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How can storytelling help us communicate the reality and relevance of the Kingdom of God today?
For this episode we're joined by spoken word artist, Dai Woolridge. He shares the creative inspiration behind the Parables Edition of the Rooted Journal and the significance of storytelling in sharing our faith.
For this episode we're joined by spoken word artist, Dai Woolridge. He shares the creative inspiration behind the Parables Edition of the Rooted Journal and the significance of storytelling in sharing our faith.
The conversation dives into the well-known parables of the good Samaritan and the prodigal son. How can we truly love others in the way God commands? Are there personal or societal biases we need to confront? How do we experience, and extend to others, God’s invitation to receive forgiveness, reconciliation and acceptance?
To finish, Dai gives a special performance of his spoken word poem, ‘Prodigal Son’!
Timestamps
- (00:00) - The inspiration behind the Parables Edition of Rooted
- (02:40) - Dai Woolridge and spoken word
- (07:15) - Unpacking the parable of the good Samaritan
- (13:00) - When should loving our neighbour supersede other concerns?
- (16:00) - The power of story
- (20:15) - Who is your neighbour?
- (29:34) - The parable of the prodigal son
- (35:04) - The love of the Father is undeserved and can’t be earned
- (39:54) - God often chooses people we don’t expect him to
- (43:14) - God's invitation to us
- (45:59) - Dai performs his poem, ‘Prodigal Son’
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#Parables #JesusTeaching #ProdigalSon #GoodSamaritan #SpokenWord #Storytelling #ChristianLiving #ChristianPodcast
#Parables #JesusTeaching #ProdigalSon #GoodSamaritan #SpokenWord #Storytelling #ChristianLiving #ChristianPodcast
Creators & Guests
What is The Rooted Podcast?
Listen to The Rooted Podcast for in-depth conversations about the Bible and how we can apply it to our lives. Join the team behind Rooted, Bible Society's devotional journal, as we dig deeper into a theme or book of the Bible in each series and explore its message for us today.
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listening to The Rooted Podcast from Bible Society. In each series, we take a closer look at a theme or book of the Bible and explore its relevance in our lives today. This is our series on the parables. Hey everyone, welcome back to The Rooted Podcast. I'm Noelle and I'm here with Esther and we're also really glad to be joined by Dai Woolridge. Dai, thanks for coming on. Great to be here, Noelle. I'm excited. It's exciting.
Dai is a Bible communicator at Bible Society and he's also an incredible creator. And he wrote and contributed to this edition of Rooted, the parables edition. And we're very grateful for that. And he also was a huge part of why this edition came to be what it was. Dai, do you want to just tell us a bit about that? Yeah, of course. Thanks, Noelle. So, yeah, firstly, blessed to be on this pod with you guys. I'm excited.
I love Rooted. I think so many people are really engaging with it. I think what you guys are doing is helping us engage the scripture in a fresh way, in a creative way, you offer space for response. yeah, you and I kind of got thinking a few months ago. I run the spoken word stage for Bible Society at Big Church Festival and it's just this great opportunity for, you know, 21st century creative communicators today, faith-based storytellers to share.
to sign posts to Jesus through creative expression, through words, story. And I just know a lot of them, they would just love to be published poets and also their work is more than good enough to be published, so much of the time it can be so challenging to find opportunity to get your stuff in print. You know, I've known that in my journey. And I just kind of thought,
want to be a great thing to do to kind of encourage these incredible spoken word poets who have got such a way with words, who essentially are kind of doing modern day parables to kind of just help us explore Bible stories, Bible passages and parables in new ways today. So it kind of felt like a really cool fit. And yeah, we just got a bunch of, I think probably
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half a dozen to ten did we kind of storytellers, had filmmakers, we had spoken with poets, we had created communicators like Sarah Yardley. Yeah, and it was just really exciting just to kind of get a breadth of creativity to help us re-explore these Bible stories in new ways. it's really cool. their poems are published in the journal as something for people to sort of engage with more. But spoken word for you also has been a huge thing as a part of
the way that you tell people about Jesus and communicate and create. I wondered if you could talk a bit about that, why spoken word, just as we're thinking about storytelling and the kingdom and how Jesus used storytelling, how does that sort of work for you or why are you drawn to that? Yeah, that's just such a good question, isn't it? I think for me, in my faith journey, I found that writing was a way that I would kind of engage with God. And so I think
I kind of started off really from the space of God is transcendent, God is holy, God is other. God is so far beyond my capability to comprehend him. And I think as I was kind of exploring my creativity, I found that really kind of was a space that kind of just got the shackles off and made me go. There was a real freedom and permission given to sort of go, I know I can't.
