The
Parable in the Gospel text of today is popularly known as “The Prodigal Son.”
However, a more apt title is “The Prodigal Father.” This is because the son is
prodigal only with material things. It is the father who is the real prodigal
in the story. It is the father who is lavish. It is the father who is wasteful.
It is the father who is a spendthrift, but with his love. The prodigality of
the father’s love shines through the whole story.
Demanding
his share of the property while his father was still alive would mean that the
younger son regarded his father as dead. The younger son’s selfishness and
self-centeredness led him to concentrate only on his own wants. The needs of
the other did not matter. Despite this offensive and rude demand, the father
gives the younger son what he demands. The father will be selfless. He will
hold nothing back. For the father, the son’s wants are greater than his own
needs. The selfishness of the son reaches its depths when he spends all that he
receives from his father for his own pleasure and enjoyment.
This
is the selfishness shown by the people in the first reading of today when they
make “gods” of things. They are so caught up in their own desire for pleasure
and gratification that they will stoop down to making things ends in
themselves. They forget that the one end is God. However, like the father in
the Gospel text, God shows that, despite the people’s selfishness, God will be
selfless. Despite their abandoning God, God will not abandon them. Though by
right, and in justice, God ought to have let God’s wrath burn against the
people, God relented and, after listening to Moses, did not bring on them the
destruction that was intended. God’s love exceeds mercy and this love is shown
in giving people a chance to change, a chance to repent. The repentance that
the people are called to is shown by the younger son in action. When he is in
dire straits and at the lowest depth of his life, he comes to his senses. He
realizes that he can go back. He realizes that there is mercy. He realizes that
his father’s love will take him back. However, the reality of the father’s
welcome goes beyond the younger son’s expectations. He is not even allowed to
finish the act of contrition that he had prepared. He is not allowed to finish
speaking his words of remorse and regret. His father does not need words. His
father does not need to know how many sins his son has committed. His father
does not ask for an account of the money that he squandered, nor does he impute
guilt to his son. It is enough for the father that his son has come home. It is
enough that his son who had gone away has returned. It is enough that the son,
who was lost and dead, is now found and alive.
The
Apostle Paul experienced this mercy and love and he speaks about this in the
second reading of today. God did not count his sins against him. God did not
hold his wrong doings in front of his face. God forgave his blasphemy. God
showed him mercy. This mercy is intrinsic to God and is borne out by the name
that the Son of God bears: Jesus. It is the name which means God saves from
sin. It is a name which means that, no matter how far away we might go, no
matter how many graces we squander, no matter how many sins we commit, God, in
Jesus, will ever love and forgive.
If
this is so evident why do so many people find it difficult to believe that God
is good and loving, that God is forgiving and merciful, and that God’s mercy
always outweighs human sinfulness? The answer to this is found in the second
part of the Parable of the Gospel text and in the attitude of the elder son.
For him, like for many of us, the relationship with his father is one of quid
pro quo or barter exchange, rather than love. He is good only because he hopes
to receive reward. He does not address his father as “Father”, nor does he
refer to his brother as “brother”. He distances himself from both his father
and his brother and attaches himself to his own merit and fidelity. He argues
his case on the grounds of what he thinks he rightfully deserves. Even as he
does this, he points to the failings of the younger son.
The
elder son represents all of us who think we can make it on our own, all of us
who might be proud of the kind of lives we live. He represents all of us who
have an image of God as one who must reward us for the good that we do and a
God whom we dare not displease because we might be punished. However, even to
persons such as these, God continues to reach out in love. God continues to
plead with such persons to realize that their good actions must not stem from a
desire for reward or from a fear of punishment. Good actions must be the
consequence of having received God’s unconditional mercy and love. They must be
the result of having been loved. All persons must love and forgive
unconditionally because that is the way God loves and forgives them.
