your church attendance, and all of the wise, moral, mature decisions you have made and actions you have taken.

It simply doesn't matter when it comes to the surprising, unexpected declaration that G.o.d's love simply is yours.

There is nothing left for both sons to do but to trust.

As Paul writes in Philippians 3, "Let us live up to what we have already attained. to what we have already attained."

The father has taken care of everything.

It's all there, ready, waiting.

It's always been there, ready, waiting.

Our trusting, our change of heart, our believing G.o.d's version of our story doesn't bring it into existence, make it happen, or create it.

It simply is.

On the cross, Jesus says, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23).

Jesus forgives them all, without their asking for it.

Done. Taken care of.