The fourth Sunday in Lent is traditionally Laetare Sunday, the break of the Lenten season, which is half over today. And thus we find the notion of joy in today's liturgy in the midst of Lenten austerity. There was joy when the Israelites ate the Passover for the first time in the promised land (first reading). There is joy for a Christian in realizing that we are a new creation (second reading). And there is merriment over the prodigal son's return (gospel). This would be one theme for a homily. But following the specialty of Sundays Three through Five of Lent we may concentrate again on penance and conversion. This time because conversion is made easy by a loving, merciful father (gospel), so that Paul can tell us: “Be reconciled to God (second reading)!
First Reading: Joshua 5:9.10-12
The Book of Joshua belongs with Deuteronomy, judges, 1 and 2 Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings to the Deuteronomical History. On the eastern side of the Jordan, Moses and Joshua presented themselves before God at the Tent of Meeting, and Joshua received his divine commission to bring the Israelites into the Promised Land (Number 27:18-23). The account of how the successor of Moses fulfilled that mandate is contained in the Book of Joshua. The Book is easily divided into two parts: 1. The passage of the Jordan and the successes by which the Hebrews captured a large part of the land of Canaan (1- 2). 2. The allotment of the land and the final incidents in the life of the military leader (13-24).
The Jews cross the Jordan under the guidance of
Joshua (Jos 3:14-17) and come to Gilgal, near Jericho. Twelve memorial stones
are erected, the Jews are circumcised, since all Jews who left Egypt died in
the desert. Their children were all born in the desert and were not circumcised,
since that was too difficult to do on the journey. Now
with the entrance into the Promised Land the covenant with Yahweh is renewed.
And for the first time on the soil of the Promised Land the Jews eat the
Passover and eat unleavened bread and roasted ears of corn. Thus the journey
through the desert comes to an end and the journey reaches its fulfillment and
consequently the manna, the food for the desert, is no longer needed and stops
coming down. All this is ample reason for rejoicing.
In the second letter to the Corinthians St. Paul has to defend him self against the charge of being unreliable (since he did not always keep promised visits). Thus in Part I (2 Cor 1:12-7:16) he 1. defends himself against the charge of unreliability and other matters (1:12-2:17) and then 2. outlines the greatness of the apostolic office (3:1-6:10). This he does among other things by showing the greatness of his message of regeneration and atonement (5:14-6:2).
From this last section our second reading of today is taken. Any Christian is a new creation; he is something completely new since baptism. God has reconciled the world in two steps: (1) in Christ, i.e. by making Christ sin for us (v. 21), by making Christ take upon himself our sins, by making him the victim of our sins (Is 53:6) and by suffering for them, and (2) by giving the apostles the word of reconciliation (v.18.19.20).
Thus, what objectively happened through Christ’s redeeming death for us, i.e. the reconciliation with the Father, the taking away of our sins, becomes subjectively available to us when the word of reconciliation reaches us, the word of the gospel, which preaches and effects reconciliation.
This reconciliation
happened for the first time in our baptism. But the call "be reconciled to
God" (v.20) is valid also after baptism. We need renewal of this
reconciliation again and again. This last idea connects the second reading with
the
penance of the gospel.
Reading of the Good News: I
Chapter 15 of the third
gospel is one of the finest chapters of St. Luke, speaking about God’s mercy
with three parables: the lost sheep (15:3-7), the lost coin (15:8-10) and the
parable of the prodigal son (15:11-32). It is one of the finest, if not the
finest, parables, and is often called "the gospel in the gospel” or a
“minicompendium of theology". It would be better called the parable of the
loving father or of the two sons, the two brothers. All three parables are
addressed to the Scribes and the Pharisees who
sinners. Christ justifies himself in these parables particularly in this last
one.
The parable thus talks not only about the second brother, but also the first, in whom the Pharisees are described. The first is fed up at home and asks his father for his share. According to Deut 21:17 at the death of the father the oldest son was suppose to get twice as much as any other son of the movable property. The immovable property (land) was in the last analysis not for sale (cf. Lev 25:23ff). If a father divided the property already during his lifetime, he was not bound to this law. The story reflects actual conditions in Palestine where a man could easily think that by escaping the stultifying Judaism of the half a million Jews who stayed at home, he would do far better by going to the Diaspora of the approximately four million Jews scattered throughout the Roman Empire, some quite near Palestine.
The younger son soon turns his share into cash and sets off for a distant land where he squanders his money in a carefree and spend thrift fashion, the nature of which is not specified (only his older brother suggests in 15:30 that it was with harlots). Because of the famine he has to hire himself to a Gentile pig-keeper. This occupation signifies for a Jew the bottom of the pit, since pigs are considered unclean for Jews and even a curse (Lev 11:17). He is so poor that he longs for the swine fodder, the fruit of .the carob tree, but nobody gives it to him.
This misery makes him repent. He wants to return to his father and ask him to be accepted as a hired slave, i.e. as the lowest slave, lower than the regular slave who could always stay and belonged to the family. But the father cuts short his confession of guilt and accepts him as a son. The ring signifies authority (cf. Gen 41:42; Esth 8:2), even to sign; the shoes signify a freeman.
HOMILY
THE LOVING FATHER
1. The
traditionally called parable of the prodigal son is one of the finest parables
of the gospel, if not even the finest. It shows Jesus at his best. He wants to
be merciful and kind and wants to show us that the meaning of sin is not hell,
but to return home to the Father. Nothing is so grave that it could not be
forgiven and that God could
not make something more beautiful come out of it. But the parable also tells us
something about the danger of being good. And so the parable is better called
the parable of the two sons, the two brothers, because that older brother is
also lost to the Father by his self-righteousness and his obsession with being
innocent. And thus he separates himself from his Father and his brother and we
are wondering: Will the Father succeed in winning the older brother back as he
won back the younger one? Thus we reflect on the younger and the older son and
on the father.
