Fourth Sunday in Lent

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

This weekend, a friend introduced his youngest daughter to the 1987 movie “The Princess Bride.” I don’t remember when I first saw the film, but one of the memorable lines is delivered by the character Inigo Montoya after Vizzini exclaims, “Inconceivable” one too many times. Montoya tells the other man, “You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

The quote came to mind when I read today’s gospel, because many Bible translations name this passage “The Prodigal Son.” But I confess, “prodigal” doesn’t mean what I thought it meant. I don’t remember the first time I heard this story, but I know I always heard the emphasis placed on the return of the wayward son and the way that he “comes to himself” or returns to his senses and then practices his apology as he makes his way back to his father’s house. The problem when we read this story that way, as Candler Divinity School professor Tom Long wrote, “The prodigal son becomes the “comeback player of the year.”[i]

But he isn’t called the prodigal son because he comes back.

“Prodigal” means “wasteful, extravagant, reckless, or excessive.” The editors who decided what to title the different bible stories call him the prodigal son because he wastes his inheritance.

I believe the true prodigal in this story is the father. After all he is the one who, in defiance of all cultural norms, gives the younger son his share of the inheritance when he asks for it. He is the one who doesn’t hesitate to welcome the son back when he returns. In fact, not only does the father reconcile with him but he is the one who tells the servants to kill the fatted calf, encouraging the whole household to celebrate his return. He loves excessively. The father delivers the same grace we receive from God, wholly unmerited or unearned, given joyfully and without reservation.
And not only to the younger son. When the older brother confronts his father, the father says, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” (v. 31) A rule follower who demonstrated loyalty and responsibility, the older son hasn’t experienced any joy from remaining in relationship with his father. He has accumulated only resentment that boils over when he witnesses the father’s love for the younger son. We hear how his resentment has warped his view of the world when he complains to the father about “this son of yours.” Although the two are brothers their common bond has been eaten away by resentment.

Franciscan teacher Father Richard Rohr writes in Breathing Under Water,

“The death of any relationship with anyone is to have a sense of entitlement. Any notion that “I deserve,” “I am owed,” “I have a right to,” or “I am higher than you” absolutely undermines any notion of faith, hope or love…”

It is what Rohr calls a “soul-destructive” attitude.[ii]

The father pleads with the older son to join the party being thrown for “this brother of yours” but Luke never tells us how the story ends. Is the family restored? Or does the older son continue to engage in soul-destructive behavior? And how does the younger son respond to the grace he has received?

Those questions are left to holy imagination. Our hearing of the biblical story always is affected by our own life experiences, so the ending we might picture could be influenced by whether we were younger siblings or older, our relationships with fathers and father-figures, and our own experiences of forgiveness.

The good news of this gospel is that, regardless of where we locate ourselves in the story,
each one of us is loved extravagantly and recklessly by God —
even when we feel entitled to our place in God’s family;
even when we squander God’s generosity;
even when we abandon God in good times, only to return when we are desperate and need help.

Each one of us is loved extravagantly and recklessly by God — even when we do and say all the right things but keep our hearts closed to joy and the other fruits of God’s Spirit in our lives;
even when we let resentment and evil harden our hearts to our brothers and sisters in Christ;
even when we get frustrated or insulted at the foolishness of our prodigal God’s grace.

We are all loved, and God is waiting to welcome us home as God’s children. In a few minutes we’ll share the peace of Christ where, like the father embracing his son, we are reconciled to God and with one another, and then, at this Table, in Holy Communion, we will celebrate a foretaste of the feast to come, enjoying the promise of God’s forgiveness for our sin and the ways God’s mercy is new every day.

Let us pray…
Merciful God,
We give you thanks for the redemptive love that you give us through your son Jesus;
Forgiven and fed send us out in the world as ambassadors of your reconciling grace, that everyone would know your love.
Amen.

[i] Tom Long. “Surprise Party” in Living by the Word, The Christian Century, 2001.
[ii] Richard Rohr. Breathing Under Water. 61-62.