4th Sunday of Lent, Year C (2004)
17/03/07 22:08
Homily – Lent 4-C (March 21, 2004)
Today, we are going to talk about parables. In the New Testament, Jesus was always telling parables – short, pithy stories that help us to see a truth from a new perspective, usually with a surprising and unexpected twist or turn.
On your handout today, it says, “Seeing Through God’s Eyes.” Jesus told parables to help us see reality from God’s vantage point and perspective. Today, we are going to look at three ways that parables help us to see differently – how they help us to see God in new ways; how they help us to see ourselves in new ways; and how they help us to see others in new ways.
Specifically, we are going to look at one of the most famous of all the parables of Jesus – the parable of the prodigal son. How many of us have heard this parable before? Now that can be both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that we are familiar with the story. But the curse is that we can become too familiar with the story, to the point that we dismiss it – we develop an “I’ve heard that, seen that,” attitude and think that we no need to really listen closely to the story again – and it just goes in one ear and out the other. So today, we’re going to try to look at the story from a fresh perspective.
Let’s start at the beginning of the story. We usually skip too quickly over this part, but it provides the context, the background that we need. It’s on your handout. Let’s read it together: “The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So TO THEM he addressed this parable…” (Luke 15:1-3)
Notice: The parable is addressed primarily to the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, and because they were pointing fingers in judgment at Jesus for hanging out with tax collectors and sinners. These Pharisees and religious leaders thought they were better than other people, holier and closer to God, and so that sat in judgment and with an attitude of smug self-righteousness. So Jesus wants to help them see with new eyes – to help them see with the eyes of God, not with the eyes of their own smug spiritual blindness and arrogance.
A heard a funny story last week of a priest, a rabbi and a Protestant minister who went fishing together on their day off. As they sat in the boat, wiling away the time, the Catholic priest confessed that he sometimes liked to secretly sip a bit of the communion wine. And the Jewish rabbi confided that he sometimes felt tempted to take a little bit of the synagogue collection for himself. But the Protestant minister remained quiet, so the other two cajoled him to share a bit about his weakness and sin. “Well,” he began, “this is really difficult for me to share with you or with anyone, but I’m an incurable gossip – and I can’t wait to get back to town to tell everyone about the two of you!” The point of this joke is that none of us is perfect – not priests, nor rabbis or Protestant ministers, nor the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. All of us have our blemishes and defects. But the parable tells us that God still loves us, in spite of our blemishes and defects.
Let’s look at the parable itself. Most of us are quite familiar with the basic contours of the story – how a father’s younger son asks for the inheritance, then squanders it and comes back begging for forgiveness and just to be treated as one of his father’s hired hands; how the father, instead, welcomes his son back and kills the fatted calf and throws a huge banquet; how the older son, who has been faithful and obedient through all the years, learns of the party and throws a temper tantrum – “dad, how can you throw a party for this worthless, no good brother of mine, when you never so much as offered to throw any kind of party for me and my friends?”
Imagine the setting. It would be almost like a teenager today coming to his Father and saying, “I’m 15; I’m old enough to be out on my own; empty the bank account and give me my share of the family savings, sell the car and give me my share of the proceeds.” Most of us would say, “You’re crazy! You haven’t even finished high school. You don’t have a job. You can’t even drive. You barely know how to shave. You’re not mature enough yet to be out on your own!” But not this father in this parable – he gives the son all the money and the keys to the car and lets him go and waste it all!
That’s why some people say this parable is really misnamed. Instead of calling it the parable of the prodigal son, maybe we should entitle it, “The Parable of the Foolish Father.”
Let me illustrate with a skit. I’ve invited two of our kids to come forward – two brothers, one older and one younger. Now let’s ask this younger son: Do you have a good amount of toys at home? Suppose you lost your temper one day. Do you ever get mad and lose your temper? Suppose you are so furious and so angry and mad that in a fit of rage, you smash and destroy all your toys. Now you have to face your dad. That’s not easy, is it? What is he going to say and do? I remember when I was a little kid, I would always wrestle and play with my brothers, and once, I threw my brother right through the living room wall. We begged our mom to call the repairman that moment so that it could be fixed before my dad got home from work – but of course, that was impossible! Boy, was my dad angry at us! So imagine – you’ve smashed all your toys in anger, and your dad comes home. But he turns to the older brother and says, “Son, your younger brother got mad and smashed all his toys, so I want you to give him all your toys as a way to replace them.” How would you feel? That’s not fair! That’s not right! He doesn’t deserve my toys. He’s the one who smashed them, not me!
That example helps us understand the craziness of this parable to Jesus’ first-century listeners. The father was crazy to throw a party for this wayward and no-good son!
Or maybe we should call this the “Parable of the Two Bad Children” – because both sons are really disobedient and rebellious against their father, in their own distinct ways. One is openly rebellious, but the other is smug and self-righteous.
Or maybe we should call this the “Parable of Loving the Unlovable,” because the Father loved his two children, even when they acted in ways that were unlovable. Do you know that there may be people in the world or even in our orbit of influence who seem unlovable. Maybe they’ve committed a horrendous crime. Yet God still loves them – and loves us – no matter what.
