A Homily – The Gospel of Luke 15:1-3,
11-32 ©
The Gospel of the Day – 2016.03.06 (Sunday)
The Prodigal Son
The
tax collectors and the sinners were all seeking the company of Jesus to hear
what he had to say, and the Pharisees and the scribes complained. ‘This man’
they said ‘welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So he spoke this parable to
them:
‘A man had two sons. The younger said to his
father, “Father, let me have the share of the estate that would come to me.” So
the father divided the property between them. A few days later, the younger son
got together everything he had and left for a distant country where he
squandered his money on a life of debauchery.
‘When he had spent it all, that country
experienced a severe famine, and now he began to feel the pinch, so he hired
himself out to one of the local inhabitants who put him on his farm to feed the
pigs. And he would willingly have filled his belly with the husks the pigs were
eating but no one offered him anything. Then he came to his senses and said,
“How many of my father’s paid servants have more food than they want, and here
am I dying of hunger! I will leave this place and go to my father and say:
Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be
called your son; treat me as one of your paid servants.” So he left the place
and went back to his father.
‘While he was still a long way off, his
father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his
arms and kissed him tenderly. Then his son said, “Father, I have sinned against
heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.” But the
father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him;
put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the calf we have been
fattening, and kill it; we are going to have a feast, a celebration, because
this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found.”
And they began to celebrate.
‘Now the elder son was out in the fields, and
on his way back, as he drew near the house, he could hear music and dancing.
Calling one of the servants he asked what it was all about. “Your brother has
come” replied the servant “and your father has killed the calf we had fattened
because he has got him back safe and sound.” He was angry then and refused to
go in, and his father came out to plead with him; but he answered his father,
“Look, all these years I have slaved for you and never once disobeyed your
orders, yet you never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my
friends. But, for this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up
your property – he and his women – you kill the calf we had been fattening.”
‘The father said, “My son, you are with me
always and all I have is yours. But it was only right we should celebrate and
rejoice, because your brother here was dead and has come to life; he was lost
and is found.”’ (NJB)
Love One Another – Do Not Despair
People change.
Appearances are not everything.
There is good in
everyone, and in everyone there is cause to be disappointed.
The degree of judgement
levelled by the Pharisees in this narrative; that is not something to emulate, neither
is the jealousy expressed by the loyal son.
Beneath the veneer of piety
there is often a degree, of bitterness and resentment; making the pretense of
piety a mere façade.
The parable is about
justice.
Jesus presents a story
from the vantage of divine justice. Few of us are able to do this. The more
common discussion of justice is the superimposition of human values, contemporary
social values over what we believe God would desire. It is much more rare, and
it is the role of the prophet to express divine justice; justice characterized
by love and mercy, compassion and forgiveness, asking us to reform our human
traditions in the light of those.
This parable is often
analyzed as a narrative on the power of repentance; repentance, which is the
turning around of the sinner toward God. It is told as a story of conversion,
and the power of transformation that ensues, and that is fine because those
motifs are clearly present.
The characters in the
parable are the father and his children. Read; God and humanity.
Humanity is presented in
two different lights; the self-indulgent, and the disciplined.
The self-indulgent child
is like most of us, greedy and heedless of the future. The journey he makes,
takes him for from his father, far from God. It is a long journey, it takes
years to complete, and it leaves him destitute.
The disciplined child
represents a much smaller number of us (though most people fall somewhere in
between). He stays home, remains obedient, and asks for nothing from his
father. He is pious and resolute, but in his heart he is resentful, and bitter.
Because he asks for nothing for himself, he receives nothing for himself, and
in his heart he is covetous.
Between the sin of
self-indulgence and the sin of covetousness; which is greater? I think it is
impossible to say.
There is perhaps a
broader degree of danger in self-indulgence, but there is deep spiritual danger
in covetous heart.
This is a story of repentance.
The younger son repents and returns home. The long journey away from home, is a
short journey back. And the narrative reveals that while he was away from home,
the eyes of his loving father; God, were always on him.
This, I believe is the
point of the narrative. It is not that repentance is possible, or that God
rejoices in the repentant. It is that God is with us, always. We are never out
of God sight, and we are never far from God’s love. The parable is about God,
God’s mercy, God’s Love, God’s compassion, God’s forgiving heart, which God,
and Jesus, ask each of us to emulate everyday.
4th
Sunday of Lent
