The God of the prodigal son is a forgiving,, loving Father.

 

FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT  C  2022

Today’s Gospel, the parable of the Prodigal Son, is one of the most loved of all the parables.  Actually, it is wonderful parable of the merciful, forgiving Father.  It can be rightly called the Parable of the Forgiving Father.

Sometimes messages can be confusing:  For example,

Wife texts husband on a cold winter morning:  “Windows frozen; won’t open.”

Husband texts back:  “Gently pour some lukewarm water over it and then gently hit the edges with a hammer.”

Wife texts back 10 minutes later:  “Computer really messed up now.”

Yes, messages can be confusing at times:  Is this Gospel parable more about the prodigal son or the forgiving father?

The way I would like to reflect on this parable with you today is to see how this parable tells two ways we can become alienated from God.  It is the parable of two lost sons.  What they share in common is the absence of joy in their lives.  It is hard for them to rejoice in the joy and the celebration of the father in this parable. 

I invite you to consider the stuck point for both the prodigal son and his older brother.  Both of the sons had a falling out with the father. The younger son is lost in sin, and the older son is lost in self-righteousness.  Neither was filled with joy.

 

 

It’s appropriate that we pray over this parable on Laetare Sunday; Rejoice Sunday.  The color of our liturgical vestments indicates that joy is to mark our discipleship of the Lord Jesus.

In the parable, the younger son insults his father by asking for his share of his inheritance.  But instead of responding with offense and the desire to banish his son, he gives his son what he wanted – his share of the inheritance.  He then squandered what he had in irresponsible living.  Soon he experienced emptiness and famine.  He then resigns himself to being treated like a hired hand.  His sin has become his identity.  He is no longer son; he is a sinner. 

But when his father spotted his son off in the distance beginning his return home, he is filled with joy at the sight of his son.  All that the father cares about is that his son was lost and now is found.  Celebration is the only response.  Joy replaces the need to discipline and punish his son.

The encounter of the joyous father and his repentant son is a moving image of God’s abundant love and forgiveness and joy.  It is shocking.  It undoes our conventional sense of fairness and the need for discipline and gives a wonderful image of the desire that God has to share forgiveness and pardon with us.

The God of the Parable of the Prodigal Son is a forgiving, loving Father.

 

 

In contrast, the elder son in the parable, the good and obedient son, doesn’t get it.  His brother doesn’t deserve such abundant love.  He should be punished and disciplined.  Perhaps he should be excommunicated.  There is no way the older brother could find joy in his heart.

Who of us can say that there is not a little bit of the older brother in each and every one of us?  I must confess there is a bit of the older brother that needs to be rooted out of me.  I have had many years of training in keeping laws and rules and regulations and get jealous or angry if someone is not keeping the rules like I try to do.  We older brothers can be very self-righteous and judgmental of others.

Instead of being joyful for the love and forgiveness our loving God offers to sinners, we have a tendency to coach God on how to be God.  Being cold like the older brother is a worse fate spiritually than being in the recklessness of the younger son.  The fun-loving, sinful younger son won the favors of his father even before he admitted his sins.  This is something the older son could not do.

His own lack of joy makes him a lost son.   The resentment of the older son happens when we live in an external game of merit rather than rejoicing in the inner abundance of God’s grace that is given to each and every one of us. 

 

 

We are made in God’s image.  In God’s likeness, we are called to mirror his compassion and forgiveness.  The revelation of God as grace should make us rejoice.  But before we can celebrate, we must deal with the two conflicting mindsets that this parable illustrates.  Like the younger son, we can be so attached to our past sins, and so we cannot quite believe we are sons and daughters of love.  This keeps us from joy.

 Or we can be alienated from the simple presence of God’s abundant love.  This happens when our spiritual journey is only about reward and punishment and find ourselves resentful and envious.  This too keeps us from joy.  Only when we break the stranglehold of these two blocking mindsets will we hear the music in the house and know we are at home.

In this parable, God wants us to know that we are all sinners.  Whether our sins are explicitly outrageous like those of the younger son or whether we are much more self-righteous and think that the abundance of God’s grace is not fair, the message is that all of us in a spirit of humility need to call us to repentance and to rejoice, to find joy in God’s excessive love for each and every one of us.

May this Lenten be an opportunity to celebrate the sacrament of reconciliation and celebrate the forgiving, healing love of our God.

 

May we see the sacrament of reconciliation not just through the lens of obligation or guilt; rather can reconciliation be a source of joy and celebration as was the experience of the prodigal son when his forgiving father celebrated with extravagant joy at the reconciliation of his younger son.

Again,  our Lenten mantra is the words spoken to us on Ash Wednesday:  Repent and Believe in the Gospel.  We repent so that we can rejoice in the reconciling love that God has for each one of us.

May God give you the gift of joy.