4th Sunday of Lent
Readings: Joshua 5:9, 10-12
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
This Sunday's responsorial psalm (Ps 34) invites us to rejoice in the bounty of God's goodness: "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord." In the midst of our Lenten penance, we joyfully remember the goal of our life's journey: The heavenly banquet with God and His children. Today's Gospel parable of the father and his two sons issues a twofold invitation. If we have squandered our Father's gifts, we are called to return home to his loving embrace. If we resent the Father's forgiving love for others, we are invited to rejoice in the return of our prodigal brethren.
The reading from Joshua recalls Israel's first celebration of Passover in the promised land when our Jewish ancestors ate "the produce of the land in the form of unleavened cakes and parched grain," which replaced the manna that sustained them in their 40-year wilderness sojourn. By their repeated sins in doubting the Lord's sustaining power in the wilderness journey (see Exodus 32; Numbers 11-21), the Exodus generation forfeited the privilege of entering the promised land. After 40 years of wandering, a new generation has been born, and they have crossed over the Jordan and entered the land of Canaan under Joshua's leadership. Their joyous celebration of Passover reminds us Christians of the Easter celebration which is the goal of our Lenten journey.
In the 2 Corinthians reading, Paul is both celebrating the reconciliation between God and humanity through Christ's death and also appealing to a divided community to "be reconciled to God." Paul's language in this section is apocalyptic. Christ's death and resurrection have accomplished a "new creation" for those who are "in Christ" through faith. At the apocalypse, the judgment of sinners was expected to take place. But God, in Christ, has now reconciled the world to himself by "making him who did not know sin (Christ) to be sin, so that in him we might become the very holiness of God." Paul and the other apostles are "ambassadors for Christ," and so he implores the Corinthians in Christ's name: "be reconciled to God."
Luke's parable of the father and his two sons also both celebrates a Resurrection victory over sin and offers an appeal to reconciliation. Jesus speaks this parable, as well as the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin (see Lk 15:4-10), to defend his joyful table fellowship with "tax collectors and sinners," who have turned from sin, and also to appeal to the self-righteous Pharisees and scribes who are murmuring, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."
The prodigal younger son, like the tax collectors and sinners, once left his father's home for a far country and squandered his share of the estate "on dissolute living." But, after a famine has driven him to slave on a pig farm and reduced him to hunger, he comes to his senses and decides to return to his father's house. "How many hired hands at my father's place have more than enough to eat, while here I am starving." Although he only expects to be treated as a hired hand, his indulgent father greets him with "the finest robe ... a ring for his finger and shoes for his feet." He then throws the most extravagant of parties with "the fatted calf," dancing and music, because, as he says, "this son of mine was dead and has come back to life. He was lost and is found."
The elder son, like the Pharisees and scribes, has dutifully served his father and never disobeyed his orders. But now he is invited to rejoice in the return of his younger brother to life. His complaint to the father expresses the self-righteous resentment found in many of us over God's mercy to others:
For years now I have slaved for you. I never disobeyed one of your orders, yet you never gave me so much as a kid goat to celebrate with my friends. Then, when this son of yours returns after having gone through your property with loose women, you kill the fatted calf for him.
The parable ends with the father's assurance of his love for the elder son and a justification of the celebration for the younger brother:
My son, you are with me always, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice! This brother of yours was dead, and has come back to life. He was lost, and is found.
Jesus leaves the parable open-ended. We are not told if the elder son chose to join the festivities. We have to hear the parable's call and complete it for ourselves. Perhaps the greatest challenge Jesus offers us is the invitation to rejoice in God's forgiving love for others.
(This column originally appeared in The Providence Visitor)
