24th Sunday OT, Year C
Fr. Albert
St. Peter Catholic Church, New Iberia
It’s hard; watching someone you love make the wrong decision and suffer for it in the way that we see in the parable of the prodigal son. But we all suffer this fate in some way. Children, friends, siblings – there is someone in your life whom you’ve seen walk right into a bad situation and there was nothing you could do about it. Maybe you thought that it could have been avoided if you were just more loving or more aggressive or more intelligent. Perhaps that’s true, but in some cases it is simply our fate to watch and to suffer like the father in the parable.
What was in his heart when he heard his son say “I wish you were dead so I could have more money.” Not directly, of course, but implied in his request for the inheritance, an inheritance that was supposed to come after the father’s death. What was in the father’s heart as he watched his son walk into the distance with all his possessions and ambitions? Do you think he knew what his son was chasing after? Do you think he knew what kind of pain and suffering it would probably bring the child he loved? What was in his father’s heart?
Did you notice the other two parables before this one? The shepherd chased after his sheep and woman looked diligently for her coin. Why did the father not act like these? Why does Jesus give us three stories with the same meaning? That’s actually a trick question; these three parables do not have the exact same meaning, even though they do have the same basic topic: sinners and forgiveness. You see, we all love to beat up on the Pharisees for their hard-heartedness and legalism – and to some extent we are right to – but we often let our critiques of the Pharisees forget that they weren’t wrong in every way.
“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” they say of Jesus. Enigmatically, Jesus doesn’t simply call them wrong, as he often does in other places. Rather he gives three different parables about the relationship between the righteous and sinners. He does this because there is more than one way to deal with a sinner. The Pharisees were wrong to say that we should never associate with sinners, but Jesus knows it would be just as wrong to always associate with sinners in every situation and context. Instead, he gives us three parables with three different kinds of sinners and three different kinds of responses.
The parable of the lost sheep is one of our favorites. The lost sheep is the sinner, the shepherd is Jesus, and he comes to save us from our sins and certain death. We like it because it shows that God understands our weakness and that we sometimes just get lost. Sheep are fairly stupid animals. They can curiously wander behind a bush then past a tree, and turn around to realize they’re all alone – there’s a video circulating on the internet depicting a shepherd pulling a sheep, by its hind legs, out of a small hole in the ground that it evidently wriggled its way into. Like sheep, we can often fall into sin through ignorance, carelessness, and weakness. We don’t really mean to leave the flock, but somehow or other we find ourselves separated. But Jesus comes to get us, sometimes literally in the figure of a family member, a friend, or a helpful priest.
The parable of the lost coin is a bit different. The coin didn’t lose itself; the woman did through her own carelessness. Some people leave the faith, not only because of their own sin, but because of the mess in the Church and among believers. The Lord knows that the human members of the Church can sure make a mess and that this mess causes us to lose people. Often, the return comes from the Church cleaning up: A well-placed apology, a careful effort to address gaps in ministry, or an encounter with the more redeeming qualities of the Church’s ministers.
This last parable, the prodigal son as we call it, invites us to a deeper reflection on the heart of the Father. All we see is the son leave, the son suffer, and the son return. The father lets him go and we don’t hear anything from him until his son returns. Why didn’t he chase after him like the shepherd and the sheep? Because this wasn’t simply getting lost. The son knew what he was doing – he was resolute and determined enough to bluntly ask for his inheritance with the stated intention of leaving forever. He took the time to gather it up, pack it away, and carry it off into the distance. If the father showed up in the middle of the son’s partying and urged him to come home, what would have happened? Indeed, obstinance in sin does happen and there is often little that we can do about it. Some sinners are determined to stay their course, despite the offer of God’s mercy.
The problem with the Pharisees is not that they are wrong about such a possibility, but that they are wrong in how they apply it. They, like the older brother, assume that everyone who has sinned seriously in the past is therefore obstinate in sin. They fail to realize that by “drawing near to Jesus to listen to him,” they are in fact beginning the process of repentance and that such repentance can actually be accepted by God. Indeed, in all three parables, the main point is that God delights in the return of his beloved people and is eager to forgive their sins.
I call attention to the differences because we face a particular temptation today that I think Christ foresaw: the temptation of false mercy. The Father did not chase after his son, but he did not do nothing. What was in the Father’s heart that he could not follow, but did not give up? The father may not have followed his son, but his heart did. It did so in the form of grief, in the form of prayer, and in the form of hopeful expectation. Notice that the father spots his son a long way off. Why was he looking into the distance and how did he recognize him so quickly? Because he was looking for him. He probably had a daily habit of scanning the horizon, letting his heart turn to his son, offering prayers and affirming his hope that some day, he would see his son again.
So I speak to all of you who have already thought of somebody as I’ve spoken. To all of you who know of family members or friends that have resolutely determined to go the wrong way – do not give up hope. You may be tempted to simply condone their actions. But, there are many sinful lifestyles that keep us at a distance, but they do not stop our love. We cannot cooperate with their sin or try to legitimize it, but we can pray for their return and never cease to treat them with love.
This tension hurts us of course and it’s tempting to either give up hope, like the elder brother, or cooperate with their sin. But it is this tension that helps us to recognize what is in the Father’s heart. It is a virtue to be able to grieve for sinners, to love them even though it hurts, all without condoning sin. This gives us an experiential glimpse into the father’s heart. It can be a saving remedy for us because we begin to see how our own sins can cause such pain in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Pray now to recognize that pain. Pray now for the grace to love until it hurts. Pray now for the grace to remember the Father’s gifts and to experience his mercy. Turn from your sins once again and go to the Father’s house in confession. Join me in the eager hope for the return of others and be ready to rejoice at their coming. For there are still many who are dead, but may yet live, who are lost, but may yet be found.