The beautiful thing about our gospel reading today, the prodigal son, is that it is such a human story. Many human emotions and desires we know so well are explored and explained.
The so-called prodigal son wants to leave home, to go his own way, and find independence from the family. Where the prodigal son goes wrong is that he uses his newfound independence to reject the values which his parents spent so much effort trying to help him acquire. Perhaps he felt life at home was unnecessarily restrictive, he wanted freedom and the ability to make his own choices.
This desire to leave home and to be on one's own is absolutely normal, necessary, and good. But unfortunately it is often motivated by naive assumptions and short-term thinking. Frequently during the teenage years children feel that the parents no longer love them and that they are being unnecessarily restrictive. Often young people don't recognize that changes are actually going on within themselves and it may not be their parents who are acting any differently.
'You're cramping my style,' or “quit trying to run my life” might be phrases we have heard on the lips of our children. But, of course, something like it came out of our mouth long before it came from theirs. It is part of the human condition that we feel the need to make our own mistakes. Frequently this is the only way we can learn.
The task of the parent is to give the child such a good foundation in life and Christian values so that any mistake the child might make enables them to learn without it becoming such a damaging mistake that they ruin their lives in the process. Easy for me to say, but not so easy to do.
Back to our parable. It had all gone very wrong for the prodigal son. It seemed like a smart move to take his inheritance and move on with his own life. Never mind that he still had a responsibility to work the land his father had given him and support his father. Never mind that the land was a sacred portion of the family's heritage, not to be sold; the son had his own life and desires; so he sold it and moved on to what he hoped were greener pastures. He had a wild time, and made a lot of friends, all of whom forgot who he was when the money ran out. He found himself in the worst situation of his life. He knew his father wouldn't let him starve, and he had to admit that he was happier before he left his father, even with the responsibilities and expectations. So he took the difficult step of turning back home. And his homecoming was more than he could ever have imagined.
Each of us has moments in life where we make mistakes and become the prodigal son. We call these sins and it’s usually because we try to convince ourselves that something, which we know is wrong, is, in this case, right. If we have enough courage to admit it, we soon realize that we are no longer happy. We can't be at war with God and at peace with ourselves. We can try, but it won't work. And when we are not at peace with ourselves, we are overwhelmed with what we perceive is the darkness of others. This is simple transference, transference of our feelings about ourselves onto others. We are masters of transference. As a result we have a difficult time seeing beauty, truth and goodness in the world. But when we can muster up the courage to say to God, "Father, I'm sorry," and realize that God responds, "You are forgiven,” we become happy with ourselves and with our world. We still recognize sin in the world, but this negativity takes a back seat to our sense of the overwhelming goodness of God’s creation. As a priest who has the privilege of hearing confessions, I get to see the moment of transformation, when someone experiences God’s forgiveness and is filled with hope, not only for themselves but for others, for the world.
The Forgiving Father runs out to meet his son. He doesn’t wait for the Prodigal to finish his little speech about how unworthy he is or why he should only be considered a slave. The Father is overwhelmed with joy. The son also felt the joy of being forgiven and restored to a loving relationship with the Father.
The elder son seems to have cause to be upset. He did the right thing throughout his life. He worked his portion of the inheritance, his two thirds of the property, for his father. He suffered through his brother's insulting of the father. There is nothing that gets us angrier than when someone we love is offended. But he let this anger control him.
A banquet is thrown, but the elder son refused to enter. The Father who was offended had forgiven the Prodigal but the elder son refused to forgive. In scripture a banquet is a way of expressing the intimate sharing of God's life. The Elder Son separated himself from the intimacy of his Father's love because he refused to forgive his brother. We separate ourselves from the intimacy of God's love when we refuse to forgive others who have sinned against us or those we love.
We all have battle stories. We have all had people who have consciously and callously hurt us. I've been offended and so have you. But if we don't forgive those who have hurt us, we will be keeping ourselves out of the banquet of God's intimacy. "Father, you don’t know what he or she did or said. I am taking my anger to the grave.” Who does that really hurt? If we want to receive God's forgiveness, we have to give God's forgiveness. If we don't forgive we will end up standing outside the banquet griping and grousing, separated from God's love. At the conclusion of the parable, only the Elder Son is absent from the banquet. And he is absent by his own choice, he has ostracized himself.
"This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” That’s right. He welcomes us and eats with us. He shows us a better way to live, a way to live free from sin. The Parable of the Prodigal Son, Forgiving Father and Elder Brother is a brilliant depiction of our human condition, our foibles, and the unlimited compassion that God offers us if we are willing to turn from sin and hatred. May our parish family be defined by this forgiveness and enjoy the freedom and peace that it brings!
