Sometimes It's Not About You

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

First a quick paraphrase of today's scripture. "OMG - He eats with sinners!" Jesus tells a story: A man has 2 sons, one is bad, one is good, both are loved. The bad son goes away and spends all his money, ending up with the pigs. The good son stays home and takes care of everything. The bad son comes home, gets a big party. The good son get's mad, and the father pats him on the back and reassures him he is loved too.

Let me also paraphrase a popular saying; "Let any who has never been on the wrong side of praise raise your hand."  Of course you have, just as every person out there.

Let me offer this example. In school a lot of the projects which the students do are done in groups. The groups range anywhere from 2 to 4 people and each person is expected to do their fair share. That never happens as there will always be at least one person in the group who does, at the most, as little as they possibly can. Yet, because this is a group project everyone gets the same grade.

Those who do all the work often get upset, and it's one such time we had to talk to a student about the fairness of group projects. It was explained to this student that not everyone has the same gift, and not everyone has the same abilities. There will be people who honestly don't know how to participate, or someone who feels like they don't have anything to offer, so they won't. These students are the ones who seem like they're not doing anything, but believe it or not they are trying their best, and when you let them know they're doing good, and thank them for participating at whatever level they are that you'll see they begin to do more, and to do better. In this way, you see, the "bad son" knows that no matter what, no matter how it seems they can't do anything of worth, they are still a part of the team, and as such are welcome to get the same grade as everyone else.

It never occurs to us that sometimes the praise isn't for those who do good, they're not the ones who need it, well not a lot of it anyway. It's the ones who feel like they have nothing to give, it's the ones who feel like they don't matter, it's the ones whose self-esteem is at its lowest that need to be reminded more often they are loved, no matter what.