Fourth Sunday of Lent: The Prodigal Son – Impossible Mercy
Franciscan Reflections From The Hermitage
The Prodigal Son – Impossible Mercy – Fourth (Laetare) Sunday of Lent Year C – Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
This fellow here, this supposedly holy man and Rabbi, this Jesus welcomes sinners, he eats with them, at one table sharing food. The Pharisees are horrified, disgusted, and repelled. Rabbinic regulations forbade eating with ‘sinners’. Judged and condemned, these ‘sinners’ did not adhere to the Law of Moses or the additional Pharisaic rules and regulations. Sinners lived immoral lifestyles, tax collectors and their like. Eating with sinners defiled you, eating from the same plate as someone suffering contagion. Righteousness came through ritual purity and separation from sinners.
The Pharisees are horrified and disgusted by the actions of Jesus. But the Pharisees were hypocrites, in love with dress codes, pious exterior devotions, traditions, and beautiful ceremonies, but with hearts devoid of any compassion or kindness. John the Baptist pointed out their hypocrisy on the banks of the Jordan River. In truth, Pharisees found it impossible to fulfil the requirements of the law or to bridge the gap between justice and Mercy; so do we!
Jesus’ reply to the Pharisees is by way of the parable of the prodigal son. This is a story of God’s grace and Mercy in the face of injustice, corruption, and the trampling of tradition. There are three characters in this story, the ungrateful younger child who cannot wait to go it alone, the dutiful yet sneering and resentful elder brother, and the father who splits up the family estate, who forgives even when not asked, forgives without contrition and returns the estate and dignity to the undeserved younger son.
The prodigal son represents all of us. For we are all are in need of God’s mercy and redemption. At another level it represents each one of us who have received a great inheritance, graces, and gifts, but have wasted them on things that we thought would make us happy, would make us famous and popular. But the emptiness remained!
At the end of the parable the father Claims “we had to celebrate and rejoice. This brother of yours was dead and has come back to life”. These are the same words used to describe the resurrection of Jesus. The one who died and has come back to life. Jesus who laid his life, death and resurrection has won for us forgiveness, a new heritage as heirs and a place at the banquet, at the celebration. This is God’s Mercy at work and has nothing to do with justice in our own righteousness, purity and ritual observances.
There are indeed many who find God’s Mercy difficult to accept. The opposition between Mercy and justice seems to tear apart the demands of justice with the impossible largesse of Mercy. With the exclusion of compassion and Mercy, the Pharisees placed a heavy burden of law upon the shoulders of the people. The Pharisees were self-righteous hypocrites and Jesus constantly points out their lack of compassion and Mercy.
Through the many centuries, we as church, have slowly but inexorably forgotten the admonitions of Jesus and leaned more and more upon Law and the demands of justice as we come to interpret these in our doctrines and dogmas, just as the Pharisees did. Pope Francis continually reminds us of the weakness of our Mercy muscles. Many today are also horrified and disgusted by the Pope’s movement towards compassion and Mercy, just as the Pharisees were in their own time.
As Jesus did, we are called, as disciples, to call out all injustice and hypocrisy in an Imperial, hierarchical and paternalistic system that places heavy burdens of the law upon the people. Like the Pharisees before them, these are the people who demand adherence to a moral code and all those rules and regulations that they deem righteous. But the great opportunity has arisen in the life of our church as we now must acknowledge that the Emperor wears no clothes.
The priests today, like the Pharisees of their time are granted exemption from strict adherence to these moral codes, rules and regulations. God’s grace and Mercy act beyond the limitations and indiscretions of the priests’ actions. There is nothing that may inhibit the priest to celebrate our most holy ceremony of the Mass. The Mass is always valid outside of the priests’ worthiness.
But this same largesse is not passed on to our brothers and sisters, those we consider immoral sinners, those we exclude from God’s Mercy at the table of the Lord. But let us not account our priests alone for this hypocrisy, we too, as church, vilify and exclude those that we judge immoral.
In the light of our times and our life in the church, this is a good opportunity for an examination of conscience. Do we perhaps in the depths of our heart also consider ourselves justified, believing that we are in credit with God. Perhaps we have come to believe that those who do not pay for the entrance to paradise must be thrown out.
What is our attitude towards the sinners and the outcasts of our day, the unmarried mother, the divorced, the homeless, homosexuals, foreigners, those with AIDS; let us test our responses to that of the creator of us all who welcomes back sinners, even when they do not ask.
Each one of us needs to take a very good look at our responses to this examination of conscience. Jesus has warned us that this same standard with which we judge, will be the standard by which we ourselves are judged. Lord if you should market our iniquity, who would survive.
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