2. There is first the younger son.
a. He has grown up in a good family. He could not have gotten a better father as the story shows. He is well taken care of. Humanly speaking there is nothing missing. All is conducive to growth, at least it seems so.
b. But the
younger son feels the house to be too much an institution, which stifles his
own initiative. He misses the freedom of the wide horizon. He would like to
make his own plans; he would like to decide things for himself. And it could
well be, although it is not said, that the older brother, being the older and
more experienced son
was at times just a little too much for the younger son. In comparison with the
older brother the younger would always remain the younger and less experienced
brother.
c. Probably the father was reasoning with his younger son that the house was not an institution but a home, where he could feel at home and be at ease, where he slowly could grow and mature in full liberty, making his own decisions, and the liberty of the wide horizon would come in due time with the encouragement of the parents. He just should wait a little.
d. But the father soon realizes that there is no sense in reasoning with his younger son. Some people just want to make their own mistakes. They do not want advice, not even reasonable and sound advice. And so the father gives his younger son his property share although the father was not obliged to do so before his death. But the younger son takes this generosity for granted and makes nothing of it.
e. And so he is gone far away from home. He enjoys his freedom, he enjoys spending money and having friends by spending it with them. There is one party after the other.
f. But soon the money is spent, and with that the friends are gone. And to top the misery, a breaks out. It becomes so severe that he has to go into service with a pig-keeper, which is the most degrading and even most cursed work for a Jew. And when the son has not enough to eat, even less than the pigs, he comes to himself and realizes his fault: After all, his father was right. His parental house was not institution, but home where he really was completely free and should have had just a little more patience, realizing that it takes time to grow. And all the servants of his father were treated much better than he was treated here.
g. And so he admits to himself and to God, and soon he is going to admit it to his father, that he has done wrong. He is no longer worthy to be a son of his father, but the father should accept him as one of the hired slaves, the lowest rank of slaves. He will be satisfied with just being home again, slave or son is not important.
h. And so he goes home, home to the father, and admits his fault with sorrow. He has learned the hardest lesson in life: to admit one's own sin, to say "sorry, I have done wrong.” How many others, ever since Adam and Eve have tried to blame others for their own faults! This son has learned that the meaning of sin is not hell, but to go home to the Father.
3. The father is as consistently good as he always was.
a. He does not wait till son comes, but goes toward him, something unheard of an older person. Obviously he has been waiting for his son and is all too glad to have him back.
b. He embraces and kisses the son, something done only for a son, not a slave. He gives him the signet-ring, the sign of authority, and shoes, as sons, not slaves wear them. He gets new robes.
c. The father cuts short the confession of the son although there has to be confession. There is no nagging of the father, no comment of reproach, no blame in opposition to what we often do when somebody does us something wrong. Many a human father forbids his misbehaving children to come home, or is constantly nagging.
d. And finally the father has a welcome banquet ready, as one does only for solemn occasions and for somebody whom one wants to honor.
4. The older son learns about all this only when he comes home from the field. And here the second part of the parable, which is equally important, starts.
a. The older son is a model son in many ways.
He never misbehaves. He nicely stays home; he works hard; he does everything
what the father could expect him to do. He does not even go to a party. In
modern terms, he would have been an honor student, on the honor roll. In short,
he is good, as the Pharisees also were. And thus Jesus
wants to picture them in the person of this older son.
b. But being good, and doing one’s duty can go to somebody's head and can make him look down on others who do not do the same, certainly on those who misbehave, who run away from home and squander everything.
c. And so, although the older son stays home faithfully and is always with the father, he soon loses the father also. He considers the father a slave-driver and says: "These many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command. Yet you never gave me so much as a kid goat to celebrate with my friends." He does not realize that in being with the father everything belongs to him, since he is a son, not a slave. And thus the older son does not address his father with "father" as the younger son does before he goes away from home and even more when he comes back.
d. And the older brother looks down on his younger brother. He refuses to call his brother and tells his father: "When this son of yours returns home after having gone through your property with loose women, you kill the fatted calf for him."
e. Good as he was, possessed with a zeal for duty, the older son is alienated from his father and his brother. Will he admit that he is wrong, blaming his father for his goodness, refusing to do the same as his father does, being kind to somebody who admits that he did wrong?
3. And with this we come once more to the father.
e. He is kind also to his older son. When the son refuses to come into the house after he comes from the field, the father goes out and pleads with him to make him see the incident in the right light that after all, we cannot hold a mistake against somebody for eternity if he is sorry for having done wrong.
f. And in particular, the father tries to make him see his brother as brother. Where the older son had said: ‘This son of yours turns home," the father changes it into: “This brother of yours was dead, and has come to life. He was lost, and is found.”
g. And whereas the older son refuses to address his father as father, the father replies: "My son, you are with me always, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice.” Will the older son see the situation as the father sees it? Will he also come back (internally) to the father as the younger son did? Will he see his father as kind and loving and forgiving, not as a slave driver? Will he allow him to be generous and be generous himself? The parable does not tell us.
h. But if we keep in mind that the parable was addressed to the Pharisees we may wonder: if the older son came back, we may wonder what is a greater hindrance to go to the father: sin or self-opinionated goodness?