communicate God in a way that would do him justice, but it almost was like an invitation to try. And kind of as I did that, I'd kind of read some of the Psalms actually and be inspired by some of the praise lyrics of David. And I kind of thought to myself, how would I say that today? What would that sound like in my voice? And spoken with for me, essentially, it's just poetry, but there's a deep connection with
the written word and how it sounds when you speak it aloud. And I know it was the same for the Psalms as well, that they were designed to be kind of spoken, sung aloud. And I think when we do that, it kind of, there's a live engagement that happens with your own soul. So it's like for me, it's almost like I'm giving a, I'm kind of praising God, but it's also like a pep talk for me. And it's reminding me of this truth.
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And as I speak it, I kind of journey it and I kind of re-believe it. So, yes, spoken word kind of began really with just trying to make sense of my faith. Who is God? What's the character of God? Inspired by some of the Psalms, what would it sound like if I was to kind of wax lyrical about who Jesus is today? And it was just a kind of playground of words really.
And it just, it became kind of part of my faith journey. So it wasn't like, I'm a Christian over here and then I'd kind of go into a poet, you know, they'd be very much kind of interconnected. yeah, that's kind of why I sort of got into spoken word and how it connected to my faith. It's really cool to think about too what you were saying about how there's something powerful in the fact that it's spoken, because we often are reading scripture, aren't we? So a lot of these parables that Jesus was
speaking and telling, we're reading, but there's something really powerful when story is told in spoken form like how you're talking about. definitely. I think essentially spoken word is a form of storytelling, right? And I think, you know, Jesus was the ultimate orator and, you know, first century Israel, was a space, the Jewish tradition was, they were storytellers, they'd kind of
they'd learn in community through story, through sharing stories of their ancestors and traditions. think spoken word is a form of parables for today. I think Jesus would have been a spoken word poet. That's what I think.
I love the way that, you know, because we've looked at quite a few parables already over this series and we kind of talked about how Jesus was trying to set this vision for what his kingdom was really like. So he's storytelling the kingdom, like you've just kind of said, and he's giving the people a foretaste of what his kingdom is like, because there's that now and not yet of the kingdom of God, and we're still in that period now. So I love that idea of us like finding our ways now.
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in the now and the not yet that we're in to storytell the kingdom, to give people a foretaste that they can actually grasp that feels relevant and fresh to them. Love that. So good. So we're going to look at two parables today and hopefully do a bit of what we're talking about. So kind of looking at these parables and thinking about them maybe a bit in a modern day context.
but also just seeing what we can get from them and what we think Jesus was trying to communicate in them. And then we'll end. Di is going to do something very special for us. He's going to perform his spoken word poem that he wrote for us that is in the Rooted Journal. So we're really excited about that. But we'll save that for the end. We'll save the best for last. So first parable that we want to look at is the parable of the Good Samaritan. So this is obviously one of probably the best known parables.
Jesus' most famous ones. And I'll just sort of summarize it. I'm guessing most listeners will know this parable, but just to give a brief summary. Basically, an expert in the law comes to Jesus and says, what do need to do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus asks him, well, what does the law say? And he tells Jesus the two greatest commandments, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.
