Sparky Grace

When my wife told me that we were going to hang out with Sparky and his wife, I was less than excited. But Sparky surprised me. His vocabulary isn’t commonly heard in church (love isn’t the only four-letter word he enjoys), and he has interesting hobbies (recently he had created a homemade grenade launcher), but it didn’t take long to realize that he was more genuine in his gritty faith than anyone I’d ever met. Unafraid to ask hard questions, Sparky didn’t feel pressure to “act like a Christian.” Instead of trying to fit into some culturally influenced G-rated religious play, Sparky was living like someone who had an insatiable hunger to find meaning and purpose.

When he sat down and started sharing his history on our back porch, I felt like I was watching a movie unfold. Growing up in Lancaster County, surrounded by well-to-do religious families, Sparky had been the odd one out. From a divorced family, he spent time in bars with his dad on weekends, sipping Coke and cherry juice. Always experimenting, he began using drugs and alcohol at an early age.

Then he met a girl. Carrie convinced him to go back to church. He cleaned up his act. They married. Both career-oriented, they landed good jobs. They bought a beautiful white house. They hosted lavish parties. It was fairy-tale perfect.

But happy endings aren’t part of Sparky’s story. While traveling around the country, Sparky was not only making huge sales, but he was also drinking excessively. The fairytale ended.

Hitting bottom, he and Carrie started coming back to church. That’s when Sparky and I met. The more I learned about Sparky, the more intrigued I became. He was thoroughly unimpressed with religion but seemed desperate to discover if there was something more to life. He pursued truth like no one I’d ever met. Sincere seeking left no room for religious pretense.

Sparky and I couldn’t be more different: I’m a pastor’s kid, he’s a policeman’s kid. I grew up eating Jell-O at church potluck suppers, and Sparky grew up in the bar with his dad. I spent my summers on mission trips while Sparky, at ten, was making homemade bombs. Sparky’s life was coming apart; I was trying to tiptoe on the straight and narrow. But sometimes appearances can be wildly deceiving.

A Tale of Two Brothers

Shortly after meeting Sparky, I read The Prodigal God, an extraordinary retelling of one of the most well known parables of all time. This book, by Tim Keller, did more than just open my eyes to a deeper understanding of one specific biblical story, it started cracking through a superficial veneer of Christian faith.

Contrary to popular opinion, it’s not a story about one wayward son but two. Jesus is talking about two brothers, one a hedonist, the other self-righteous. Both are estranged from their father. Therefore, the parable of the Prodigal Son would more appropriately be called the Prodigal Sons.

Typically the parable most of us are familiar with goes something like this…

A younger son, defiant and rebellious, demanded his inheritance. His father acquiesced. After squandering everything, the younger son found himself in need when a famine overtook the land. To survive, he took care of pigs, ceremonially unclean animals, even eating their food. Desperate, he returned to his father, intending to be an indentured servant. In an act of extreme generosity, the father welcomed the son and reinstated him as an heir.

It seems pretty straightforward: A wayward son finds grace from a gracious father, an analogy of God’s love for us. But Keller says that we miss the point if we leave it at that.

That’s clearer when you consider Jesus’ audience: the religious leaders and the most upright members of society.

In the second, lesser-known act of this tale, the elder brother, working out in the fields, heard of his brother returning and the party his father was throwing for him. Disgracing his father, “The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in.” In Middle Eastern culture, this is almost as shameful as the younger son’s outright defiance. Refusing to participate in one of the greatest parties the father had ever thrown, he dishonored his father.

Again, the father did the unthinkable. Rather than chastising his son, the father demeaned himself by going outside to plead with his son to come in.

His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. The son said, “Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!”

His father said, “Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!”

At the end of the story, despite the same offer of love and forgiveness to both brothers, the elder brother pouted outside while the younger celebrated inside.

Spiritual Dead Ends

Both brothers wanted the same thing: the father’s money and possessions. The younger chose to express this through outright defiance, the older through obedience. He believed he gained leverage over his father by doing good.

He felt his father owed him.

See how he presented his case to the father: “Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief.” His own work ethic, morality, and service are what kept him from going inside to the party with his father.

It wasn’t hedonism that alienated the elder brother from his father; it was all the good things he had done. Good things became ultimate things, creating a barrier between him and his father.

It’s possible to sacrificially serve God and be completely self-centered in the process.

The point of the story is that it’s possible to sacrificially serve God and be
completely self-centered in the process. Morally upright people fully immersed in
service can be just as far from God as the
young hedonist brother. Eugene Peterson describes it perfectly:

We’ve all met a certain type of spiritual person. She’s a wonderful person. She loves the Lord. She prays and reads the Bible all the time. But all she thinks about is herself. She’s not a selfish person. But she’s always at the center of everything she’s doing. “How can I witness better? How can I do this better? How can I take care of this person’s problem better?” It’s me, me, me disguised in a way that is difficult to see because her spiritual talk disarms us.

When reading The Prodigal God, my world exploded like one of Sparky’s homemade Fourth of July fireworks.

Jesus told this parable to outline two types of people estranged from God: amoral hedonists and the morally righteous. Both paths are spiritual dead ends.

Hedonism and heroism (doing good) are brothers, not polar opposites. Both are focused on ourselves. At their core, both are about wanting our own way. One is wrapped in good deeds and religious service, but both are empty.

This story of the prodigal sons was unfolding in front of my eyes through my relationship with Sparky. He was the younger brother who had returned to the Father, while I was still working hard to earn God’s favor. Sparky was interested in a relationship. I wanted a prize—greater recognition and influence. But Sparky understood that the reward is the relationship. Frenzied in my constant search to serve, I forgot the point: The gift is God himself. Sparky understood grace and the story of Jesus more than any religious person I’d ever met.

Younger brothers like Sparky recognize their inadequacies. But they are also overwhelmingly aware that God’s love is a gift. It’s not something to be earned. And they’re usually the first to join the party.

Philip Yancey once wrote, “The proof of spiritual maturity is not how ‘pure’ you are but your awareness of your impurity. That very awareness opens the door to grace.”

That’s Sparky. It’s fitting—his last name is Grace.