The Good News can easily become old
hat if we let it.
Perhaps, we know it so well, and heard
it so often it has become run of the mill (meaningless).
We can know our fundamental Christian
reality so well, that we forget its magnificent, saving truth, that God not
only loves us first, but loves us always, and in an act of absolute self-giving
love Jesus came into the world to save us from ourselves, and bring us back
into friendship with him who loves us always.
In the 2nd reading St
Paul says
“For our sake he made him to be sin
who did not know sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him”
Do these words startle us or put us
to sleep?
Do our hearts race when we hear
Paul’s words that in following Jesus, the Risen Christ we become reconciled
with God and in the words of St Paul – become a new creation. Are we grateful and energized when
Paul reveals “Old things have passed away, behold,
new things have come”
or are these empty words we have
heard so often before? Are we, in fact, more comfortable
with the old things anyway.
Our attitude towards Jesus’
parables can be like our attitude to our faith – a polite yawn, a scratch of
the head and comfortable nod. Today’s gospel of the Prodigal Son is
so well known we often take it for granted.
We skim over it. Comfortable in its familiarity, we forget its
depth.
But, we must always remember that
Jesus did not just tell a good story. He
wasn’t just clever. He didn’t just try to pass on some good ethical advice. Jesus preached the Kingdom of
God. What it is and what it looks like
in this world. Jesus preached who the Father was,
his gracious love and his lasting fidelity.
Jesus reminds us that it is we who
lacks constancy and like children we turn this way and that.
We stomp around crying out we know
the better way, demanding to do what we want do.
Of course, if we can be childish and
foolish we can also be self-righteous, puffed up with the perspective of being better
than others, better than we are. Either way, we cherish our point of view and blinded by that
view we are comfortable in the shallowness of our relationship with God.
It is important to remember that we
choose shallowness and even estrangement.
The Father’s choice for us is always love and communion. And this is today’s parable - the
story of rebellious children who choose, for whatever reason, to turn away from
the father to take the lesser road.
We know the story well. The younger son knows best and this means -
give me what is mine and I will go off do what I please.We should reflect on that the
inheritance was not all the father gave the son. The greatest, yet most dangerous gift, was
freedom, the freedom to choose. I am not sure the younger son meant to hurt
his father or that he went off planning failure and ruin.
I am sure he wasn’t thinking at all.
He was empty headed. It was live for today live and live for myself.This thoughtless, empty headed, living
(as it always does) leads to a life without meaning and often to ruin and
despair. It is no surprise the young son
found himself no better than the swine he lived with. But in a moment of clarity, a
change of heart, he has an insight (a remembering) Luke simply says “He came to his
senses”. This change of mind & heart
caused the son to take action and do something radical, even crazy, and perhaps for the first time – with real
intention -
“He got up and went back”
We know the repentant son returns
in shame and guilt, broken and humbled by life estranged from his Father.
But the act repentance is hollow (useless)
without the acts of mercy and forgiveness.
And this for me is the truth at the
center of the story - “While he was a long way off, his
father caught sight of him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed
him”. The father never forgot the son,
never brushed him off as unworthy or proclaimed him “dead to me”. The father waited. He expected the return, he longed for the
return. He still loved his errant child
beyond measure.And this intense longing for
communion and loving openness to a returning child is God for us Jesus says.
The father, without wounded pride and
vindictiveness, came out to meet the son and who, before a word of apology was uttered,
hugged him and kissed him pouring out his love upon him. And this is God for us Jesus tells
us.
We know that the father forgave the
son, called for a great homecoming feast, and returned him to his rightful
position as son and made all things right. And this too is God for us Jesus tells
us.
But there was another son, the
elder son, the good soon. For him his
brother’s leaving was good riddance. He was
offended; his pride had been hurt and he sat in judgment over his brother and
in anger protested the father’s abundant generosity. Again, the father, in perfect
understanding, doesn’t rebuke the elder son, but reminds him of his love and
what generosity and compassion looks like. “You are here with me always, everything I have is yours. But now we
must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come back
to life again” True the elder son served the
Father, but he did not love the Father.
The older son’s self-righteous
obedience blinded him (no less than the younger son’s foolishness blinded him) to
the father’s gift of - “everything I have is yours."
Neither child gave their Father his
due; sincere gratitude, loving obedience and confident trust.
Of course, this is our story and we do not
know the ending. We know that one son “was dead and came back
to life” That son was made a new, but we do
not know how the other son fared. Perhaps, this is Jesus’ judgment on
foolishness vs self-righteousness.
We also know that we cannot let this
Good News become old hat. We cannot take
our Faith in the Risen Lord for granted.
We cannot take our baptism for granted. Yes, we are human beings and can wander
off down tempting but meaningless paths or we can harden into an empty,
self-serving self-righteousness. Both
cut us off from God. But, if we believe Jesus, if this
is our story, and if this is how God is, then we must come to our senses. We must get up and go back,
confident that - God not only loves us first, but
loves us always, and came into the world to save us from ourselves and to bring
us back into communion with him who loves us always.
