That attitude of writing people off as lost causes is the problem in today’s Gospel. The sinners come to hear Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes come to complain that Jesus welcome sinners and eats with them. The Pharisees want Jesus to let the sinners stay lost. Why bother with the likes of them? The Pharisees, whose name means ‘’separated ones’’, see themselves as having no relationship with the sinners. Jesus sees both groups as children of the Father and, therefore, brothers and sisters to each other. Rather than argue the point, Jesus tells a story about a father who has two sons and who loses them both.
The younger son gets lost in a far country while the elder son gets lost staying at home. The younger son leaves home, but his journey leads him to a place of hunger, of degradation and of possible death. He is in danger of dying far away, forgotten, and forsaken. But the younger son comes to himself in a pigpen when he realizes that he doesn’t really belong there but has a home to belong to. There’s nothing like hunger to sharpen your sense of belonging! The prospect of regular, square meals is enough to head him in the right direction, and he makes the journey of return on a full speech and an empty stomach.
All this time his father has not accepted the loss of his son as ‘’just one of those things.’’ His son’s being lost has not nullified their relationship: if the son has let go of his father, the father has not let go of his son. He is a father who stays on the lookout, whose eyes hunt the horizon for the return of his son, whose love educates his hope that his son will come back. And when he does see his son a long way off, he is moved with pity to run and meet him. When someone comes to meet you, your journey is always shorter. The father’s love takes the initiative. He meets his son with love’s extravagance and, rather than listening to a boring speech, he organizes a good party. After all, his son is found.
The elder son is the type who stays out in the fields long after the cows have come home. When he makes his return journey, unlike his younger brother, he doesn’t make it to home. His father comes out a second time that day to meet a son but all he gets is another boring speech! ’All these years l have slaved for you’’ shows how the elder brother sees fidelity as slavery. He is enslaved by his own sense of justice. He wants to maintain the estate without any obligations to his brother. He has no reach in him. In fact, he is the ‘’separated one’’ who refuses to recognize his brother as his brother but is content for him to stay lost. Unlike his father, he cannot surprise his brother with the quality of his mercy. His hard work has made him hard-hearted. As Yeats wrote:
“Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart.”
When we look at ourselves, we can probably see parts of each of the three characters in us. There is the part of the father in us which has a keen eye for those who are lost and a good nose for when a party is needed. There is the part of the younger son in us which wants to grab everything we can and try everything we shouldn’t. And there is the part of the elder brother in us which makes other people pay for our loveless fidelity. All three characters are within us, competing to shape our life. This Lent let’s pray that the father in each of us will be fit and willing to run for mercy. There’s a lot of people in our lives who are still a long way off.