Becoming Like the Father
1. What Now?
What now? The resurrection has happened. Jesus Christ is risen and alive. He has given us new life. In and through Him, we have come home to the Father. “What’s next?” We have not come home to remain safely within the house, hiding from the world while we wait to go to heaven.
What happens to a child? Children grow up to become adults, and then they become fathers and mothers. It’s the same with the spiritual life. When we believe, we are born again and become spiritual infants. In Christ, we grow and become children; then spiritual teenagers and young adults. And as we grow into mature adults in Christ we eventually become spiritual fathers and mothers. We become spiritual parents for the lost children of God. As such, we are to go out, find them, and bring them home. There, we help them to grow into mature spiritual adults, becoming perfect in Christ, so that they in turn can become spiritual fathers and mothers to God’s children.
Coming home to the Father is not the final end of our spiritual journey nor the final goal of our spiritual life. Now that we are home, we are called to become like the Father and to live out His divine love and compassion in our daily lives. This is what’s next. This is the radical calling Jesus makes on our lives. He calls us to become like God the Father, to love as He loves, and to show compassion as He did to us. “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:36).
2. Be Merciful Like the Father
Wait a minute … Become like the Father? This calling confronts us with the question: Do I want to be like the Father? Do I want to be not just the one who is being forgiven, but also the one who forgives? Do I want to be not just the one who is being welcomed home, but also the one who welcomes home? Do I want to be not just the one who received compassion, but the one who offers compassion as well?
It is easy for us to identify with the two sons. We have been like them. It is easier and comfortable to remain a child living safely under the Father’s roof. Whether we are the younger or the older son, we are the sons and daughters of our compassionate Father. And as children, we are his heirs. Romans 8:16-17 — “The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” As children and heirs, we are to become successors. We are living in this broken and hurting world, and here we are called to step into our Father’s place and offer to others the same love and compassion He has offered us. Coming home and being in the Father’s house requires that we make the Father’s life our own. It requires that we abide in Christ and become perfect in Christ. And as we become perfect in Christ we are being transformed into the Father’s image. The image of God is being restored in us so that when the world looks at us they see God in and through us. They get to know God and come home to the Father.
What are the implications and significance of becoming like the Father? The compassionate God joyously welcomes repentant sinners into his house. So, “If God forgives the sinners, then certainly those who have faith in God should do the same. If God welcomes sinners home, then certainly those who trust in God should do likewise. If God is compassionate, then certainly those who love God should be compassionate as well. The God whom Jesus announces and in whose Name he acts is the God of compassion, the God who offers himself as example and model for all human behavior.” (Nouwen)
Jesus is God and as God, He reveals the God of love and compassion. He calls us to a radical conversion. He calls us to move from belonging to the world to belonging to God. When we repent, turn around, and come home, we are no longer of this world. “My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world.” (John 17:15-21).
When we come home, surrender to God’s love, abide in Christ, and live in the power of the Holy Spirit, we belong to God and not to the world. And the impossible becomes possible. We can be like the Father. We can put into practice Jesus’ commands. “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful” (Lk 6:27-36).
Once we have come home, we can be like the Father. We can love with the same selfless and radical love. Jesus is the true Son of the Father. He is the model and the way for us to become like the Father. In Him, the fullness of God dwells. When Philip asked Jesus to show them the Father, he answered, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9). His unity with the Father is so intimate and so complete that to see Jesus is to see the Father. He shows us what true sonship, true childhood, is. He is the younger son without being rebellious. He is the elder son without being resentful. In everything he is obedient to the Father. He hears everything the Father says. He does everything the Father sends him to do. Jesus says, “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. For the Father loves the Son and shows him all he does. Yes, and he will show him even greater works than these, so that you will be amazed. For just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son gives life to whom he is pleased to give it” (Jn 5:19-23).
This is divine sonship. And to this we are called. God’s Son became flesh so that all the lost children could become sons and daughters as Jesus is the Son. Jesus leaves his Father’s home to take on the sins of God’s wayward children and bring them home. Through Christ we can become true children of God again, and as true children we can finally, by the power of the Holy Spirit, grow to become compassionate as our Heavenly Father is. Spiritual fatherhood and motherhood have nothing to do with power or control. It is a spiritual parenthood of love, compassion, grace, and care. We should give without wanting anything in return. We should love without putting any conditions on our love. This is a lifelong struggle. Jesus truly calls us to be compassionate as his heavenly Father is compassionate. He offers himself as the way to that compassionate life. Therefore, because of Him, we must trust that we are capable of becoming like the Father as we are called to be. We can trust that our lives can truly bear the fruits of God’s Holy Spirit. How? There are three ways to become merciful as the Father is merciful, three disciplines to practice to become like the Father: grief, forgiveness, and generosity.
