24th Sunday of the Year
24th Sunday of the Year – C – I was lost but now I am found
Who, here, has ever questioned the point of this story?
I wonder how many of you are like me with regard to this story. This story that we have heard so many times that we become numb to it – maybe? The story of the father welcoming his long-lost son home after so many years away. His heart full of joy at his return and his every essence full of welcome and forgiveness.
The son – so full of regret at not seeing what he had all the time – the treasure of his father’s love and the safety and strength and security of his family and home and their unquestioned and unconditional love for him.
And the nark of a brother. He who refuses to give a welcome. Who only sees that he is being done out of his own inheritance.
I often wondered at how it was that this brother, this loyal worker and loyal son should be the baddie in this story. I didn’t get it. I didn’t get it until now.
It is rare I feel that we have three readings that all follow the same theme. There is normally one that seems to go off at a strange tangent somewhere and it is a real puzzle to see the connections. But not today. Today we are talking about welcome and in particular – welcome back.
We are talking about – Returning and forgiving. We are talking about hospitality rather than hostility. We are talking about open arms and open hearts rather than closed minds and clenched fists.
So let’s revisit the Prodigal Son and explore it a little bit further. This is a story aimed at the “Separated Ones”; the ‘Stand-alones’; the Pharisees. These are the people who are quick and ready to judge, who specialise in casting out and casting aside, who see themselves as above and beyond everyone else and want to spend their time and energies dismissing others, doing them down, emphasising why they are not good enough to mix with, to associate with.
They don’t want Jesus to associate with rabble, with upstarts, with sinners and the dregs of society. No – if he is to mingle with anyone – it should be with them – the chosen ones. They do all they can to show Jesus the error of his ways. For them the message is hostility and barely disguised violence toward others.
For Jesus it is the complete opposite. He is looking to challenge their approach and their beliefs and their behaviours. His is a message of love, of tolerance, of reaching out and drawing in. Of welcoming with sincerity and transparent love.
Within the story, we have a son who seeking adventure and life and love and happiness and feels that he has to travel away from his home to find it. And after a life of quick-fix smiles and laughs he does discover what he sought. But he discovers that it was where he had left it – back home with his father and family. This was where he could be all that he wanted to be.
And his father was the epitome of fatherhood. He cared nothing for the wasted money or the insult of his son demanding an inheritance before he was in fact dead – a very clear wish or desire to see his father dead. He greeted him with all of the love he had in his heart and the frustration and sorrow he had in seeing his son leave. He greeted him with the warmest of welcomes, having waited every day for his return. He laid on the greatest of hospitalities to show his son and everyone that he was loved, was missed and was wanted back.
And his brother. His brother had stayed at home but stated to his father that he had worked for him as a slave. He had not set out to seek love or excitement or adventure. But nor had he stayed at home to do any of these things either. He is sullen; he is distant; he is hostile to both his father and to his long-lost brother. He had all that his brother had left behind – love, presence, company, security, welcome – and he spurned it all or certainly did nothing to show an appreciation for all that his father had there for him – available at any time that he wanted. He wasted what was in front of him.
So to today. Where are we in this story? Are we looking to condemn; to castigate; to stand above and look down? Are we superior to all those others outside of our church and parish and sometimes even inside our church and parish? Are we?
Or are we like – our Ministers of Welcome. Who greet each person as they arrive; who smile and welcome them in; who ask if they are okay and need anything; who take time to chat and listen, to encourage and laugh.
Within the presence of the Holy Eucharist are we seeking to participate in hospitality or in hostility; in the love of Jesus and Our Father or in our own self-agendas.
Bidding Prayers
We pray for the wisdom and insight to see what and who we have and to fully appreciate it and them in our lives. Lord in your mercy
We pray for vision to see where we have gone wrong and the courage then to admit to this and to make amends. Lord in your mercy
We pray that we too can forgive those that have wronged us, that we can reach out to them with love, passion and forgiveness. Ord in your mercy
We pray for peace across our troubled world: that countries can for give each other and draw together in peaceful celebration. Lord in your mercy
We pray for all those who are sick or housebound or lonely or who may feel forgotten, unloved and isolated that they feel our love through our actions.
We pray for those who have died recently and remember especially those from within our own families and communities. May they rest in peace.
We ask our Lady, the Mother of our Saviour to intercede for us as we now pray together, Hail Mary, full of grace