First Sunday of Advent: A New Age - CUA Office of Public Affairs

Fourth Sunday of Lent: The Father's Love and Mercy

By The Rev. Francis T. Gignac, S.J.

March 25, 2001

As in any great work of literature or art, there is more to this Sunday's Gospel parable (Luke 15:1-3,11-32) than meets the eye. This beautiful parable is found only in the Gospel according to Luke. The author provides a context for it, picturing tax farmers and other sinners gathering around Jesus to hear him, while Pharisees and scribes murmur, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." What we have here is a description of Jesus; and to justify Jesus' behavior, his association with sinners, the author adds three parables of mercy: the lost sheep, the lost coin and the parable in today's Gospel. Often called the parable of the Prodigal Son, it is really a parable of the two brothers. Or, more precisely, it is a parable about a father's love and forgiveness. The story shows a God whose solicitude for all is so great that the loss of a single child can never be accepted. Here, God is portrayed as loving the sinner always, even before the sinner begins to repent.

Similar narratives are found in ancient Near Eastern, Greek and oriental literature; yet none of the parallels can measure up to or compare with the moving force of this story. According to the parable, the younger son requests his share of his father's property and squanders his inheritance in dissolute living and wanton extravagance. The sinner goes his unthinking way and is brought up short only when his world collapses around him; yet the loving father is constantly looking for his return. When he does return, the son can get through only the first part of the speech he has prepared; his father hastens to clothe him in fine garments and has a signet ring (an indication of rank) put on his finger. He is given shoes, for he is no barefoot servant, but a son of the family. The father finds his joy in restoring him to the dignity of a son. "This son of mine was lost, but has been found."

Not only is this a touching human parable about a father's forgiveness and mercy, but the refrain, "This son of mine was dead, and has come to life again," repeated at the end of each section of the parable, makes us think of Jesus' own death and resurrection. What we really have in this parable is an allegory of an early Christian community about the death and resurrection of Jesus.

But the parable is two-pronged, and the emphasis now shifts to the second point, the reaction of the elder son. In the polemic of the Gospel, the elder son represents the scribes and Pharisees of later Judaism. They are portrayed as jealous because sinners – and Gentiles – are now being welcomed by God into the kingdom once thought reserved for the people of Israel. This part of the parable can also reveal something of the darker side of ourselves. All Christians run the risk of becoming like the elder son who will not welcome the younger brother as their father does. So in a sense the parable is not finished. The conclusion depends on us.

The first reading is a passage from the Book of Joshua (5:9-12). It is the story of the first Passover celebrated in the land of Canaan. Although it was some six centuries after the Passover in Canaan, it is in origin a story intended to explain the meaning of the names of circumcision shrines at Gilgal. Only the circumcised could celebrate Passover. The passage seeks to justify and legitimate the invasion of Canaan and the first conquests there as religious events. It does so by picturing the people performing the circumcision rites as a grateful response to the providence of God that just gave them the Promised Land. Unfortunately, many peoples before and since, Christian and non-Christian, have justified wanton attacks and conquests in similar ways by appealing to everything from holy war themes to Manifest Destiny.

In the second reading (2 Cor 5:17-21), Paul expresses his opinion that the death of Jesus produced a whole new order. The natural mode of perception, which he characterizes as "fleshly," is now replaced by a mode of perception proper to the Spirit. Similarly, he describes the nature of Christian existence as a new creation, an expression used by contemporaneous rabbis to describe the effect of a proselyte's entrance into Judaism or of the remission of sins on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

What Paul means by this is that the redemptive activity of Jesus radically changes those who allow themselves to be affected by it. The old things, for Paul the old covenant, are no more.

Paul explains the meaning of God's action by using a variety of categories. He describes reconciliation as an act of justification, contrasting the new covenant in Christ with the old covenant that Paul thought was condemning. He goes on to describe his own role as a minister of reconciliation. Entrusted with the message of reconciliation, he is Christ's ambassador. He expresses God's purpose somewhat paradoxically in terms of sharing and an exchange of attributes: as Christ became our righteousness, so we become God's righteousness. But reconciliation can be lost! So Paul ends with a practical exhortation: those who have accepted the Gospel must ever allow it to exercise its effect upon them.

And this is the exhortation that we are all invited to take to heart by this liturgy. We who have been shown God's love and mercy as exemplified in the Gospel parable of the merciful father and have come to believe in Christ and in his saving death and resurrection, must allow ourselves to be transformed by him so that we may become other Christs in our daily lives.

The Rev. Francis T. Gignac, S.J., is a professor and chairperson of the Department of Biblical Studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

Any questions or comments? cu a-public-affairs@cua.edu

Revised: March 1, 2001