Maybe we should call this the parable of the lost and found, because that’s really what the story is about. Anyone here ever lost anything? It can be a really horrible feeling. Maybe you lost your keys, or your wedding ring, or $20. Or you lost your cat or dog. Or you lost one of your children at the store. Or maybe you yourself got lost as a child when you wandered away from your parents. Many years ago, when I was still living in Indiana, I lost my car. I went to the Mall, and when I came out, the car was gone. Now over the years, I’ve lost my car in a parking lot for a short time, maybe 3 or 4 or 5 minutes. That causes a small panic, but nothing too severe. This time, however, I spend 45 minutes looking for my car, to no avail. Finally, I called the mall security to report that my car had been stolen. Once again, we drove around the parking lot, looking for the missing car Do you know what happened? I had gotten to the Mall at about 5 p.m., right before sunset. But I had left the Mall at about 7 p.m., after it had turned dark. In the night, the florescent street lamps in the mall parking lot actually caused my car to seem like it had changed colors!
Imagine a parent who loves their child, but that child continues to make wrong choices and to mess up his or her life. The parents do everything they can in an attempt to rescue their child, but to no avail. Eventually, the child ends up in all kinds of trouble – in jail, or dead in a car accident – and the grief-stricken parent cries and cries, but can do nothing. That’s sort of how this father is in our parable – his younger son is bent on destruction, and there’s not much the father can do, except to watch and pray and trust that somehow, it will all turn out for the best in the end.
So how does this parable help us to see through God’s eyes?
First, it helps us to see God in a new way. We see God in the father in this parable – a father who loves unconditionally, with no strings attached, who is always at the ready to forgive, who weeps when we go astray but rejoices when we are found, who throws a party for us – a banquet – and kills the fatted calf on our behalf. This is a God whose love for us is infinite and without end. And notice how this image of God in the parable is so different from the God that many of us grew up with – the God who was always a cosmic kill-joy and wanted to make our life hard or devoid of joy; or a God who is waiting to pounce on us with wrath and punishment at every small mistake that we make; or a God who is always watching us and keeping score of how we are doing, or a God who is far away and unconcerned about us, a God in the distance who really doesn’t get to close to us humans on a regular basis. This parable helps us see God in a completely new way.
The parable also helps us to see ourselves. We’re not perfect. Sometimes we are rebellious and we reject or run away from God, like the younger son. Sometimes – maybe more often than we would like to admit -- we are pompous, self-righteous, almost haughty and arrogant like the older son – we follow the rules, we do what is expected, we pat ourselves on the back and convince ourselves that we are not sinners, we don’t need God because we already are following God. But most of all, in this parable, we are loved and forgiven, because the father loves and forgives both his children. “All that I have is yours!” he tells us.
I have with me today a crisp, clean, new $20 bill. Would anyone here like it? Now let me crumple it up a bit. Now that it is not so pretty, is there anyone that would still like this $20 bill? Now let me really work a number on this $20 bill – I’m going to throw it on the ground, stomp on it, scrunch it into the ground. It’s really mangled and ugly now. Does anyone still want this $20 bill?
Now I must confess, I am not going to give anyone this $20 bill. (I need it for the next Mass.) But we are like this $20 bill in God’s sight. Sometimes we’re mangled and weighed down by imperfection and sin. We’re not always clean like a crisp, new $20 bill. But in God’s eyes, we still have value, and it doesn’t matter how far we’ve strayed from God or messed up our lives. We have a God who always welcomes us back, and who always gives us new chances and opportunities.
Listen to this song – a contemporary Christian song by the Newsboys, entitled “You Are My King (Amazing Love).”
I’m forgiven because you were forsaken. I’m accepted, you were condemned.
I’m alive and well, your Spirit is within me, because you died and rose again.
Amazing love, how can it be
That you, my King, should die for me?
Amazing love, I know it’s true,
It’s my joy to honor you,
In all I do, to honor you.
You are my King, Jesus, you are my king. You are my king.
Now to the last question on your sheet: How does this parable help us to see others with the eyes of God, to see others in a new way? Would you all point a finger at someone near you…. That’s what the Pharisees were doing, judging and pointing fingers at Jesus and others. But notice: If you have one finger pointing at someone else, how many are pointing back at you?
God does not want us to judge others. He wants us to love one another, to forgive one another. On your sheet, it asks, “Are you lovable toward others?” That’s where the Pharisees failed, and where Jesus tried to give them new insight, new vision. Our second reading from today, from Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, puts it this way – and let’s read this verse together: “Whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” – 1 Corinthians 5:17 Do you believe – really believe, and the very deepest core of your being – that God has made you lovable, that God has left his indelible imprint upon you, that God has transformed you into a new creation?
And if we believe that, then we also start to see others in a new light – as brothers and sisters, as children of the loving Creator – and we become loving toward others. Paul says that we become “ambassadors for Christ, as if God were appealing through us.”
Parables help us to see through God’s eyes – to see God, ourselves and others with ever greater clarity. And when we truly start to see through God’s eyes, nothing else in our lives can ever again be the same.