Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent– 30 March 2025

THE PRODIGAL SON AND GOD’S MERCY

Charles Dickens, the great English novelist, called the parable of the prodigal son “the greatest short story in the world.” This iconic story is found in the fifteenth chapter of St Luke’s Gospel and significantly, this chapter contains three parables, each one detailing the mercy and forgiveness of God and how he seeks out sinners to draw them back to him. This chapter has been called “the gospel of the gospels” because it is a summary of the entire gospel, and it contains the very core of the message that Jesus came to preach.

This story of the prodigal son is one of the most moving portrayals of God's loving compassion for his people. It is a real family story about breakups and reconciliation, about love that covers all sorts of failings and about love to the end. It is about a father who never stopped loving and never gave up on his son.

Look at a few things. By asking for his inheritance up front, the son was effectively saying, “I wish you were dead.” Imagine the hurt and shame he brought on his father and the family! And yet still the old father waited for years, hoping that his son would return. And look at what happened when younger son came home: mercy took over.

Almost every detail of the story emphasises the immense reckless love God has for us: the way the father was ready to give his son a share of his property though he did not deserve it; the way he looked every day for his son; the way the father ran to meet him, which in those days would have been preposterous – an older man running to a younger man; how he interrupted his son’s well-rehearsed speech; the manner in which he dressed his son with the finest robe, ring and sandals and how he threw an extravagant feast to celebrate his son's return and tried to persuade his older son to share in the joyous occasion. Every detail is charged with symbolism revealing the unconditional love of God.

GOD LONGS FOR US

This story of the return of the prodigal son is a model of how God deals with us. Like the father who longs for his son to come back and runs to greet him when he arrives on the horizon, God longs for us and goes out to us, he runs to meet us. God does not wait to listen to the litany of our sins when we pray. He interrupts us to tell us how precious we are to him. He tells us how glad he is to have us back and how much he is going to do for us.

This parable of forgiveness and reconciliation reveals a God of such great love that he cannot bear the loss of a single child. By Jesus telling this story in the context of criticism that he was spending time with tax collectors and sinners, Jesus points out the heart of his mission, that is to reconcile us with God.

The word “prodigal” in the title of this parable means wasteful, squandering. Even though it is commonly known as the parable of the prodigal son, it might be more aptly referred to as the parable of the prodigal father; a father is wasteful and free giving of love and mercy. This is what our God is like towards us.

OUR ENTRY POINT INTO THE LOVE OF GOD

We have all lived the story of the prodigal son at times in our lives. We have been thoughtless like the younger son; when we considered only what was best for ourselves and ended up hurting those who love us most. In our selfishness and disobedience at times, we have wounded our relationship with God and wounded ourselves in the process.

Our entry point into the love of God, our love of Jesus and appreciation of his sacrificial love on the cross, is dependent on being able to identify with the lost son who is embraced by the forgiving father in the parable. Without being able to identify with the lost son, our religion and our prayer will just be academic, head-knowledge and a set of rules and rituals.

Apart from the danger of not being able to know our own need for mercy, there is the danger that we might more accurately be identified with the older son in the parable. We, who are trying to take the practice of our faith seriously, are the ones who are most likely and who, in fact most often, fall into the trap of the older-brother-syndrome. Because we know the spiritual life takes discipline and focus, we might easy be scandalised by the sins and faults of others. We easily feel self-righteous in the face of such situations. The danger is that we might find in the end that we missed the whole point of the Gospel and the mission of Jesus.

So instead, for us, Lent is about identifying with the lost son, who came to himself, and decided to make the long journey home to his father. God seeks out the sinner. Jesus says that he came for sinners not the righteous. God is like the father, longing for reconciliation with his son, and each one of us is a prodigal son or daughter.

Pope Francis has said: “The most important thing in the life of every man and every woman is not that they should never fall along the way. The important thing is always to get back up, not to stay on the ground licking our wounds. The Lord of mercy always forgives us; he always offers us the possibility of starting over. For as long as we are alive it is always possible to start over. All we have to do is let Jesus embrace us and forgive us.”

In the language of the parable, we need to “come to ourselves” and return to the God. Again, in the words of Pope Francis, we will find that “God never tires of forgiving, it is we who get tired of asking him for forgiveness.”

BE HELD BY A FORGIVING GOD

In today's second reading St Paul appeals to the Corinthians and to us: Be reconciled to God. If the season of Lent were to come and go without us thinking about reconciliation, then something would indeed be missing. It would be tragic if we came to Easter without being moved by the overwhelming compassion of our God who seeks out the lost and celebrates our return to him. We need to recognise ourselves in the prodigal son and kneel before the Father to receive his forgiveness.

Rembrandt, great Dutch master painter created an oil painting of this parable called The Return of the Prodigal Son. It is a huge work, 8 by 6 feet, now kept in a museum in St Petersburg, Russia. Against a dark background two lighted figures stand out – a richly dressed elderly man and a youth with ragged garments. You see his one bare foot as he kneels before his father. His shaven head presses into the old man’s chest. Fr Henri Nouwen, the Dutch priest, wrote a whole book on this painting portraying the parable of the prodigal son. In prayerfully contemplating the painting, Fr Nouwen realised that he needed to be held and loved, to rest his head on the Father’s chest, and not just be one of the onlookers in the painting. He needed to step into the centre, kneel down, and let himself be held by a forgiving God?”

Perhaps this is true for us too. Perhaps we have never dared to enter into the embrace of the Father in this painting or this parable, as one really needing God’s forgiving love. So, this Sunday we hear the invitation to press our heads against the chest of the Father and listen to his heart beating with mercy.