Gospel Reflection for Sunday March 27th, 4th Sunday of Lent

By Brian Maher OMI

The parable of the Prodigal Son is probably the best remembered story in the Gospels. Even those of no faith, who might never open the Bible, will probably know and appreciate the story. The reason for this is not too difficult to understand. We all love books and movies with a ‘happy-ever-after’, second chance theme and the parable of the Prodigal Son is a second chance story par excellence.

At a purely human level it combines drama with emotion, leaving us at the end with that tear in the eye, smiley, “awwwwwwww” feeling we get when the final credits role and we wish to stay seated for another minute so our wet eyes are less obvious.

However, for those of us who are Christians there is something a lot more powerful at play here. Jesus is not telling us a nice story to tug at our heart strings or leave us with a dreamy feel-good sensation. He is, in fact, saying to us what he always says: “He or she who has seen me, sees the Father.” He is pulling back the curtain between this world and the next, revealing to us the infinite love and forgiveness of our God.

All three characters in this parable are fully drawn for us, each of them with very real motivations and emotions. The father, who clearly represents God, is loving, forgiving, gentle and wise. The two brothers represent the strengths and weaknesses all of us carry within us. The younger brother, selfish, cruel, immoral, uncaring. The older brother, honest, loyal, strong, dependable but also angry, bitter, resentful, unforgiving.

There is so much in this story to reflect on. Almost every verse, every picture painted of the father or either brother opens for us new questions, new meditations on a God whose love is boundless and whose forgiveness is limitless. Perhaps the best way to enter into the marvels of this parable is to spend time, in prayer, reliving the unfolding drama through the eyes of each person, trying to understand, without judging, what each of them is feeling and thinking at each stopping point of the narrative. I won’t attempt to do this now because it would turn into an entire volume!

The Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

Strange as it might seem, I find it most difficult to meditate on this story through the eyes of the father. I can identify with many of the motivations and reactions of the brothers. They are wonderfully human in every respect. The father, on the other hand, has a love which is unshakable, a forgiveness which doesn’t even demand that the younger brother say sorry, a gentleness which never hardens, even for a moment, and a wisdom that understands the anger of the older brother and reaches out to it.

Remember that in first century Israel, what the younger brother did in demanding his inheritance was the same as wishing his father was dead. Imagine saying to a parent who loves you, “Just die, and let me have your money.” Then imagine having the callousness and cruelty to follow through on that.

Also remember that when he returns home it is not because he has had some kind of conversion, realising the hurt and pain he caused his father and determined to put it right. His motivation is the basest of all motivations – hunger! (“Even my father’s servants have more to eat that I have. So, let me return and say….”).  There is no hint that he is sorry for what he did. He doesn’t even return seeking forgiveness, just to be treated as a servant and fed! While we can empathise with his suffering, it is very difficult to see a lot of good in his motivations.

There is no doubt that the younger brother’s wickedness is presented as it is to contrast with the love of the father. Here is a man who has been hurt unimaginably (I wish you were dead!) and then deserted, left without even the security of his own wealth to carry into his old age. How does he respond? Each day he goes out to the boundary of his land and stands there; just that, he stands there, waiting for his son to come home. And each evening he returns home, sad and disappointed, only to return and stand again, and wait again, looking into the distance, the next day…and the next….and the next.

Here is a love which I envy with all my heart but cannot understand. It is quite simply, “too much”, “too good to be true”, ……yet this is what Jesus tells us God is like.

I challenge anyone to stand with the father at his gate, watching him gaze into the distance longingly, seeing nothing, day, after day, after day, and not be moved to tears as the immensity of a love like that sinks into your heart.

Just because something is ‘too good to be true’ does not necessarily make it untrue. Wouldn’t it be very arrogant to think that God can only think and act as we do? What is ‘too good to be true’ for us, can be, not only possible for God, but just part of who God is.

To think that Jesus can come to us in the Eucharist is ‘too good to be true’, but that does not make it untrue. Why can’t God do what God wants to do? The reality that God loves us like he does is also ‘too good to be true’ … but it is true!

The parable of the Prodigal Son is too good to be true. Nobody can love that much, forgive that much and get nothing back in return. Yet this is exactly what Jesus tells us: God does love us that much; God does forgive us, always and without question; God does stand and wait for us….day after day….until we are ready to return….and then he runs to us, takes us gently in his arms and simply say, “welcome home”.

Too good to be true? Yes! 

True? Yes!

Many thanks,

Brian.

If you have any comments, questions or thoughts on this scripture reflection you would like to share, I would be delighted to hear from you – please feel free to email me at b.maher@oblates.ie 

The prodigal son