Today’s gospel is the famous parable of the Prodigal Son. It is this great parable of mercy.

 

Let us look at the parable more comprehensively.

 

First, if this were a drama on television, every person who had a speaking part would have to be paid. So how many paid actors would we need? Many immediately say three: The Father, the younger son who leaves and the older son who stays. However, look carefully, there is a fourth speaking part in this parable, we will look at this later.

 

Now let us look at the parable step by step:

 

The young son walks out with money his father gives to him and all his belongings. He is therefore cut off from his father by his own choice. He expects no more support from him and asks none. However, if you focus on that part right there, you miss another point. He, by walking out, cuts off his relationship with his father completely. There is no more contact and therefore the son also cuts himself off from the source of great wisdom of the Father. The father has a deeper understanding of the meaning of the life that the son just does not have. This is at the bottom of the parable.  

 

He gets lost in his dissolute living because the Father is not there to show him his wisdom of his years. He is hard-hearted maybe arrogant, obviously hedonistic and no one is there to challenge him on these bad qualities. He is living on a false understanding of the meaning of life. He thinks his lifestyle will bring him the fullness of humanity, but instead leads to a crash and burn. What is Jesus demonstrating here?

 

Isaiah the prophet speaking for the Heavenly Father, reviles those who reject Divine wisdom for their own worldly wisdom. “Cursed,” he warns, “are those who are wise in their own estimation.” This is the status of the son. He has cut himself off from his father’s wisdom and lives by his own uninspired wisdom. He will suffer the curse of a life void of the Father’s greater wise leadership and follow instead the life of a fool. The bible describes the fool as one who says there is no God, who live by their own understanding and who pridefully reject the instruction from on high. The younger son is a fool.

 

So he is blinded by his own willful pride and associates with like minded people who are happy to use him in his ignorant foolishness. They use and manipulate him as they use and manipulate each other into total bankruptcy because no one is there to demonstrate to him the greater wisdom. He would not listen anyway, telling such people to mind their own business. The younger son is not wise enough to see beyond the selfish, evil manipulation to which he has immersed himself. He becomes lost not only financially, but humanly.

 

What happens to him? He is a jew in pagan territory, we know that because he is taking care of pigs. Jews reject pigs because they are unclean animals. The people who hire him do him a mild service, but cannot do anymore. Why? Imagine the scenario today. A Jew strays off into pagan territories, a kind family may care for him, but they can do little else, how are they going to explain to their neighbors that they are caring for a jew when there is hostility between the jews and the gentiles. He is at the mercy of gentiles who do little for him, for they can do little else. Indeed, he should be happy that they prevent him from being killed by others more hostile to the jews. He is alive, but nothing else.

 

It is then he literally, comes to his senses and returns to the father. This is his maranatha moment. He is wise in his own estimation and his “wisdom” has made him a fool and dehumanized him. He has become a shell of what he was when he was with his father. His pride and his foolish thinking brought him to this spot. He finally realizes what he has done and repents. However, he is also aware that he deserves nothing from his father, not even material support because he already took that when he left. He will ask for a job, but knows he is not even deserving of this.

 

The father who has waited patiently for his return. In his eyes, the son is lost, like a missing person. He has waited with all his love for his return praying for this day. So, when he finally sees him, he joyfully embraces him and restores him to the full status as son. What does that mean: he also continues to impart upon him his wisdom. An employee would receive material support but not the fullness of what the father has to offer which is his wisdom.

 

What plays out next is the question I asked at the beginning: the fourth speaking part: the servant who tells the older son that his brother is back. He is a hired hand and does not possess the father’s wisdom even though he has the father’s material support and stirs up the anger in the older brother. He reduces everything to the material and so the older son who is still learning his father’s wisdom becomes incensed that his brother can be so rewarded. He has been faithful and loyal to his father, but it is the betraying son who is rewarded. He does not yet understand that what his father is celebrating is not that he was lost in dissolute living, but that he became humbled, deserted his prideful ways and opened himself to the father’s wisdom.

 

It is the father who now imparts his wisdom on the older brother. Yes his younger brother deserves to be cast off, but there is a deeper reality here and his father understands fully what the older son has yet to appreciate. The words he was lost and now is found cannot begin to describe the reality. It is kind of like, if you want to see the great pain one suffers when he is condemned look at the great pain that Jesus goes through to prevent that from happening. However, people can still choose to reject Christ and then there is nothing anyone can do. Just as there was nothing the father could do, until the younger son chose on his own to come back.

 

So what is the parable about really? A forgiving father who will even forgive a huge betrayal by his son and so will our heavenly father do the same for us?

 

Well, yes, but let us go deeper. When we cut ourselves off from the relationship to the father, we fall into the folly of being wise in our own estimation and risk being lost forever in the world of the fool. Our nation is teeming with such people, by the way. It is not that the loving father grows angry when we sin and turns against us, it is that when we sin we cut off our relationship with the father, we become our own gods. That turns us into to cursed fools. We become alienated from the Father and our true nature and our only way back is to see our evil ways, humble ourselves and in repentance have a change of heart return to the Father, who will always take us back under those conditions. If we do not open ourselves to this change of heart, we will be lost forever in the world of the fool.

 

So you can see it is more than a story of forgiveness. It is also a story of an understanding of who we are in the Father and who we become when we alienate ourselves from him in sin and who we become when we humble ourselves and return to him whole-heartedly and sincerely.

 

Now let me add another dimension: take this to a social level. What happens to a nation that does what the young son did. Says to God, good by, we don’t need you anymore. There is an answer to that question and you can find it in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn: The great soviet dissident who suffered in the GULAGs for his principles. He taught: “A great disaster had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 

Please do not whitewash the parable of the prodigal son to be a blessing of a pollyanna of a father who overlooks his sons errors. Instead, look more closely and see it is an ominous warning of what happens when we abandon God, but we happily learn of the one route to healing and freedom. Ironically, the same one that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn like Jesus told us was the only road to freedom. Humbly and repentantly returning to the heavenly Father.

God Bless you,

Fr. Robert J Carr

Fr. Carr is member of the Segundo Elo  of the Canção Nova Community. He is the pastor of Holy Trinity Quincy, MA and is the editor of this blog. He is the author of several books, blogs and hundreds of videos all of which you may find on Youtube.  You can follow him on twitter as @frbobcarr and on Google plus as+FrRobertCarr. Thoughts, comments on the homily? Let us know at Facebook