Beloved Members of St. Martin’s,
Sometimes, stories are so familiar that we no longer hear them when they appear in front of us. The words rattle by, but rather than listening deeply, we have a narrator’s voice in our heads speaking over the story line, and we fail to hear the true details of the story. This came to me as I was pondering again that familiar story in this weekend’s gospel, The Parable of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. For instance, I wonder if everyone knows what the word “prodigal” means? When I taught in the parochial school for my first two years of teaching, the word appeared on my students’ vocabulary list in English class once, and most of my kids surprised me by saying that “prodigal” meant “lost.” If you only encountered that word in the title of this parable, that would be a reasonable assumption. But it is also incorrect. Someone who is “prodigal” is actually someone who is wasteful or extravagant with their money. Most of my students admitted that the only time they had ever heard the word was in the context of this parable. And so we pulled the Bibles down from the tippy top of the shelf where they were stored in my room, blew off the inch-thick coating of dust on them, and cracked them open to where this story appears in Luke’s gospel. The first surprise my students got is that this parable comes hot on the heels of two other, shorter parables—and if you look, you will see that they are omitted in our gospel reading today, as well. But I think it’s helpful to hear those, too, so here they are. Right after the grumbling about Jesus welcoming sinners and eating with them, we get not one but THREE parables. The first two are the Parable of The Lost Sheep and the Parable of the Lost Coin. THEN Jesus finishes up with the story of the Prodigal Son.
The eliminated stories make very clear that all three parables are about rejoicing when the lost is found—for relationships that are restored. The application for our behavior then also has to do with rejoicing over the one who has repented instead of judging them and refusing to forgive them for their mistakes. These stories are about accepting repentance freely, rather than demanding punishment from those who have done wrong so that they “earn” forgiveness.
The point of this parable is grace and mercy. It is an insistent declaration that God is not a God who stands aloof from us, but loves us unceasingly and calls us to return, again and again. This is a God who calls us to repent—to turn away from what separates us from God, and to turn away from what separates us from each other. It also reminds us that we depend on God’s help always in living our very best life, in which we ourselves are called to love and care for those around us without questioning whether they are worthy.
Judging worthiness is not our jobs.
Loving and caring for people IS, as disciples of Jesus and pilgrims on his Way of Love. No matter who “they” are, or how different “they” are from “us.”
We ourselves have been recipients of an abundant grace— forgiveness from God that rejoices each time we turn, but a forgiveness we have to realize can never be earned by us.
In Christ’s love,
Mother Leslie+