4th Sunday of Lent

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 2^nd 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.