Sunday, LENT Week IV
(Lk 15)
Books on tape aren’t read. They are performed. This is no exaggeration. Anyone who has ever heard a recording of, for example, Lonesome Dove, would agree. The performer of that recording gives distinctive voices to such diverse characters as Augustus McCrae, Joshua Deets, and Lorena Wood. In the parable today Jesus invites us to, in a sense, impersonate the three family members. Each of us should identify himself or herself with the younger son, the elder son, and the father.
Some of us will easily see ourselves as the younger son. We may have been “daddy’s favorite” or dared to have borne a tattoo. But in a deeper sense all of us resemble the younger son when we leave home to stake our claim in the world. In that process we usually forget about God’s inexhaustible love. As a result we allow the standards of the world to replace the good God desires for each of us. We set our hearts on “A’s” rather than wisdom regarding the nature of things. We hanker for five-star service rather than to serve the common welfare. We long for the pleasure of sexual gratification rather than the total self-surrender of marital love. The list can be extended, but in every case there is an infinite distance between the world’s promptings and God’s plans. We yearn for what is passing, what cannot really satisfy. We pass by what makes us like our heavenly Father.
In Jesus’ parable the wayward son is broadsided as he pursues his worldly adventure. He suffers for his lack of discretion, remembers his father’s goodness, and returns home to beg for mercy. All of us need to head in the same direction. It is in rediscovering the love of God, our Father, which gives us hope. That love is like a family diamond – ageless, priceless, erosion-less. It provides a stable basis to this life and an everlasting home in what lies beyond.
We who come to church on Sunday should find little difficulty in identifying with the elder son. After all, Jesus includes this character in his story as a lesson to the Pharisees, the ultimate church-goers. Abiding by the rules, we believe that we deserve more of life’s rewards than those who flout them. So driving in the appointed lane we resent someone using the shoulder then sneaking in front of us. Also, we envy those who seem to garner maximum attention with minimum effort. So we grumble when the boss or the pastor blue-ribbons a colleague whose contribution to the job seems little more than we made.
The elder son’s short-sighted anger keeps his father’s love out of view. Stewing over his brother’s return, he cannot notice how his father’s humbles himself to call him to the party. Nor can he appreciate how his father’s remaining legacy solely belongs to him. It is indeed difficult for anyone to live with resentment and envy. But we are not helpless in the situation. We can choose to practice gratitude for all that we have. Especially we in this church today have so much to be thankful for. We generally have families who care about us. We live in a free society with multiple opportunities to learn and earn. And we have a faith that gives us access to the source and end of life. Rather than obsessing over how unfair the world appears, we might thank God daily for these blessings.
We call the story “The Parable of the Prodigal Son” but it is the father who takes over center stage. A thinly veiled symbol for God, he goes out of his way to welcome both sons back. How might we imitate Him, even if we are not a parent? The father in the parable accepts his younger son’s return without giving him an economics lecture. We should likewise accept those we have been given to care for, i.e. our family, friends and associates. We may not condone all their actions, but we can express our love for them. A woman recently came to a priest crying that her daughter is a homosexual. Hopefully, she took to heart the priest’s consolation that a homosexual orientation is not immoral. Furthermore, the daughter needs her mother’s love. Beyond acceptance we need to spend time with those in our care. The old man’s interrupting his celebration to assist his elder son get over his anger is especially telling. He does not demand his son to join the party. But he does take time to explain why the celebration is in order. Time for friends and even time for children is becoming increasingly scarce in our society. Studies indicate that we do not visit friends and relatives nearly as often as a generation ago. Neither are parents spending so much time with their children. These trends are at best worrisome. We are missing the critical lesson in The Little Prince, “It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”
The last scene of the movie Master and Commander shows a tall ship doing an about face in the middle of the ocean. That describes the younger son in Jesus’ parable coming to his senses and returning to his father. It also resembles each of us during Lent. Now is the time to realize that we have gone too far in staking our claim in the world. We hanker after diamonds and grumble over one-star service. Now is the time to rediscover God’s love for each of us and to beg for His mercy. Now is the time for mercy.
