GOD NEVER IMPOSES HIMSELF ON US

The prodigal son by Rembrandt

IV SUNDAY OF LENT: Lk 15:1-3, 11-32

The most beautiful parable is the so called parable of the prodigal son, which is in fact the parable of a father with two sons.

Jesus told this parable to the Pharisees and Scribes who “were grumbling and saying, This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Lk 15:2). The parable, besides being a justification of Jesus’ attitude, it is a denunciation of the Pharisees attitude of rejection, motivated by their self-righteousness, their pride and their contempt and disdain for the common people who were no more than sinners. 

In the parable, Jesus expresses so deeply and so sensibly God's love and mercy, that it does not need to be justified. His love is complete and total, given graciously and freely. He does not impose it on his own children. And, following the parable, it seems that he does not even demand it from us. It is pure love, without strings attached, just waiting to be recognised and accepted. 

In the parable, both sons were unable to recognise the father’s love. In fact, they rejected it. Both of them thought only of themselves. In their hearts, there was no place for anybody else. Their reasons and their attitudes towards life and towards the father were very different, but in the end they had this in common: their egotism and selfishness. 

The elder son was well behaved and hard working.  He was obedient to the point of subservience. However,  he had his own secrets and his own plans for his future life.  He was a lonely man, without friends. He had not  time for that. He would accuse his father of mismanagement  and discrimination against him, and of treating him like a slave, not allowing him to have even a little time with his friends.  It was not true. “Everything is yours!” the father told him. He was stingy, and he was thinking only of how much he could accumulate for the future. It is not surprise that in the end he rejected both his brother and his father. 

The elder son is the picture of the Pharisees, so called because they isolated themselves and separated themselves from the big crowd which they considered a bunch of sinners.

In a way, it is better to be like the young son. He wanted to have his own life, away from the father. He had the audacity to ask for what did not belong to him. He wanted his part of the inheritance, as if his father was dead already. He was tired of seeing the inquisitive eyes of the father and of being told what to do. He was a grown up, and time had come to be independent and to make his own rules. So he went, living behind a father in tears. There was no time to look back... he would never come back - so he though in his heart.

The young son had to learn the hard way, by a painful experience, that his eagerness to find joy and discover his own path to happiness only would lead to suffering. Alone, all by himself, he made a mess of his life, totally devoid of meaning, putting him on the way to self-destruction. Luckily he kept the ability to remember, to think and to question himself. He allowed himself to be touched by the pain and the suffering that he was experiencing, and he could see the non-sense of his futile attempt. He was ready to go back, because he remember his father’s kindness and compassion for the workers. He would be happy to become a simple worker that can find food on the table and a roof over the head.

As he approached home, a big surprise waited for him. His father’s love was beyond any expectation and any possible human measure. That is God’s love: a love that liberates and gives us dignity. He does not want slaves in his house. We are his children.

“For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, Abba! Father! 16 it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” (Ro 8:15-16)