[AI translation] Dear brothers and sisters, you may remember that the last time we were together like this in evangelistic worship, on the third Sunday of last month, I spoke about the prodigal son who was lost and found. But we now find out, or rather we now see, that this father has another son. A son who never strayed as far from his father as the younger brother. So he has always stayed at home with his father, but now, as the house rejoices at the return of the younger son, we find out that this son is actually lost too. If not lost in the same way as the younger brother, he is, in essence, a lost son to his father. So the poor father can safely say to this other son, "My son is lost.But he was the better son. He was the more honest, he was the more hard-working, and his father himself says of him, 'My son, you are always with me'. So this is the good boy of the house. This is the son who never wandered far away, far away from his father, never squandered his inheritance. He didn't live on the rampage, he didn't keep bad company. He worked honestly and diligently at home with his father. Even now he was just coming from the fields, where he was evidently doing farm work on his father's behalf. And now, when he comes home from there, he hears what great rejoicing is going on in the house.
Today, I would say that this is the Christian man who, almost from childhood, has always heard about the so-called God, and it is so natural to believe in him. Who has never strayed too far from Him in great, far away strangeness. Who has not walked to such depths, nor experienced such sins, as many others have - like this younger brother. So this is a Christian man who has been brought up from childhood to take for granted that he belongs to God, that he is in the church, that he prays every day and goes to church on Sundays. I would say that this elder brother must have been a man like us. For it is a testimony to how far we are from being people who are far from God that we are sitting here in his house, devoutly listening to his word. Indeed, we are all aware in some way that we are co-workers with our Father. For all the fields where each one of us works - whether in the church, in the family, in the factory or in the office - are ultimately God's fields, God's farm. So our Lord could say to us: my son, my daughter, you are always with me, all is yours! What a rich life! Imagine, brothers and sisters, what a carefree, happy opportunity to live with God, to be a child of God, to belong to God, to be at home with God, to do our work with God. We could share in his providential love and protection, and when we are weary, we can rest our weariness in his sheltering arms - what an infinitely rich opportunity! "My son, you are always with me, all is yours". Can God do more for us than this? Can the rich God, the almighty God, give us more than to say, "All is yours"? Yours who are here.
And it is so wonderful that this boy in the story does not feel so very happy and so rich in this home. It is as if some very long repressed bitterness bursts out in this complaint, in these words, that I have served you so long and so long, never transgressed your commandments, and you never gave me a goat's kid to comfort me with my friends, and when this son of yours, who has been eating up your wealth with fornication, came, you cut off his fattened bull... Do you feel it? This son inwardly, in the depths of his soul, is full of sulking, full of complaint, full of discontent against his father. This boy's whole life is actually joyless. He cannot appreciate the fact that he can live in the presence of his father and have his protection. He cannot appreciate what it means to belong to his father, what it means to be at home.
Is it possible to be at home and yet far away, to be physically at home and yet very far away spiritually? Is it possible to live a Christian life or a believer's life of one kind or another, close to God, without really having a heart for God? Is it possible to be with God every day without really loving God? There is. It seems that there is. In fact, there very much is. For, brothers and sisters, it is one thing to be close to God, and quite another to be in communion with God. So one can be very close to God for a lifetime - without ever really being in spiritual communion with God. Once, when I was a student in the Netherlands, I heard a very moving testimony about this. At a conference, a man with a grey beard and hair stood up, his voice trembling, his eyes watering, as he said: 'Brothers and sisters, I have been serving the Lord as a missionary in China for 38 years. And now I realize that all this time I never really knew him. But now I am beginning to know him: pray for me! So there is such a thing as spending decades in the service of God, but only like this older boy in this story. So as a servant, only for wages, only in the hope of the reward he will receive after his death in eternity. But not as a son in spiritual communion with the Father. Brothers and sisters, I too was close to God from the time I was a little child until I was 24 years old, I never strayed very far from him. I was always a typical good guy. Until the testimony of that missionary suddenly made me realise what a difference it makes to be close and to be in communion! Then, through the sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary, I suddenly saw into the heart of the Father of God. And then I realised that God does not want to keep me as a day labourer, not as a servant, but wants to draw me into his filial communion, into his love with himself.
