Last Sunday Jesus portrayed God as the one who really cares about us and is willing to wait for us to repent and bear fruit. This Fourth Sunday of Lent, Saint Luke (15:1-3, 11-32) narrates another parable of Jesus powerfully depicting the love of the father unconditionally caring for his two sons in spite of their individual sinfulness.
The self-willed son
Criticized by the self-righteous Pharisees and scribes for consorting with sinners, Jesus graced them with a parable that clarifies how both the outcast sinners and the model religious figures need the merciful love of a father to liberate them from their own brokenness and miseries. The younger of the two sons in the parable really knows how to aggravate his relationship with almost everyone. He demands for his inheritance while his father is still alive, who for him can just as well be dead. He does not care to preserve what he has received but sells off everything for cash, alienating the rest of his family and clan. He leaves his own land in exchange for a far-away country, repudiating his own people and culture. He wastes every penny he has on loose women, giving up his traditional values and beliefs. No wonder in the inevitable emptiness that follows, he finds himself at the bottom of the dregs together with the pigs. He who claimed total freedom finds himself with nothing, not even what pigs eat.
The full reality of what he has done finally dawns on him. He decides to return to his father’s house, if only to survive. However, he still clings to his sinfulness in his script of confession by insisting that he be punished and downgraded to a hireling. But the son who would be a hired hand only does not have to crawl back to his father and reckon with angry punishments before any assistance. The father who has been waiting and watching for the return of his son runs to him and embraces him and kisses him, and welcomes him back as his son with robe, ring and sandals, calling for a full celebration. The father’s love for his son has not been changed by the sin of the son. Not punishment but mercy and joy is what the father has for the returning son, who was dead and is now alive again.
The self-righteous son
IF the prodigal son represents the outcasts and sinners, the older son represents the Pharisees and scribes. The father’s overflowing joy at the recovery of a lost son stands in stark contrast to the older son’s deep-seated rejection of his brother. The arrogant and resentful older son turns out to be no less miserable as the younger one. Although he has stayed and did not abandon his home, he has not stayed home as a son. He sees himself as a slave, obeying commands with a calculating mind waiting to be paid and feeling underpaid, and therefore with a smoldering resentment at the unfair treatment, which now surfaces at the indulgent treatment of his profligate brother.
The father, who is commanded to “Listen!” by his older son, does not agree with his son’s description of their relationship as that of a demanding father withholding love from a deserving son while giving it to an undeserving one. They have always been together, and the father has not held anything back from his son, giving him also his share of the inheritance.
Alálaong bagá, the father represents the unconditional love of God for us His sinful children. He does not compare His sons with one another, measuring one against the other, in order to apportion to each what is deserved. Instead, He wholeheartedly loves each one in the light of each one’s situation and need. He does not seek to condemn but to forgive so that everyone may repent and enjoy in full the life with Him, the celebration of a father’s love and mercy for His children.
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