4th SUNDAY OF LENT

 

Readings: Joshua 5:9, 10-12

   2 Corinthians 5:17-21
  Luke 15:1-3. 11-32

 

"Now we must celebrate… because your
was dead and has come to life again..."

 

Sometime in the past, an international awardee for the most leading writer of short stories was asked: "What do you think is the best short story ever told? And who do you think is the greatest story teller of all times?” After a very brief pause, the answer came: "To me the best story ever told is the parable of the prodigal son. And for that matter, the greatest story teller of all seasons would be that humble man of Nazareth who happened to be the son of a poor carpenter.”

 

To every man of good will, this parable must occupy a rightful place in his heart.

 

The story has three characters: the prodigal son, the elder brother and the father. As a good storyteller, the wisdom of Jesus lies precisely on how he projects his message through the characters he uses in this parable. Each character personifies a particular Christian virtue. The prodigal son stands for repentance. The elder brother portrays justice. The father personifies the virtue of love.

 

1.  The prodigal son stands for repentance. The biblical understanding of repentance is metanoia, which means a change of heart. Repentance is a radical turning back, requiring a 180-degree about face. It begins with a humble recognition of one's fault, accompanied by a deep-seated sorrow of the heart over such fault and a strong determination of the will for amendment. This is shown in the person of the prodigal son as he came to his senses. The son's true conversion is summarized with these very words: "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.’” He realizes how sinful he had become, and how his sin has offended heaven and earth. Now he is completely resolved to make amendments. He is ready to put upon his shoulders whatever penalty consequent of his deed; he deserves it, after all. He even goes as far as humiliating himself. He is willing to be deprived of his sonship and lead a paid servant's life, a thing beyond anybody’s ordinary expectation; His words, therefore, are no mere lip service nor an instinctive reaction to a difficult situation. Rather, they seem to be a fruit of a long stage of meditation, so that when he finally comes at his father’s house he prostrates himself and utters the very words he had in mind.

2. The elder brother, on the other hand, portrays the virtue of justice. Feeling so bad about how his father must have treated them so unfairly, he comes to protest: “Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast with my friends. But when your son returns who swallowed up property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.” Unfair! And truly it is. Is this not the reason why parents, brothers and sisters bear terrible heartaches and misgivings toward each other? In many instances, this goes as far as the grave. Sometimes, it feels a little better when such maltreatment is done to us by other people, not by our own kins. But most often, it happens just exactly the same as told in the parable. It happens right in the family.

 

Enlarging the sense of justice here, is this not the reason why we also rally at streets and demand for a rightful parliament? Justice simply cries out that some people up there in our society's hierarchy have gain slaughtered the fattened calf and made banquets for those personalities who have already corrupted the nation's wealth, thus making us beggars before domestic and international usurers. And this happens while the same people up there give their deaf ears to the cries of the poor farmers and laborers. They who are supposed to be the backbone of the nation’s economy are not given a "legal kid goat" - something really assuring under the law – for them to feast and celebrate. Here, through the second character of his story, Jesus wants to project a down-to-earth reaction, trying to tell his listeners how man is often hurt by how his fellow man treats him. Such treatment seems to become ordinary. In the conduction of human affairs, the elder brother is just that reasonable.

 

3. But over and above justice, we have the virtue of love. This is what the father personifies. The flow of the story seems to lead us to the loving father who is the peak and highlight in the parable. This is why spiritual writers like to call this story as the parable of the loving father. The message of love stands out greatest by the way the father treats his two sons.

 

"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," Had the father followed the imperatives of strict justice, surely this prodigal son has no more room in his house. But the love of the father makes him prepare a rightful place for his son in his heart. True, the elder brother has all the reasons to grieve. In fact, the father in his own initiative approaches him too. But he comes neither to justify that the younger son is more favored than him, nor to appease him from the unfairness done. For actually, the father is not that unjust. At most we may say, he is "not just" over the thing he has done. That is why he comes to explain: "... 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.”

 

Life is more than what justice can offer. "Love makes the world go round," goes the saying. The fact that the father is able to welcome his lost son with open arms, the fact that the son in turn finds meaning and satisfaction over his conversion, and the fact that their house becomes a home once more, are the living proof that love can do better and greater things than justice. With justice we make things human; with love we make human things divine. Where justice ends mercy begins; and where mercy is wanting love is fulfilling. Justice is tempered by mercy; mercy is perfected by love. In fact, the graver reason why the father approaches the grieving elder son is to make him feel and realize how much his father loves him too.

Let us go back to the world of experience we are in. The reason why sinners end up in total despair is not really because they know not how to repent; but because no matter what and how they do, they still find no hope of forgiveness in return. Man has just become so just. And he turns out to be unforgiving, unloving. In the scale of justice, man may suffer the bitterest condemnation. But in the language of love, he finds kind words and warm affections. The lesson of the parable is quite clear. There is more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner and a loving father.