And Jesus says, you're right, if you do these things, you'll live. But it says that the man wanted to justify himself. And so he asked Jesus, well, who is my neighbor? And Jesus tells him the story of a man who was going from Jerusalem to Jericho and was attacked by robbers who left him to die on the road. A priest passes him and doesn't do anything. A Levite passes him, doesn't do anything. And then a Samaritan comes along, sees the man.
takes care of him, bandages his wounds, and takes him to the nearest inn where he pays for him to stay there. And then Jesus asks the expert in the law, which one of these three do you think was the neighbor? And the expert in the law says, the one who had mercy on the men. And Jesus says, go and do likewise. There's so much in this parable. We were saying as we were preparing for this that
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we've heard it interpreted and talked about so many different ways because it's so rich. But I wonder what are some of the things that you draw from this? How can we think about this in sort of a modern day context? What were some of your thoughts as you guys were looking at this parable? Yeah, I mean, it's huge, isn't it? It's such an incredible story that transcends the Christian faith and the Bible now as well. It's a story that I think most people
would have heard of that I think regardless of your belief system, you'd kind of see it as quite revolutionary and a great kind of, a great moral code to live by. I love how Jesus uses creativity to be provocative, not for provocative sake, but to take the Pharisee on a journey of coming to a space of actually
confronting his own belief. Because he knows the answer, right? He kind of, when he asks, have I got to do, Jesus kind of puts the question back to him and he summarizes the law, doesn't he? He kind of riffs off Deuteronomy 6.5, love God with everything you've got, Leviticus 19.18, love your neighbors yourself, and he knows the truth. But then kind of Jesus confronts him with that truth that he believes. Okay, what does that look like in action?
Who is your neighbor? and from a story perspective, it's so wonderfully set up and you can imagine as he's telling this story of, know, this, this person kind of walk in, the Jericho road and the person that meets him and the person that finally rescues him is, is the, is the enemy. It's kind of, it's the bad guys to this audience. And you can imagine kind of,
Q murmurs and Q disapproving, you know, what's going to happen here? We hate this person. This is the pantomime villain. And for the kind of twist of the story that it's their enemy or their supposed enemy that is the rescuer in the story, must have been just deep. They must have been incredibly offended by it. The fact that they're not the rescuer in the story, that they're the helpless victim who needs rescuing.
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and the one person that they wouldn't want rescued by is the person that ends up rescuing them. So it's just a brilliant story, isn't it? And I would have loved to have been in the room when he shared that. love the way it does turn things on its head because it feels like the lawyers trying to sort of abdicate from responsibility in terms of God's law of loving others.
For some people, who can I classify as a non-neighbor? So I'm not responsible for loving them. And in that kind of conflict, I guess, between Jews and Samaritans, they probably were classifying the Samaritans as non-neighbors because they thought you should worship on a different mountain. they weren't keeping the same laws. And I'm talking there about a long list of laws.
I love the way he kind of flips it on its head because in the end, the Samaritan here turns out to be the one who is fulfilling the law much more closely, more closely than a priest and a Levite who obviously would have been seen as the very best of the good people, but actually it's the Samaritan that's good. I thought it was interesting just digging into that context a little bit more, that priests and Levites, they
they couldn't touch corpses and then continue to serve in the temple because it would have made them impure. So for them, not going and checking on that man and potentially touching a dead corpse in order to serve in the temple, that trumped God's law to love someone, a neighbor. And I think God's also saying, well, actually, what does take priority? know, you're saying you
As a lawyer, you're probably trying to keep all the laws and you're very interested in the law, but are there times when one law really should supersede another? So it's not just who is your neighbor, but it's like, how can I be a good neighbor? How can I love my neighbor above all? Yeah. It's a great point. Yeah. Cause obviously the, the, priest and the lever, like you said, they're not
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not doing anything. At first glance, looks like, that's a bit, you know, incompatible. Why are they kind of just not bothered? It's deeper than that, isn't it? To them, they're playing by the rules, aren't they? They keep into the law to be ceremonially clean, which they need to be. They can't go by what they assumed was a dead body. But yeah, think that's great because I think what Jesus is bringing is
he's getting them to kind of revisit the law and the spirit of the law. It's not just about the details and the technicalities. I think the Pharisees were really good at where actually they kind of missed the point. They missed the heart of it. And I think that's what he was trying to confront them with. It makes me think about in my own life too, they had good reason not to stop.
Obviously we're saying not according to what they really should have done, but according to reason, they shouldn't stop because they can't touch a dead corpse. And it makes me think about how often I have good reason not to love my enemy, or I have good reason not to stop for someone who I know needs help. I was actually on my way. I traveled quite far to get to Bible Society's offices, and I was going through London the other day.
and there was a man who was in need basically. And normally I would stop, but I was running late for my train. And if I missed that train, I am like very late to work. And I thought, I've got to go. And I didn't stop. And man, it bothered me for days. I just thought, And in my head, I had good reason, right? I thought, I've got to get on. I've got to go. But it's so easy to do that. It's so easy to say, I can't stop.
