Our Gospel reading today, the Parable of the Prodigal Son, is one of Jesus’ best-known parables. In many ways, it is a largely allegorical story that seems, in many ways, to speak for itself. It is the last of three parables in the fifteenth chapter of Saint Luke’s Gospel about losing and finding.
Jesus’ parable begins with three striking elements. First, the younger son dares to ask his father for his inheritance before his father’s death. Such a request would be outrageous even in our time and culture. Second, instead of responding to this request with an angry or indignant refusal, the father goes ahead and divides his wealth, giving his younger son his inheritance. Finally, the younger son liquidates his inheritance, turning it into cash, which he then squanders by living in an extremely self-indulgent manner.1
After rapidly spending his entire inheritance, this “prodigal” son is forced to hire himself out as a swineherd. For someone who is Jewish, it’s difficult to think of anything more humiliating. It doesn’t seem to take long working with pigs, longing to eat what the swine ate, for this young man to come to his senses. Thinking about how well his father, whom he has gravely insulted and humiliated, treats his servants, this wayward young man decides to go home and ask his dad to take him back as a servant, not a son.
In Jesus Christ, we have something of a twist to this story. Jesus is a beloved, obedient, and only begotten Son, “Who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be” held onto, but, rather, as something to let go of and even shared; who, for us and for our salvation, “came down from heaven and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of Virgin Mary.”2 He also “suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried,” and “descended into hell.”3
One thing Christ and the younger son in our Gospel have in common is that they both grew through suffering. The inspired author of the Letter to the Hebrews notes: “it was fitting that he, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the leader to their salvation perfect through suffering.”4
The major difference between the two lies in the fact that the son in today’s Gospel suffered the consequences of his own sinful behavior, while the Only Begotten Son of the Father, suffered as the result of his loving obedience. This tells us something important about suffering.
The most compelling figure in this parable is the father. Approaching it allegorically, it’s clear that the father is an image of God the Father. As he “caught sight” of his younger son, for whose return he no doubt yearned daily, we hear that “he was filled with compassion.”5 The Greek word used here for the father’s response to seeing his lost son return, literally means to yearn deep in one’s bowels, to be moved in the very core of one's being, deep in your gut.
This word is only used two other times in Luke’s Gospel: when Jesus, seeing the grief of a widow in Nain due to the death of her only son, “was moved with pity for her” before raising her son from the dead; the word is also used in Luke when, encountering the man robbed and left for dead on the side of the road, the Good Samaritan “was moved with compassion.”6 The Samaritan's compassion plays out by his elaborate response to the plight of the robbed and beaten man.
The Return of the Prodigal Son, by Rembrandt Van Rijn, ca, 1661-1669
It is easy to miss that in this parable the loving, compassionate father has two prodigal sons: one who repented and another one who, at end of the parable, is left with a choice.
It is also easy to overlook that, in this parable, it is the father who suffers. He watched his youngest son leave. In light of his son’s impatience and eagerness to live it up, the father was all too aware of the dangers his son faced, a good many of which his son sadly realized. After his repentant son returned, he also endured the anger and resentment of his older son, whom he tried to persuade to rejoice and join the party celebrating the return of his brother.
This loving father was unable to make his younger son return home and then didn't seem to make much headway in convincing his oldest son to let go of his resentment. In truth, only the sons themselves could take the initiative and decide. Just as God does through Christ, the father in the parable shows us that to love is to make yourself vulnerable. Choosing to love is to take a risk.
You see, repentance and the conversion it kickstarts can’t be forced. By design, God’s grace, his mercy, his lovingkindness is never irresistible. You can resist by living in a manifestly self-destructive way, like the younger son during his time away. But you can also resist by holding onto your grudges and resentments, refusing to forgive, and seeing no need to be forgiven, as well as avoiding or refusing reconciliation, which was the temptation faced by the older son.
Like the older brother, not living a manifestly sinful life may produce just enough self-righteousness to justify living with a hard, cold heart, one full of bitterness and resentment. Later in her life, my grandma, speaking about her mother-in-law, my great-grandma, who had then been dead for over fifty years and with whom she’d had a terrible relationship, said “If I have to forgive her, I guess I won’t go to heaven.” I was shocked. As I told my grandma, “That’s work you have to do.” My grandma lived quite a few years after this. I hope and pray she did that work.
As you can tell from the pink vestments, today is Laetare or “Rejoice” Sunday. It is called this because the first words of the Introit, sung at the beginning of Mass, and taken from the Book of Isaiah, are: “Rejoice, Jerusalem, and all who love her. Be joyful all who were in mourning.”7 If we can’t rejoice in God, who because of Jesus Christ we can call “our Father,” whose mercy offers all of us a fresh start in every moment, then what is there to rejoice about?
To come to Mass week after week and pray “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us” and then receive communion with no intention to forgive others for slights real or imagined, is deeply problematic and not the recipe for joy. Lent means "springtime." Springtime, as we see outside right now, is when new life springs forth. Lent is an invitation to turn over a new leaf, to let go of everything that prevents us from loving God and our neighbor. To take the risk of love, which, in its essence, is what it means to follow Christ.
Like the father in today’s parable, God, our Father, invites us to experience the joy of his unconditional love and to rejoice in his love for others. I don’t know about you, but I often find experiencing joy much harder than experiencing sadness, frustration, self-contempt, which easily spills out in contempt for others, maybe onto no one more than the person trying to “cheer me up.”
Like gratitude, which we heard last week during our parish retreat, is essential for living a Eucharistic life (“Eucharist” means thanksgiving), for the most part, joy is a choice. As Henri Nouwen noted, choosing joy is an act of hope that “requires choosing for the light even when there is much darkness…, choosing for life even when the forces of death are so visible, and choosing for the truth even when I am surrounded by lies.”8
I think the passage from the Book of Nehemiah, which serves as the scripture reading for Morning Prayer for the first four Sundays of Lent, captures the spirit of Rejoice Sunday:
Today is holy to the Lord your God. Do not be sad, and do not weep;
for today is holy to our Lord. Do not be saddened this day,
for rejoicing in the Lord must be your strength9
1 The Paulist Biblical Commentary, “Luke,” M. Dennis Hamm, SJ, 1077.↩
2 Philippians 2:6; Roman Missal, “The Order of Mass,” sec. 19.↩
3 Roman Missal, “The Order of Mass,” sec. 19.↩
4 Hebrews 2:10.↩
5 Luke 15:20.↩
6 See Luke 7:11-17 and Luke 10:29-37.↩
7 Roman Missal, Fourth Sunday of Lent.↩
8 Henri Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son, 115-116.↩
9 Nehmeiah 8:9b.10b.↩
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