Luke 15:13, this is how the far country works, it has stages, the first stage is exhilaration, you have money, you have freedom, you have no one telling you what to do, every night is a party, every desire is indulged and the voice of the father, that quiet voice that once guided your decisions, it gets quieter and quieter until you cannot hear it at all, not because the father stopped speaking, because you put enough distance between yourself and home that the sound could no longer reach you. The second stage is depletion, the money runs out, it always does, the far country is expensive and it charges you more than it ever told you it would.
The friends start to thin out, the invitations dry up, the people who told you that you were amazing when you were buying the drinks, they do not return your calls when you need a meal. The third stage is desperation and this is where the parable gets brutal, but here is the thing about the far country that nobody tells you when you are heading there, the far country always welcomes you on the way in, it celebrates you, it throws you parties, it tells you that you deserve this and then, the moment the money runs out, the moment you have nothing left to offer, the far country reveals what it really thinks of you.
Luke 15:14-16, after he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country and he began to be in need, so he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs, a Jewish boy feeding pigs. For a Jewish audience, this was the absolute bottom, pigs were unclean, forbidden, touching them made you ceremonially impure and this son of a wealthy respected Jewish father was not just near the pigs, he was feeding them, living with them, envying them, he longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
The friends who drank his wine were gone, the people who celebrated with him when the money was flowing vanished, not one of them showed up with a meal, not one of them offered a bed, the far country took everything he had and then pretend it had never met him. If you have ever been in your own far country, if you have ever hit a bottom that you built with your own hands, you know exactly what that silence sounds like, it is the loneliest sound in the world.
The friends start to thin out, the invitations dry up, the people who told you that you were amazing when you were buying the drinks, they do not return your calls when you need a meal. The third stage is desperation and this is where the parable gets brutal, but here is the thing about the far country that nobody tells you when you are heading there, the far country always welcomes you on the way in, it celebrates you, it throws you parties, it tells you that you deserve this and then, the moment the money runs out, the moment you have nothing left to offer, the far country reveals what it really thinks of you.
Luke 15:14-16, after he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country and he began to be in need, so he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs, a Jewish boy feeding pigs. For a Jewish audience, this was the absolute bottom, pigs were unclean, forbidden, touching them made you ceremonially impure and this son of a wealthy respected Jewish father was not just near the pigs, he was feeding them, living with them, envying them, he longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
The friends who drank his wine were gone, the people who celebrated with him when the money was flowing vanished, not one of them showed up with a meal, not one of them offered a bed, the far country took everything he had and then pretend it had never met him. If you have ever been in your own far country, if you have ever hit a bottom that you built with your own hands, you know exactly what that silence sounds like, it is the loneliest sound in the world.