Maybe I don't have the money for this or I've got somewhere really important I need to be. But what is most important to the Lord? What does love look like in that moment? So I think it's really convicting. We've sort of said this, but I love that Jesus isn't afraid to call out the people that he's speaking to. He's so bold that it's not just random people that pass this man by, but it's the exact people he's speaking to. He's saying, you guys are the ones.
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who would pass this man by. And they're his people, really. Like, they're the Christians, they're not the non-believers. And I think that's convicting as well. Like, where am I in this story? What would I be doing? I think, Sparhanna, I think that's the power of story. I think if Jesus kind of just came out and said, you know, this is not good enough, you need to do this better, you need to get your act together. And you know, he did, he did kind of give...
hair dryer treatment, dressing down the Pharisees on occasions. We know that, don't we? I think the power of story, just under the radar, provokes challenges. And it's almost like the mic drop moment at the end, as they're of invested in the story. I just think of Nathan rebuking David after just a horrendous crime where David virtually broke his
know, all the Ten Commandments in the space of probably 48 hours. Nathan just doesn't confront him head on. He just tells a story, doesn't he, of there being two farmers and a guest comes and the rich farmer with a hundred livestock jumps over the stone wall and nicks the one lamb that was like...
was like a son to that farmer. He would just care. That was his one thing that had in the whole world. That's what he used to light up the barbecue for this guest. David's enraged because it's such a sense of injustice. Then the mic drop moment of when Nathan says, well, that's you. You're that guy. You're the guy who hopped over the stone wall to get the one.
lamb when you had such an array of wealth and completely convicted David. And I think this is kind of the stuff that Jesus does in these parables. He kind of takes his audience on a journey. And it's not about scoring points. I think we like to score points in our kind of world today. I think it's all about kind one-upmanship and, you know, in this kind of
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culture war that we seem to be in. But he does it because he wants to bring these people to a space of confronting their own double standards and to bring them to a space of change. And he does it in a really provocative way, but it's also in a really invitational way. It's not point in the finger condemnation. There's an invitation. I absolutely love that.
that point that you just made there, because I mean, although you say that Jesus wasn't scoring points and he doesn't do that, but actually quite often we read the context that they were sort of trying to catch him out, like the teachers of the law. And there is a sense of this guy trying to catch Jesus out, isn't he? Because he was saying something heretical about how one inherits the kingdom, how one gets into eternal life.
as far as they are concerned, he kind of does, because he's making this point that God's grace is not just for the good people as you identify them, it's for the whole world, like anyone who will accept that invitation. So yeah, he's not scoring a point, he is issuing an invitation, and it's going to be a pretty important invitation for them to grasp, not only for themselves, but for the people that
they're going to have to reach with the gospel after Jesus' death and resurrection. such an amazing point there. it's good. Just on the basis of, you know, who is your neighbour, you can imagine them saying the Samaritan through gritted teeth, right? You can imagine, I just don't want to say it, isn't it? And like, you know, we were kind of chatting before, weren't we, about
what would this kind of look like in our context today? I remember before I got married on my stag do, my core best men basically gave me an England rugby top to wear in Cardiff. I love English people.
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Apart from one day of the year when we play in the Six Nations in the rugby, that's the one day I'm like, all right, we're not friends. We're not friends. And it's funny, isn't it? And it's like, you know, it's a kind of, it's a cultural thing. It's kind of, you know, it's done in jest. There's no, there's no malice behind it. But yeah, it was, it was uncomfortable wearing this England rugby top as a proud Welshman.
