There is no question this is a story of mercy and
generosity. Prodigal can mean wasteful,
but also lavishly generous. Many
commentators note that the father is prodigal with his love for his younger
son, in the sense of generous, whereas the younger son was prodigal with his
inheritance, as in wasteful.
The younger son’s sin is not just the wasteful way he spent
his share of the inheritance, but that, in asking for his share, he basically
told his father that he might as well be dead.
Interestingly, the father, not holding a grudge, knew that his son was “killing”
himself in leaving the family as he did.
“He was dead, but has come back to life.” It is in the midst of the divine family that
we have life, and leaving it, squandering the graces we’ve been given through
mortal sin, is to die in our souls. God
Who raises the dead is able, and more importantly, willing to grant us life
again.
It’s also interesting to note that the son, when he’s in the
midst of the pigs, does not think of the father in very generous terms. His desire to return is rather forced upon
him by his hunger. Even in thinking of
his father, he does not say, “He still loves me and will take me back”, but he
only considers his father’s generosity with the servants. His penitence is incomplete and imperfect,
based upon his own desperate condition. What is more, his awareness of the
father’s goodness is incomplete as well.
He doesn’t remember how willingly the father had given him the share of
the inheritance. He doesn’t reflect upon
the times he certainly must have enjoyed with his father. He only remembers the abundance of his father’s
wealth, shared by those who served him.
I’d venture to say that the elder son is wasteful in his own
way, as he seems to squander his father’s love.
Though he was very cautious and diligent with respect to his father’s
wealth and business, he missed out on the love of his father. One wonders if he ever asked for a young goat
to celebrate with his friends.
In this light, I think it is important to remember that, as
much as the story reaches out to sinners who need to know how kind and
forgiving God the Father is, Jesus told the story for the sake of the Pharisees
and scribes who were angry and scandalized when Jesus ate with sinners and tax collectors. The Lord was attempting to instruct them on
what they were missing in the God of the Covenant. God demands obedience to His law, but He is a
God of mercy more than anything. The
blindness of the elder son is pointed out by the Lord in the kindest way
possible. While on several occasions the
Lord was “in the face” of His enemies, on this occasion He gently instructed
them through this and the preceding two parables of the lost sheep and the lost
coin. Did they grasp the meaning of His words, “My son, you are with me always,
and everything I have is yours. . . “?
They needed to hear that God was indeed pleased with their fidelity,
even if it was incomplete.
Finally, eating is so very central to the story. It’s the Lord eating with sinners that brings
on the criticism of the Pharisees. The younger son most likely feasted while he
had his father’s wealth. His return home
is driven by an empty belly. The father
calls for a feast to celebrate his son’s return, killing the fatted calf. The
elder son calls feasting with his friends a sign of gratitude from the
father. And of course, the fatted calf
is very much an image of the heavenly banquet where we will feast eternally
with the Lord. Eating was part of the
cause of our fall; eating the Body and drinking the Blood of the Lord is a
major part of our journey towards heaven; heaven itself will be a big party
where the Lord will feed us eternally with His divine Love.
