The Day God Ran Series

THE DAY GOD RAN (LUKE 15:11-32)

The news that superstar Leslie Cheung committed suicide on April 1, 2003, in then SARS-hit Hong Kong was at first considered a cruel April’s Fool Day joke. Waiters recalled that the singer ordered an iced lemon drink, a glass of ice water, an apple and a packet of cigarettes. He then asked waiters to set up a table for him on the balcony and for a pen and a piece of paper on which he wrote his suicide note. About 4 p.m. Cheung jumped from the 24th floor balcony of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Connaught Road in the Central district. The first word in his suicide note was the word “depression.” The note stated: “Depression! Thank you to the fans…In my life I have done nothing wrong. Why it has to be like this?” (Star, April 03, 2003 Cheung cites depression in last note).

Worse was yet to come. Overnight, in nine hours, 6 people jumped to their death in Hong Kong, for reasons of unemployment, debt, and poor health. (World Journal, 4/3/03)

Life has a way of befriending us, then bewildering us, and at times betraying us, but a sad, tragic, and doomed ending is always optional. The parable of the prodigal son is the crown jewel of all parables. It is the longest parable in the Bible, the favorite story of many readers and the climax of three parables Jesus told before the Pharisees and scribes, tax-collectors and sinners. The story concerns a wayward son, a waiting father, and a whining brother. The prodigal painted the town red- was soon in the red, but he returned to red carpet treatment and to his older brother’s protest.

Where do broken hearts go? Where is the silver lining at the end of the road and the light at the end of the tunnel? Is there a happy ending in life? Who cares when you are down and out? Who and where do we run to? What timeless principles can we learn from this timeless story?

You Can Be Different but You Don’t Have to Be Difficult

11 Jesus continued: “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, 'Father, give me my share of the estate.' So he divided his property between them. 13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. (Luke 15:11-16)

Everyone wants to be different. The last thing people want to be is boring. The list of things people on the Internet say are boring include:

“Life is boring”

“School is boring”

“Church is boring”

“Baseball is boring”

“My marriage is boring”

“Normal is boring”

“Math is boring”

“Perfection is boring”

“Summer is boring”

“Everyone is boring.”

At this rate, nothing left in life is interesting. A kid even said to his parent, “Breakfast is boring.” You can add eating, bathing, and sleeping to the list.

Rick Giolito, a video game producer, complains, “Every year, the players expect more and more and more. If you came out now with a game that looked like it was made three years ago, they'd say it's boring.” Psychologist Rex Julian Beaber says, “The human brain is wired to be attracted to novelty. Very shortly after we are exposed to something, it loses its power to move us. One of the things people have to understand is that boredom is a part of life. It can be controlled, but never eliminated.” (Los Angeles Times, 2/22/03 “Is Boredom Bad?”)

As the sayings go, “What goes around comes around” and “What goes up must come down.”

Daring to be different is overrated. People try too hard to be popular, to be free, to be liked and loved. They look for the wrong things, mix with the wrong company, travel to the wrong places, and pretty soon, they fall off the edge, fall out of the radar and fall off the earth. In the end they are merely “doing different,” not “being different.”

The prodigal son was a rebel without a cause or clue, bored and restless. The verb “give’ is a demanding, direct and dominating imperative. He wanted to act out, break free, and go crazy. His striving to do something different, try something different, and even be someone different came to a dead end, a screeching halt, and a dull anticlimax.