3. Grief, Forgiveness, and Generosity
Grief asks us to allow the sins of the world as well as our own sins to pierce our hearts and make us shed tears for them. When we consider the immense waywardness and lostness of God’s children; when we consider our greed, our violence, our anger, our resentments, our jealousies, and when we look at them through the eyes of God’s heart, it should break our hearts as these break the Father’s heart. We cannot help but weep and cry out in grief. This grieving is praying. It is the discipline of the heart that sees the sin of the world. This grief is so deep not just because human sin is so great, but also, and more so because God’s love is so boundless. If the lost children will just realize, acknowledge, and surrender to that love. We have to shed countless tears and so prepare our hearts to receive anyone, whatever their journey has been, and forgive them from our hearts just like the Father does. This grief should drive us to go out and look for the lost children; to make friends with and eat with the sinners. How else will they come to know the boundless love of the Father?
Forgiveness is the second way that leads to spiritual father- and motherhood. It is through forgiveness that we become like the Father. Forgiveness from the heart is very, very difficult. It is next to impossible. When asked how many times we should forgive someone, Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy times seven” (Mt 18:22). He also said, “Even if they sin against you seven times in a day and seven times come back to you saying ‘I repent,’ you must forgive them” (Lk 17:4). God’s forgiveness is unconditional. It comes from a heart that does not demand anything for itself, a heart that is completely empty of self-seeking. It is this divine forgiveness that we have to practice in our daily lives. It calls us to keep dying to self; to keep stepping over all our arguments that say forgiveness is unwise, unhealthy, and impractical. It challenges us to step over all our needs for gratitude, gratification, and compliments. It demands of us that we step over our wounded hearts that are hurting and that want to stay in control and put a few conditions in place before forgiveness is given. This “stepping over” is the authentic discipline of forgiveness. Perhaps it is more a “climbing over” as we climb over the walls of our arguments and angry feelings, over all the walls that we have erected between ourselves and others. But every time we climb over those walls, we enter into our Father’s house, and there we touch our neighbors with genuine compassionate love. Grief allows me to see beyond our walls and realize the immense suffering that results from human lostness. Forgiveness is the way to step over the wall and welcome others into our hearts without expecting anything in return.
Generosity is the third way to become like the Father. In the parable, the father not only gives his departing son everything he asks but also showers him with gifts on his return. To the older son he says: “All I have is yours.” The father keeps nothing for himself. He wants to pour out his very life into his sons. This portrays God. His goodness, love, forgiveness, care, joy, and compassion have no limits at all. To become like the Father we must be as generous as the Father is generous. Just as the Father gives his very self for us, so must we give our very selves to our brothers and sisters. Jesus makes it clear that this giving of self is the mark of the true disciple: “No one can have greater love than to lay down his life for his friends” (Jn 15:13).
This giving of self is a discipline because it is a practice that does not come spontaneously and easily. As children of darkness that rule through fear, self-interest, greed, and power, our great motivators are survival, self-preservation, and self-gratification. However, as children of the light who know that perfect love casts out all fear, it becomes possible for us to give away all that we have for others. We surrender all to Jesus, even willing to die for Him and others. Giving all thus becomes gaining all. As Jesus says, “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it” (Mk 8:35).
Every time we practice generosity, we are moving from fear to love. Of course, this is difficult because there are so many emotions and feelings that hold us back from freely giving. Why should I give time, energy, money, and attention to someone who has offended me? Why should I share my life with someone who has shown no respect for it? I might be willing to forgive, but to give on top of that; that’s asking too much. However, that person, whoever he or she is, is a child of God, lost yes, but still his child, and our generosity may just be the action that, at that moment, reveals God and his love to them, that calls and brings them home.
Grief, forgiveness, and generosity are the ways by which the image of the Father can grow in us. It is comfortable to be the wayward younger son or the angry older son. However, once we have come home we are now called and challenged to become like the Father. We must go out and look for the lost children. We must be at home to welcome home the hurting and wounded, the tired and exhausted, the disappointed, guilty, or ashamed. The Father’s hands that welcome and hold in a loving embrace, the Father’s hands that forgive, console, and heal, the Father’s hands that dress in new clothes and give a feast of joyful celebration, those hands must become our hands. And so through us, The Father’s love is made known to his lost children and the world. Through us, the Father calls his children home.