But it can be challenging as well, kind of, if we dig a little deeper into that. A friend of mine is a filmmaker, name is Paul Searstedt, and he kind of did 21st century takes on parables similar to the wonderful work that our pitch with Luke Walton does for Bible Society. He kind of explored the Good Samaritan story through a kind of UK...
present day lens and basically formed two characters. One was a white supremacist gang leader who happened to get beaten up and was left half dead in an underpass. People would walk past and they wouldn't do anything. Think even other white supremacist gang people. The person who stopped was the son of
an immigrant who came over in the Windrush generation from Jamaica. And so you've got this kind of, this racial tension and this man who looks at this person who's beaten half dead and probably is thinking, you deserve your comeuppance. You know, I've experienced so much racial hate crime in my life, but he looks on him with compassion and it's, yeah, it's a really, it's a really uncomfortable story to be watching. I think
I think Jesus knows what he's doing. He knows that to confront us with this truth in real kind of earthy contexts, yeah, sometimes you need to be provocative. Yeah, you can tell how he's impacted the man too, because it says the expert in the law replied, the one who had mercy on him. He can't even say.
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or he doesn't even say the Samaritan. That's how I it. just goes, you can kind of hear him saying it, like he said with gritted teeth, the one who had mercy on him. Not the Levite, not the priest, the other one. Yeah, exactly. So it's interesting how much you can see it affected them and then how does it affect me when I think the same thing. Who is my enemy? Or sorry, who is my neighbour? But really, in this case, Jesus is saying your enemy is your neighbour.
That is quite challenging because when we try to put it into a modern day context, we do often think of those extremes and people who hate each other. But in my own life, I can't really, you there's not a group of people that I hate, but that doesn't mean that this parable doesn't have something to say to me and about my understanding of who my neighbor is and who
should receive God's love from me and that invitation to the kingdom from me. There shouldn't be any sort of barrier between me and another person and sharing those things. So I do think it is quite a hard thing to translate because we tend to talk about it in extremes and then we're like, but I'm not extreme. But okay, but how is this still really quite provocative for me?
And that is a more challenging thing that I'll have to spend more time reflecting on. you have a response to your own question? Well, I was trying to think about it before this episode and right now I can't think of anyone. But then, you know, do you think that these people in Jesus' parable were walking on the road and expecting to be put in this position? No, they weren't. They didn't plan in advance for it. It was what did they do in that moment?
So I suppose for most of us, we may stumble across an opportunity that we can't prepare for, but to do this very thing. And will we be ready and will we do the right thing or will we hesitate or will we just kind of walk on by and think, well, maybe somebody else will do that? That's the challenge to me. Yeah, I think for me, maybe it would just be the person that I
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think isn't my responsibility. Like you said, someone else can do it. Also, I can think of scenarios in which I might be presented with an enemy in my life. Could be someone decides to attack me or something random, someone on the street who yells at me, someone who, whatever. I think there are times in which maybe I don't have enemies that I can think of right now, but certainly there are times when I could be presented with them.
And what is my response going to be in that moment? Yeah. I I think you're right. think the kind of the being inconvenienced, I think is part of it, isn't it? We don't like to be inconvenienced. It can be frustrating because it wasn't part of our plan. Time is so precious, isn't it? But I think, I think you kind of see in the culture of just, just dialogue that happens on social media. I mean, there's so much good stuff on social media.
there really is. I've been really blessed recently. But I think the darker side is that it's a space that gives platform to the more bitter and repentant parts of our own hearts. And it's just a space to vent, isn't it? And it's easy to hate on people who we're just straw man versions of.
of who they actually are. we paint two dimensional versions of who we think people are. And just because we might oppose, have different views on politics or faith or whatever, it can be easy to be in a confrontational space. But I think power of story, when you actually interact with people and realize that these are real people, it's a lot more complex because
Yeah, when we interact, when we relate to the people and you kind of think, actually, this is not just a Samaritan who I'm supposed to hate. I can see their compassion in front of me. I can see how they've taken their time. Yeah, so I think it's a call to not be so quick to judge and to jump on our own preconceptions, which we all do. I think it's, yeah, really good. Shall we go to our next parable?
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We wanted to talk also about the parable of the prodigal son, which Dai wrote about in the parables journal. A really well-known parable and so, good. There's so much in it. Again, I'll just summarize it quickly for us. There's a man who has two sons and the younger of them says to his father, give me my share of the inheritance that you're going to give to me and my brother. And the father says yes.
