Feasting is a biblical image for the joyous communion of the just with God in all eternity. It is the love of a father in the gospel that calls for a feast to cap the welcome for and reconciliation with a son who has returned home (Luke 15:1-32).
The Father’s love
IF to be His disciples, we are to prefer nothing to Jesus, now it is total love for us from Jesus that is depicted as He “welcomes sinners and eats with them.” This was something the Pharisees and scribes found scandalous because for them eating must be exclusive and only open to those judged worthy; one does not eat with sinners, if one is faithful to God who is evidently not happy with violators of His commandments. They thought they knew God. Jesus said He alone knows His Father, and He set out to reveal the true image of the heavenly Father as the one who loves sinners and rejoices at their return to Him. Who will be saved and admitted to God’s banquet? All those God calls and loves, also sinners.
If, according to his critics, Jesus was shocking and foolish in His habit of eating with sinners, it is because God is shocking and prodigal, humanly speaking, in His mercy and compassion toward us creatures. As foolish as the shepherd who leaves behind 99 sheep to go after the one lost until he finds it. As foolish as the housewife who lights a lamp and turns her house upside down in search for a lost coin. It is all as shocking as a father who welcomes back a wastrel of a son who disgraced the family.
A beloved sinner
The trilogy of parables Saint Luke lined up for us underlines what the Pharisees and scribes would have thought to be not worth searching for: a lost sheep, a lost penny and a prodigal son. You do not go to look for a stray when you have 99 sheep anyway; you do not need to make a fuss about a paltry coin when you have nine more; you do not bother about a disgraceful son when you have an upright one at home. The first two parables about the lost sheep and the lost coin prepare us for the major parable about the lost son, making more poignant the message of God’s merciful love for us. Is any of us considered by God as utterly worthless and totally lost?
The younger son of the father with two sons demanded his one third of his father’s property, converted it to cash, and squandered it in a distant land. Clearly it was a gentile territory that he moved into and where he lived it up, that is why in destitution he found employment as a swineherd, something unclean hence not available among Jews (Leviticus 11:7). He abandoned his family, and turned his back on the religious heritage of his people. But he came to his senses and repented of what he had done. As he was fully aware of the enormity of his sins, he was somehow conscious of his father’s care. And in turn, the father had been hoping and waiting for the return of his son. Needing no word of reproach, the father ordered a feast in celebration of the homecoming. Calling for a robe, a ring and shoes, the father indicated that he was accepting him back not as a servant, what the son thought as the most he could expect, but as his son, what the father’s love alone could dictate.
Alálaong bagá, the father’s declaration (“This son of mine was dead and has come back to life”) and the feast he wanted sum up his joy and the triumph of his merciful love. The older son thought justice is served by punishing and repudiating his shameless brother; he readily pointed out his own righteousness, for which he expected due recognition, much like the Pharisees. Actually, this older son is also lost, though he does not know it. By asking his older son to rejoice at his brother’s return, the father is challenging him to look at his lost brother with compassion and at himself with humility. In such new perspectives the older son will discover what his father assured him of: “My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours.” The father’s love for his sons is unconditional; no sinful sons need to be irretrievably lost.
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