Feel, understand that there is a fundamental difference between being close to God and living in communion, spiritual communion with God. There is a relationship between man and God which might be expressed in this way: with him and yet without him, together and yet apart, belonging and yet orphaned and abandoned and alone. That is, near and yet far, in proximity but not in communion. It is a kind of relationship, brothers and sisters, like the marriage of some people, where the two people are so used to each other that they have no intention of separating, because they are already bound together by so many threads, but their souls have long since ceased to be one, and their thoughts have long since ceased to be one, and their tastes and aspirations and joys have long since ceased to be one. They live together, they are only covered by a roof, but they are at an immense distance from each other. Very often our relationship with God is like that. It is so familiar, so dull, so boring, so uneventful, so joyless, nothing surprising about it. There is nothing inspiring, there is no passion, there is no fire. It is not a celebration, it is very monotonous, monotonous, boring. This is the Christian man who cannot bear witness because he has nothing to bear, no spiritual experience. He cannot truly rejoice spiritually because he feels he has nothing to rejoice in. Who, even if he is doing some service in God's economy, cannot talk about it because there is nothing interesting happening. It is so self-evident that there is a God, and that God loves, and that God forgives sins. It is so terribly self-evident that Jesus died and rose again. For we have heard it so many times, and we have said it so many times ourselves in the Creed, but there is nothing wonderful about it. Nothing inspiring, nothing exciting, nothing happy, nothing special. It is a fog of familiarity and boredom, like a mist in late autumn. Brother, do you not recognize in this mirror your own joyless, uneventful, uneventful, boring life as a believer?
All this dullness, all this suppressed bitterness, all this discontent I feel precipitated from these words, "I have served thee so long, thy commandment never transgressed, and thou hast never given me a goat's kid to comfort my friends with." Moreover, brothers, there is something else in this outburst: there is envy in it. Some secret, repressed envy. The unspoken thought that, well, how good it is for this younger brother, at least he has enjoyed all the pleasures of the world, and yet how lucky he is to have got away with it! Tell me, do you not have some secret envy of the sons of the world lurking somewhere in the depths of your soul? How good it is for the sons of the world to plunge themselves into all sorts of sins without coming into conflict with their consciences. Life with God is narrow, limited, boring, uneventful. It is true that Jesus said, "My yoke is beautiful", but wouldn't it be good to throw that yoke off yourself, just for a little while, for a short while, and taste the beautiful things, taste the forbidden fruit? What must the taste of sin be like that God tells you not to do? Well, that hurts this elder brother. Now his secret desire, hidden by his "good guy" attitude, has been exposed. "Thou never gave me a goat's kid to rejoice with my friends" - how good it would be to rejoice sometimes, to be as joyful as the world! As we see in the movies, as we read in novels! But I can't do that, because I'm a believer. It is forbidden in the Scriptures, I will be angry with God, I will lose my salvation in the hereafter! You must not! So the soul only secretly desires things which it would be ashamed or afraid to do openly, and only in imagination does it live out sins which it would otherwise condemn from its consciousness. As a compensation, it then loudly condemns others for sins which it itself would like to commit in secret. Observe how contemptuously he can say, "when this son of thine came, who devoured thy wealth with fornication" - a typical virtuous man, who speaks so contemptuously of what the other is like. How debauched, corrupt, immoral, vile - and yet he almost drools when he speaks of the other's sin. He can scarcely conceal his envy, for he would like to take a step or two secretly along the path he so dreadfully condemns.
Do you feel, brother, that this is an exaggeration, that you have nothing to do with the spirit which this elder brother exemplifies? Is it really a miracle to you, such a miracle that you cannot get your mind around it, that you can say to Almighty God, "My Father"? And can you say, 'My Lord and my God'? Have you ever been amazed at that? Has it ever thrilled you? Is it really enough for you that this Father says to the elder brother, "all is yours"? Don't you sometimes need something else that is not the Father's but the world's? Don't you need more? Do we, dear brothers and sisters, thank God at all that we can speak to God? And that we can believe in him? And what he has done for us in Jesus Christ? Is it really such an incredible miracle for us? Do we thank him for hearing us because he promised? And did he tell us to cast all our cares on him? And is that really a joy for us? Do you know that the greatest danger to our whole Christianity is what? It is when it all becomes as familiar and as boring as a long-lost garment.
