Today, we hear what is probably most well-known to us as the Parable of the Prodigal Son, or the Parable of the Lost Son. It is a beautiful Gospel reading for today, which is known as Laetare Sunday, or Rejoicing Sunday – always the fourth Sunday in Lent, a little bit past the midpoint of the season when we have a reminder of what is to come after the desolation and heartbreak of Holy Week. This Sunday is about abundance, about generosity, about the joy to be found – borrowing the words from one of the hymns we’ll be singing at communion – the joy to be found in the wideness of God’s mercy, the wideness of God’s love. Laetare Sunday is a glimpse of resurrection – a glimpse of home, while we are wandering in the wilderness.
And that, in a sense, is really what today’s Gospel is about. It is not just a parable of a lost son, though it is about that. It is not just a reading about sin and repentance and forgiveness and reconciliation, though it is about that. It is a Gospel about love, about grace, about mercy. It is a Gospel about being lost in the wilderness and about coming home again. It is a Gospel about abundance. In the midst of Lent, today’s Gospel is a Gospel about resurrection.
Listen again:
“There was a man who had two sons.” One is impatient, anxious to get out into the world, to explore and experience and try his wings. He demands his inheritance, and his father gives it to him, and he goes and lives beyond his means – until a famine sets in and he finds himself working, literally, in a pig pen – taking care of the animals that his religious upbringing would have kept him away from. Looking around, he realizes his mistake, remembers himself, realizes how far from home he has come, and he repents. He goes home.
And his father is waiting. Before the son even reaches the front door, before he says a word of apology or confession or shame, his father has already forgiven him. He runs out to meet him. He embraces him. He takes him in and announces a celebration – he rejoices, not because his son has repented and turned away from sin, not because his son has apologized, not because his son has said, “Dad, you were right” – he rejoices that his son is – he rejoices that his son has come home.
But. The older son. The virtuous, dutiful son who has stayed home, who has stayed with his father, says, “I have been working for you – I have been obedient, I’ve done all the right things – and yet my brother, the sinner, the prodigal, gets the party – this isn’t fair!”
And his father doesn’t scold him, doesn’t change his mind either or try to make up for it so that both brothers get a party. He says, “Son, you are always with me.” He says, “all that is mine is yours.” He responds with love, boundless, abundant love. All that is mine is yours. My life, my home, my heart.
Theologian Beverly Roberts Gaventa writes that love the father has given to “the son who was lost outside the household is now extended also to the son who is lost within the household.” She says: “The father’s love knows no limitations.” The son lost in the wilderness of the world has been found. The son lost in the wilderness of his anger has been found.
And the father, lost in the wilderness of grief and worry, has been found. Love has met each of them, in their own wilderness.
Often when we teach or preach this story, we ask the question of ourselves, which of these characters do we most relate to – the prodigal son, the older son, or the father? And I would answer that we are, each of us, all three of these, at different points in our lives. And I’m not sure which is the most difficult position to be in.
The obvious answer, perhaps and perhaps the most difficult is that of the prodigal son. We are all the prodigal son. We are all sinners. We all give into the temptation of the world – we all, at some time or another, waste the gifts that have been given to us. All of us, at some point, are brought up short by our mistakes – bad relationships, bad life choices, self-centeredness.
And I suspect that at times we are all the older brother. We look at ourselves, at how good we are, how virtuous, and we compare ourselves to others. Well, I would never do that. We take the moral high ground. We label others and assume the worst of others. If they’re in prison, well, they must be terrible, violent people. If they’re struggling with addiction, well, they must be weak. If they’re broke or working three minimum-wage jobs, well, they must be irresponsible. If they’re struggling to pay bills or make rent, well, they must not be working hard enough. We don’t take the time to put ourselves in their shoes. We abandon compassion and mercy.
And at times we are the father. We have been hurt, or abandoned or taken advantage of. We are anxious, worried. We are watching the road for our child or our sibling or our friend. We miss a relationship that has been broken. We try to live a normal life when underneath it we are grieving. And we strive to be the father who welcomes the prodigal home, who forgives, who loves beyond borders – the father who runs to meet the sinner in the wilderness.
Here is the first stanza of that hymn that we’ll be singing:
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea;
there’s a kindness in his justice, which is liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner, and more graces for the good;
there is mercy in the Savior; there is healing in his blood.
There’s a comfort in that mercy, a reminder that when we are the child who is lost in the wilderness of the world or the wilderness of our hearts, we will be welcomed home by our parent, time and time again, with infinite grace and infinite mercy.
You could say, and some do, that this parable shouldn’t be referred to as the parable of the prodigal son, but the parable of the loving father.
And it’s also important to remember that today’s gospel reading doesn’t start with the parable. It starts with this:
“All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’
“So Jesus told them this parable.”
Jesus, in breaking bread with sinners, is the embodiment of the father of the prodigal son. Jesus, who wishes to gather his people to him like a mother hen and gather them under his wings – Jesus who calms the storm, who weeps for Lazarus, who respects Mary and Martha, who touches the leper – Jesus is an expression of God’s unending love for us – at the dinner table and all the way to the cross – showing us how we are to be this too.
Today’s Gospel reading begins and ends with a feast – a feast to which all of us are invited. God is just waiting for us to come home. And waiting for us to invite each other home. To borrow a few more words from retired Presiding Bishop Michael Curry – as he reminded us often, “There is plenty good room for all God’s children.”
Plenty good room. Plenty good room for all of us, from every country, every color, every gender, every life story, every political persuasion, every faith. There is plenty good room for the refugee, the artist, the politician, the rich, the poor. Jesus tells us today that we are all coming home. And God is running to meet us.
Back to the words of the hymn:
For the love of God is broader than the measure of the mind;
and the heart of the Eternal is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were more faithful, we should take him at his word;
and our life would be thanksgiving for the goodness of the Lord.
Let us pray.
Help our love be faithful, Father. Receive us as your wayward children; help us in turn to welcome all your wayward children to the table, for there is plenty good room. In the name of your son, who came to love us to the cross and beyond, Amen.