The son goes off with his inheritance, the younger son, he spends it and he squanders it. And a famine comes in the country that he's in, and pretty soon he has nothing left, no food, and he's at a loss for what to do. So then he decides that even his father's hired servants have more than enough food, but he's going hungry. So he decides, I'll go back to my father and I'll tell him I've sinned.
and I'll ask him if he'll just take me back as a servant." So he goes back and scripture says, while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And basically he throws this huge party for him. He gives him a robe, a ring, new shoes on his feet. And there's a big celebration. The older son,
who has stayed with his father this time comes back from the fields and he notices the celebration and he says, what's going on? And the servants tell him, your brother's come home and your father's throwing a party. And he gets really angry about it. And he says to his father, I've served you, I've never disobeyed you. But now when the son who has disobeyed you comes back, you're throwing this huge party. And the father says to him, son, you're always with me and all that is mine is yours.
It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for your brother was dead, and he's now alive. He was lost and now he's found." So this is another parable where Jesus is flipping things on its head a ton in lots of different ways. One of the things that I love, I love the line in this parable where Jesus says, while the son was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him.
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Because there's so much about the sons in this parable, but there's also so much about the way that the father acts as well. So yeah, tons to unpack. What were some thoughts you guys had? my word. Looking at this. Well, I'm just before, because I'm sure Dai's going to be dropping many pearls of wisdom on this. So I'm just going to jump in first with something that I think is quite important from the context of this story, because
just like the Good Samaritan, you've got these sort of people listening in, the Pharisees, the scribes, the lawyer. You have that same kind of situation here right at the beginning of chapter 15. It mentions that kind of the Pharisees were like complaining because Jesus was associating with tax collectors and known sinners and they were really
of questioning this, are you for them? Surely you should be for us, and you shouldn't be associating with them. They're unclean, they're sinners. And so, again, this is like another invitation from Jesus to identify, well, the Pharisees to identify with the older son, you know, who's been faithfully obeying their father all this time, but then for them also to see that
Yes, the tax collectors and the sinners who you would like to condemn and you'd like to see them punished, they're in this story too. And I want to treat them differently. I've got a different invitation for them. So yeah, I think he's doing that same thing again that he did with the parable we just looked at.
Yeah, absolutely. it's just, it's an incredible story, isn't it? And remember listening to a podcast recently where this storyteller was kind of deconstructing the story and kind of showing us actually, even from a literary perspective, this is just genius. It's a story that we can read 2000 years later.
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we can fully identify with. think sometimes we can miss some of the kind of agricultural references. I mean, of course not on wheels because there's lost sheep, there's sheep everywhere. So makes perfect sense. If we lose a sheep it's probably in my garden. But anyway, I'm going off track like the sheep. Anyway, my point was that it's a timeless story because we all know
the feeling of relational family conflict. We all know what it's like possibly have a sibling or someone close to us who we're different from and we're kind of maybe fighting for the approval of a parent. So you've got these two sons of a new and the father and the two sons are completely different.
the choices they make are completely different. There's tension, isn't there? think Esther picked up on that really well. Essentially, this is not just a story of the wayward, younger son. It's not prodigal son. Tim Keller reminded us that it's plural. It's prodigal sons. There's two prodigals here. It's just their life choices have been completely different.
the younger wayward son has rejected the love of the father and the older son is trying to earn the love and approval of his father. And so there's these kind of parallels, isn't there, as Esther was saying, where the younger son is kind of like a metaphor personification of the tax collectors, the sinners, the cheeses with. And the Pharisees are thinking, these guys don't deserve
father's love and they're frustrated about it. They don't deserve it. Jesus kind of takes that as the premise and says, you're right, they don't deserve it. This is offensive. But he says that's the point. They don't deserve it, but neither the older son misses the point that he was trying to earn the approval. He was trying to earn the love of the father. The love of the father wasn't something that could be earned by good works.
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it was something that was freely given. But they had to be willing to accept that. So it's just this incredible story, isn't it? That again uses the power of story, knowing the audience and essentially the Pharisees is the older son. And the way that the story finishes, I know we're jumping around the story like a ping pong ball at the minute, but just to kind of finish this thought.
