Dinner with the Pigs

One of the hardest things I've learned in life is sometimes you have to let people eat dinner with the pigs and not call them out on how nonsensical that is.  To some that entire sentence is nonsensical.  Let me explain what I mean by eating dinner with the pigs.

A long time ago there was this guy named Jesus.  He liked to tell people stories about God and heaven.  People call these stories parables.  On one such occasion Jesus told a story about a son who wanted to leave his family and go experience life or what he thought life was.  So this son goes to his father and demands his inheritance.  Now if one of my children asked me for their inheritance before I had keeled over and died I'd probably laugh at them and make them go to their room and think about how stupid they just were but that's just me.  In the story this sons father does the opposite of what I would do: he gives the son the inheritance.

So now rich with money the son goes off on his journey to experience life and to (I'm not really going to say this.... yes I am... I'm sorry) turn up...  Those of you who get that are probably shaking your head.  Those of you who don't get that be glad you grew up on actual good music instead of the random noises that come out of teenagers iTunes libraries these days!  Anyway...  The son (surprise, surprise) wastes all of his new riches on wild, crazy, party-like-its-1999 living.  Now completely broke, the son gets a job feeding pigs (Jesus telling a crowd of Jews about a guy getting a job feeding pigs probably had more impact on them than it does us.  Just picture the worst job you could possibly ever have).  Eventually he gets so hungry that the food he's feeding the pigs starts to look good.  In a sense he wanted to have dinner with the pigs.

Finally the son comes to his senses and goes back home with the intention of becoming one of his fathers servants because even they were eating better than he was.  When the son got close to home the father ran out to meet him, embraced him, clothed him, put the family ring on him, and threw a freaking epic bar-b-que!  The fathers other son got jealous because he was being a tool but lets talk about that another time.

There are many things you can take from this story Jesus told.  The one thing that I feel is rarely talked about is the fact that this awesome, merciful, loving father let his son... well... make stupid choices!  He let his son waste his money.  He let his son throw stupid pointless parties.  He let his son waste part of his life.  He let his son go eat dinner with the pigs.  What I'm trying to say is sometimes you just need to let people go make that terrible mistake.  Sometimes there is absolutely nothing you can say to that person that will change their mind so why even argue?  Are they walking down a path that is going to lead them straight to the pig farm?  Probably... But maybe that's where they need to go to finally get "it"

It's not fun when you see someone you love start down that path.  It can even physically hurt to hear them talk with their terrible, poorly thought out life choices.  I'm not saying you should never say something.  I'm not saying you should absolutely never try to intervene.  But there are times when you just need to take a step back and say, "Ok.  Go make that mistake if that's what you truly want right now."  What I am saying is sometimes people need to have dinner with the pigs to finally realize what's true, good, and acceptable.  Pray for those people.  Be there for those people.  Don't write them off or judge them from afar.  Be the best friend that you can be.  And when they finally see the light, throw the biggest, most epically epic bar-b-que they've ever seen!


If you'd like to read this story Jesus told you can find it in Luke 15:11-32