Divine Illogic

We need to be reminded constantly of grace because it lies so far outside our expectations, even while it is the ground of our continued existence and our place in the story of creation and redemption. We believe that we inhabit a universe in which coercion solves problems and in which righteousness is getting our fair deserts, but we are actually in a universe in which kenosis and grace are fundamental. Our creation, then the provision for our needs, which continues even after sin, and then our redemption from sin and its deadly effects are all one package. It will be completed, tied up, and delivered in the eschaton, which completes the story. All of it is founded on grace.
Grace is, by definition, non-routine, unexpected, gratuitous. “Where is the grace,” Jesus asks, if you do what is expected from mere self-interest, “if you love, do good, and are generous with a  reasonable expectation of return” (Luke 6:32-34)? Even banks do as much. But to love and care for those you are least expected to love and care for and to give to a thief or to one who can be trusted not to pay back (vv. 27-30, 35): it makes no sense to do so. That is grace.
In the same way, God. Creation, provision, redemption, and completion are all because of grace, all beyond what can be expected and therefore beyond what makes sense. It was while we were still God’s enemies, those who try to supplant him, that Jesus went so far as death on the cross—while such generosity was undeserved and therefore unexpected by those who live by the usual assumptions (Rom 5:6-8).
Because creation, provision, and redemption are all included in the same package (the one story), provision is a sign of redemption. Because God provides, he is known as “Father”: fathers give fish and eggs, not snakes or scorpions (Luke 11:11-12; cf. 6:36). If I expect to receive snakes and scorpions, or, more likely, if I look at my over-easy with toast and think it is a scorpion, it is because I do not see God as Father. But if I expect the egg because I think I deserve it, then, still, I do not know God as the Father he is. My expectation is based on who I think I am rather than on who he is. But even as God’s enemies we are told that God is indeed “Our Father.” He becomes that when we learn to trust his care for us, even though it is undeserved.
For instance, the prodigal son, the child who did his utmost to make himself an enemy to his father. My visual idea of that father as he runs out to welcome his son home (Luke 15:20) is captured by “The Little King,” a short and rotund comic strip character of the past, particularly in a strip (you can see it here) in which he is inspired by passing footracers and takes off running in his polka-dot underwear. Without his royal robes, his body is drawn as a circle. The Little King and the prodigal’s father both look comically out of place as runners.
The comedy works not just visually but in the whole character of the father. This would have been more obvious to those who heard Jesus tell the parable, though some were probably not so much amused as shocked. Instead of acting like a commendable head of his family, the father first gives in to his son’s outrageous request for an early pay-out of the old man’s inheritance (v. 12) and then seems to reward his son for recklessly blowing the whole bundle. The prodigal’s brother is more sensible, as is the prodigal himself once he has sobered up. As the prodigal rehearses the speech he intends to recite to his father (vv. 18-19), he has already come to expect the same thing that his brother has always preferred, namely that their father’s giving respond to each son’s past responsibility or lack thereof. But that sensible expectation is not met. In fact, nothing happens in the parable to make the father’s actions, either before his younger son’s departure or after his return, sensible. The father is, in fact, a bit of a buffoon. “Mercy is comic, and it’s the only thing worth taking
seriously.”
Just like that father, grace is comical, shockingly so. We would rather, like the prodigal’s older brother, have everything follow the rules and everyone get what they deserve. We apply such rules to ourselves and to each other all the time. No wonder, then, that when grace breaks out the older brother is mad as hell (vv. 28-30), much like some vineyard workers who wanted recognition for having worked longer than some others (Matt 20:11-12). But if logic and sense prevailed even over God, we might as well eat pigfeed and not go home.