Then perhaps we can sense a little of what an extraordinary gift the opportunity to be with God is when we give thanks. For those who can give thanks again every day, God's love remains a miracle. And for him the wonder of being with God remains fresh, new, blissful and exciting. This younger brother has already discovered this, he can already compare which is really good: at home or away, because he has already tasted and hated what the other brother is still longing for. He already knows very well how this is the true richness of what the father says to the elder brother, "my son, you are always with me and all I have is yours". Is it really such a big deal? Just think: this is what God says: you are always with me! That means that I can be with God at all times. Brothers and sisters, I am beginning to realize more and more that the secret of my whole Christian life is to believe and live this: to know myself in the very presence of the Living God. What God is saying to me is "you are with me at all times". So God sees me and you in this way, and even says "my son" in this way, as if to emphasize that you should not feel like a day labourer, who works only for his wages and speculates only for the reward of eternal salvation, and who wants to obey and be a good boy only out of fear. Are you not a servant! You are my son. You are my sweet son. You are the sweet brother of my only begotten Son, Jesus of Nazareth. I see in you also my Son, says God. "Son, you are always with me." In view of Jesus' sacrifice, this is how God sees us, that we are with him. Well then, see yourself like this! In the presence of God and in reconciled and reconciling communion with the Father. But always, not just occasionally, during a moment of devotion, during a church service, during communion, but always! For this is the secret of a rich life. To keep myself in the presence of the invisible God. And I know God as ever present to my soul. I once read the writing of a man who lived a long, long time ago, in the 16th century. He wrote: "My only ambition is to keep myself in His presence unceasingly, while I direct my attention to Him, look up to Him with affection of heart, and engage Him in silent and secret conversation, as if I saw Him truly present. So to experience God's presence and to be with him in silent, intimate communion, but at all times - this is the Christian life, this is what enriches one's life immeasurably and makes one's everyday life a celebration. This is the secret of those believers whom the world looks up to with such wonder: where does this man get so much patience, strength, goodness, love and understanding? I am also beginning to realize more and more, dear brothers and sisters, that this is the only reason why it is really worth praying. Because praying for all kinds of earthly goods is not praying at all. That is just begging. True prayer is not asking for or receiving this or that, but coming to God and experiencing his presence. That would be the essence of true prayer. The children of God not only always want to receive something from God, but they want to sit at his feet and be with him in silence. For when we have reached the source of life, God, then we have the whole of life. Everything that can make life rich, complete. You know the name of Sadhu Sundar Singh. Let me quote just one sentence from his writings. And that is why Sundar Singh shouts out to all praying people the now almost a household word, "Ask God for the greatest, God Himself! As God gives Himself through His Holy Spirit in His Word, Jesus Christ. Do you think this is mysticism? No. Or if it is mysticism, it is a wholesome mysticism whose best effects are seen in practical life. Because, brothers and sisters, there is nothing in the world that gives so much stimulus and guidance and strength for the practice of love and goodness and purity and patience, that is, for the practical living of the Christian life, as the consciousness of God's presence in every area of life. Try it - you will experience it. Our lives are enriched by it.
Here is the story of two sons told by Jesus in this parable. Both were lost, one was found. What happened to the other one, the good guy, the better one, the honest one? We don't know. In any case, the father went out with his ancestor, pleaded with him, opened the door to the feasting home before him, but Jesus left the parable unfinished, obviously on purpose. Certainly so that each one could finish with his own life, his own answer. In any case, let us see the Father who comes to us in the person of Jesus himself, with his forgiveness, love and reconciliation. For the person of Jesus, his suffering, death and resurrection are nothing other than God's love for you and for me. As the outstretching of the arm of the Mother of God to all of us. So, sons and daughters who are at home, and yet so very far away, this is how God awaits you for a rich life. Into communion with him here on earth and then in eternity.
Amen.
Date: 19 November 1967.