All the best stories, it seems to me, should leave us wondering “What happened next?” - and that should surely be true of Jesus’ great Story of the Prodigal Son in today’s Gospel (Luke 15:1-3,11-32) You can hear and see me giving this Homily on Youtube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLhMgnJhvhw
Sadly however, I fear that too many Christians down the ages haven’t really taken on board what the Story is actually telling us, let alone what might happen next. The Story is, of course, a challenge to the conventional way we humans think about things. We think that when people do something wrong, they have to say sorry first, before they can be forgiven. I’m sure that’s what those listening to Jesus were expecting. Yes, they were expecting a happy ending, especially as they heard the wretched state that the son had got himself into, and his determination to say sorry and “Be treated as one of the paid servants.” They were looking forward to a good description of the son flinging himself at the feet of his father (for Jesus was clearly a great story-teller). They liked the idea of the father standing there impassively while the son poured out his tears of sorrow – very dramatic! And then, and only then, would the son be given some kind of forgiveness, provided he was prepared to show he was really sorry by following the father’s instruction in the future!
Then suddenly, Jesus turns the story on its head. The father does what no father at that time and in that region would ever have done, he runs to greet his son. You can hear them thinking in astonishment “The father runs? Fathers never run!” But having got over that shock, they still expected the son to say sorry first. Yet instead, before the son could say sorry, the father “Clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly.” And then, only then, as they expected, they hear the son begin to say how sorry he is, only for Jesus to spring another shock on them, as the father interrupts the apology, asks nothing of the son, and instead calls for a celebration. Our problem is that we know the story too well …….. and forget to be shocked!
Well then, what does happen next? We know how indignant the elder son is, but we’ve no idea whether he actually is persuaded to go in and join in the celebration. The hint is that he doesn’t, that he remains outside refusing to accept this new way of looking at things. What then does the father do? Well, there’s not much he can do, because, as we heard at the beginning of the story, he has already given away all he owns to the two sons. For those who know their Shakespeare, he is like King Lear. It is, in fact, a Parable like so many of the Parables of Jesus, which exists to tell us what God is like. God giving away all his power and strength. God offering himself to us in and through Jesus. And so we know what happens next.
The tragedy is, that down through the ages Christians have so often failed to accept the full implication of this story, have failed to accept this new way of looking at the world. Instead, we have reverted to the common idea, that first people have to say sorry, and show they’re sorry, and then and only then can forgiveness be granted. But please be careful here, I’m not saying, and neither is Jesus, that people shouldn’t say sorry. The son is sorry, really sorry, but God’s love is greater than our sorrow. It’s the same story as Zacchaeus up the tree. Jesus doesn’t ask him to come down and change his life. He says he is coming to his house to eat with him; and it’s that offer that transforms Zacchaeus.
Notice that St Paul, as in our 2nd Reading (2 Cor 5:17-21) is having the same problem with the Christians in Corinth, a problem that occurs throughout the Church’s history. They’re beginning to revert to their old way of thinking, encouraged by their admiration for Jewish morality based on the Ten Commandments. St Paul of course accepts that the Old Law was good; but wants them to move on to something radically different. So, a bit before the passage we have as our Reading, he says: “For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory. And if what was transitory came with glory, how much greater is the glory of that which lasts!” (3:10-11) And thus we get to what we heard today “For anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old creation has gone, and now the new one is here.”
The old creation of which we are a part, is all about an equal amount of give and take. If you give me a birthday present, I must give one back. If you get angry with me, I’ve the right to be angry back. If you hurt me or upset me, I must get proper recompense from you, a proper apology. And if the punishment doesn’t fit the crime, then I have the right to demand that it does. The new creation, that we are drawn into through Jesus, asks us to look at things in a different way. So Jesus says for example “If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them.” (Luke 6:29) And, as we know, Jesus then puts this into action when they arrest him and torture him in various ways. Of course, it is an ideal that we cannot always live up to, especially if one country invades another one, but nonetheless in our personal relationships it is something to aim for; but more it’s an attitude to life that we should try to share with others.
As St Paul tells us “We are ambassadors for Christ”, and the job of an ambassador is to convey his or her master’s message, and what is that message? It is that, like the father in our Parable, God does not “hold men’s faults against them” ; because if he did, we would all be destined for annihilation. What have we Christians done that so many people think of God as most concerned with morality, when the Christian message is crystal clear “God reconciled us to himself through Christ”. In other words, when we are a long way off, as we so often are, God sees us and loves us and runs toward us, and having enfolded us in his arms, he then gives us the wonderful work, the wonderful privilege “Of handing on this reconciliation”. The great prayer of St Ignatius sums it up : Teach us, good Lord……….. to give and not to count the cost; to fight and not to heed the wounds; to toil and not to seek for rest; to labour and not to ask for any reward, save that of knowing that we do your will.
May we do so.
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