The story ends with the older son not enjoying the party. He's not celebrating that the younger son was lost and is now found, was dead and is now alive because he's frustrated. And I would, I can imagine being that older son. I'd be really frustrated if I was trying to do things by the book and then he gets the fired calf, he gets the full on barbecue. you know, I've been on, I've been on Quorn for...
been on salad and rye-vita for the last month and he's getting his full on barbecue and I'm like, what is going on here? but, but yeah, the point is, is that there's an open invitation from the father to the son to join the party, to come in. You are, you are just as loved, but if you think you can earn the love that I'm trying to give you, you're totally missing the point.
And these guys are prodigals as much as the tax collectors. And that is why it's so subversive, but so incredible with this story. Well, I think another challenge though, just beyond that, that I was thinking about as I was preparing is just that, like, I love the picture of the father as not being happy to just, you know, even though that younger son basically has wished him dead, has walked away completely from him.
has basically trashed the labors of his life, know, so that inheritance that he had. He's not kept the land and continued to work it. He sold it off and then he squandered the money. But the father's not content to say, well, that's it, you're not in the kingdom anymore. His desperate desire is for that person to come back, to be reconciled, completely restored. And I guess, you know, the challenge to us
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if we may be feeling that we identify more with the older son, some of us won't, but some of us might, is to sort of, you know, are we basically content as we look at people who've done all kinds of things in their life, you know, whether they're in our family and we're very aware of it or, you know, it's more of a vague and distant idea. Are we kind of like, well, they're not in the kingdom, that's a shame, but, you know, there's nothing we can do about it. Are we content with that?
Or are we like the father, kind of looking out for this son every day you imagine, just hoping that he'll return because he sees him on the horizon and he runs out to greet him? Would we not only just embrace someone gladly when they repent, but are we actually seeking to bring that about, doing everything we can to kind of help them along the way? And I think that's probably the greatest challenge.
me from this because I don't know that I can say that. Like what lengths do I actually go to to issue, you know, to be part of issuing that invitation? Come back, no matter what you've done, there is a warm welcome and loving embrace, a complete reconciliation waiting for you. Yeah, yeah, it is. Yeah, I was thinking about, because
It is challenging that the person who... The Bible does this constantly, that the person who is the least likely to get the inheritance or get picked or get Jesus basically gets him. So I was thinking about how... Well, one thing that I find interesting in this parable, I was talking to a friend about it and they made this great point, so I'm not going to say that it was me.
But they made the point that in that time, it's very interesting that the father splits his inheritance because normally the inheritance would have gone to the older son. And the reason we were talking about that is I was thinking about how in the Bible there are so many stories. It's the constant story that you hear in the Bible is that the second-born son or anyone but the first-born son gets the inheritance. So if you think of Cain and Abel.
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Abel is the one who pleases God, not Cain who's the firstborn. Or if you think of Jacob and Esau, Jacob is the one who gets the inheritance when it should have been Esau. Or if you think of Joseph or David, the firstborn is not the one who gets what they should have gotten, basically. And I find that so interesting. It struck me as I was reading this, this time, that again, it seems as if the secondborn son, it's interesting that he gets inheritance at all in this parable.
the fact that he squanders it, but he's still the one that God has chosen. And I think it's such a beautiful thing that the Bible continually hits on, which is that the least likely person is the one that the Lord is choosing and is looking out for. And like you're saying Esther, it's so difficult and it's convicting for us to respond in the same way, because it's not the way that we naturally think. We don't think of the least likely person as being the one who deserves.
the best or deserves whatever they get. So I find that really compelling, You know, I wouldn't be entitled to any inheritance from God unless he had radically extended the boundaries of who can become one of his sons, if you know what I mean. Like, I think...
I'm pretty sure if you look at conversations around inequality in our society today, there'll be people looking at it and saying, well, why? Just because that person was born into that situation of privilege, they get all this stuff and I don't. But actually, there's something radically equalizing in the fact that it's not just where we're born or to whom we use family we're part of.
that determines whether we can access the kingdom of God. It's to do with our response to Jesus and to the good news about him and to God. That is more important than what we have as a birthright or don't have as a birthright. So, I think there's interesting questions around fairness, especially if you think that the older son did, in this case, deserve the inheritance.
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Di made a good point that the invitation to the older son is still open at the end of this parable. We don't know quite what he will do. But there is something equalizing in that we can all choose to respond to God in the right way. Yeah, love that. And the father's on the... I've got this kind of picture that the father is just pacing back and forth on the porch outside and he keeps looking out and he keeps longing.
And he keeps waiting for his son to come. and I love how he, I think, Noel, you kind of mentioned that, that he, runs to meet the younger son as well. And in that context, you know, the, as the father of the household, it would be, it would be unheard of for him to, to run. He would walk, you know, it'd be like, this doesn't happen.
And I've got a picture of him kind of, he's in his PJs and his dressing gown and he's kind of, you he doesn't care. He's running. He's running and he embraces the sun. Even though the sun was at his lowest covered in pig muck, he doesn't wait for the sun to be clean to embrace him. He extends that embrace.
I think it's something Glenn Scrivener mentioned once that I just really resonated with. He gives him this huge embrace when he's still covered in, in PIGMAC. And I think it's that reminder that he doesn't wait for us to be good in order to, to extend that love and embrace that love. It's, it's because we're all covered in PIGMAC. But, but yeah, it's kind of, it's incredible. And I think with the Pharisees and the
the older son who's kind of the...
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representing the Pharisees in the story, it's a picture that the younger son is coming back and he's coming to a space of repentance and he knows who he is and he's longing to just be a servant, but he ends up being fully embraced and being a son in this household again. But the Pharisee doesn't get it because by the book, he should be so much better.
But it's like Jesus says, that when He's confronted another time that, you know, He came for the sick, not for the healthy. The younger son knows He's sick and that's the reason He comes home. And the older son, he's not quite got there yet, but there's that invitation, right, to kind of come join the party.
That's really good.
So Di, will you now perform your spoken word for us on the prodigal son? I'd love to. I'm just going to do a little kind of creative summary and then I'll jump into the spoken word. A servant's return becomes a family reunion as a ring and a robe later, the father clothes the son in full on restoration. Take a moment to consider the parallels at play from a son running away.
To a father running towards. From a son's reckless rejection and outright rebellion. To a father's reckless grace offering reconciliation. From a rebel and a self-confessed orphan. To a father embracing a rebel and calling him son. From a son who loses everything for a party. To a father who throws the biggest party and the whole town's invited. Why?
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because my son was dead, now he's alive. I was your son, you were my dad, but I gave you up and I was glad. I was blind, I was lost, I made you pay the total cost, I took half of it and I squandered it. I spent money like I was made of it. Down in the gutter there was nothing left. I found myself drowning in a sea of debt, no place to go, all alone, tail between my knees, I walk home but...
You threw a party because you found me. I rejected you, but you call me family. You call me son. You call me back. You look at me and tell me that I am your son and you are my dad and you will never give up on me. You will never give up on me. You will never give up on me. I'm so glad.
so good. Round of applause. It's tough way, isn't it, to respond to spoken word genius like that. It's your special, like, click the finger. Get the finger snaps. Get the finger snaps, it's so good. That's in a song too, isn't it, Dai? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I recorded that with Sound of Wales. So the song is called Time to Come Home and you'll find it on...
any of your streaming devices. Spotify, Apple, check it out. cool. Is it on the Spotify playlist for this edition? Probably. Yeah. don't know. I'll check. That'd be good. That'd be helpful. Thanks so much, Di, for coming on the podcast and talking with us. It's been great. Guys loved it. Thank you so much.
That's it. This is actually the end of our Parable series, last episode. So we hope you guys enjoyed it. Thanks so much for listening. We will be back next week because we have a bonus episode, which is just a Q &A. But we've got some of your hardest Bible questions that you've given us that we're going to answer. So we're looking forward to that. Guys, get The Rooted Journal. If you want to encourage storytellers, get The Rooted Journal.
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If you want to be rooted in parables, get the Rooted Journal. If you like the Bible, get the Rooted Journal. Just get the Rooted Journal. Just get it. Do it now. Do it right now. Biblesociety.org.uk For it's not rooted. If you love the podcast, please give us a rating or a review, we would love that.
And we will see you next week for the last episode of this series, our Q &A. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Ruta Podcast. To find out more about Bible Society's mission to invite people to discover the Bible for themselves in England, Wales and around the world, visit biblesociety.org.uk.