Gospel: Luke 15:1-32. Click here for Mass Readings for this Sunday.

LUKE CHAPTER 15:1,2:  ”Now the tax collectors and sinners were flocking to Jesus, to listen to him. ² But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Image of Saturn's rings: 'there are many layers...'

‘Every story contains thirty layers, and a rabbi can only show you one layer.’

And here this Sunday we have three well-known stories. We may think we ‘know’ these parables well, but there are many layers to each, and much that this Word of God can open up in us.

These are the ‘VIP‘ stories- about the unimportant coin , the unimportant sheep, and the unimportant son! These are told in a definite context, to definite people. This context is important for understanding them, and can be found in the opening two verses (above) of Luke 15, and tells us TO WHOM the parables are told, and WHY they are told. The ‘Message’ translation captures the tension involved:  ^’By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” Their grumbling triggered this story.’  The ‘holy’ people (as they thought of themselves) were growling at Jesus for mixing with ‘the wrong type’, so Jesus turned on them and challenged their attitudes with these stories.They are as fresh and relevant today as they were then.  Read them for yourselves, in this context. 

There’s a universal agenda, all through St. Luke’s Gospel. The Good News of the loving closeness and immense activity of God is meant, not just for our Jewish brothers and sisters, but ALSO for the whole wide world! And that was really tough, for those who saw themselves exclusively as God’s Chosen People. They were IN, and all others were OUT.

But God loved the World! -and every nation and every tribe and people. God still does, and there’s the challenge for us,- to bring to the world we live in today an immense sense of the dignity of each and every human being, as if Each One is the Only One before his or her Maker.

If there is even ONE that has not heard, even ONE that feels outside, then the Creator/Father/God seeks that ONE person out. And so must we! No one is OUT, because everyone is IN.

The coin may not seem important, but the woman thinks it is.

The one sheep may not seem important, but the Shepherd thinks it is.

The parable of ‘The Prodigal Son’, -or the parable of the Grumpy Elder Brother, the Returning Younger Brother, and the Father who is ‘prodigal’ with his welcome and love,- has a universal meaning. In Jesus’ time, and in the early decades of the Church, it can be seen , at one level, as a parable for the People of Israel, faithful to God for centuries,  who are angry at the welcome for all the Gentiles who they considered far from God. This Rabbi Jesus speaks to them of the universal love of God, and the party thrown for the return of all the peoples of the world to the one party table of God. And they resented this universal love.

And we resent it too. We close our hearts and borders to many races or colours or creeds, or ethnic minorities. We look down our sacred noses on many people and on many God-given things.

Instead, we could this day put rings on the fingers of every human, put new sandals of welcome on their feet, and bring them in to the music and dance and food and celebration, the wild joy that is found in the universal heart of God.

Or, we could stay outside and sulk.

His Parable. Our choice.

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Footnote about the First Reading (Exodus 327-11, 13-14): read it slowly and notice the humour in it. God gives out to Moses about ‘your’ people being unfaithful and making a golden calf to worship. God is painted as being upset and angry, and going to break up with them.

Moses gently chides God, and speaks to God about ‘your people’,- it was You who brought them out, they are Yours!  And God relents.

Moses was always with his people for God, and then, in prayer, with God for his people. We can all learn from him.

And Paul, in his letter to his friend Timothy,(Second Reading, First Timothy 1:12-17)) tells us that if God can have mercy on him, Paul, who had been so filled with hatred earlier, then God can have mercy on anyone in the whole world! God is obviously ‘prodigal’ or wild or full of abandonment with his love for people.

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Click here for ‘The Prodigal Son, the Mother’s Version‘.

The Gospel today is from Luke Chapter 15, verses 1 -32 . It includes 3 parables, The Lost Coin, the Lost Sheep, the Lost Son.  Find it in your missal, or in your own Bible. Or Click here for this Sunday’s Mass Readings.

These are the ‘VIP‘ stories- about the unimportant coin , the unimportant sheep, and the unimportant son! These are told in a definite context, to definite people. This context is important for understanding them, and can be found in the opening two verses (above) of Luke 15, and tells us TO WHOM the parables are told, and WHY they are told. The ‘Message’ translation captures the tension involved:  ^’By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” Their grumbling triggered this story.‘  The ‘holy’ people (as they thought of themselves) were growling at Jesus for mixing with ‘the wrong type’, so Jesus turned on them and challenged their attitudes with these stories.They are as fresh and relevant today as they were then.  Read them for yourselves, in this context. (See a Footnote below, about what I learned from some fourteen year-old lads about these stories. Their insight moved me deeply.)

Dear Friends,

Did you ever find yourself listening to a story, and suddenly saying ‘Hey, that’s ME!’? It’s like looking at a photo and suddenly recognising yourself in it. In the same way in a story, you get to see yourself, you get an insight into yourself! Well, the ancient Romans had a saying about this:  ‘Why are you making fun of it? Change the name and the story is about you.’   (I googled it and this is what came up: it sounds important in Latin! “Quid rides? Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratur.”  ”Why do you laugh? Change only the name and the story’s about you.” -Horace. Show that one off to your friends!)

So, let’s try changing the names and saying ‘That’s ME!’, with today’s Gospel Parable, The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). You probably know it well, but there’s always a lot more to every story, each time we hear it.

There’s the son who left home, the son who stayed at home, the Father who loved them both dearly, and the fatted calf who lost his head in the middle of it all!

First, are you the Younger Son?   ‘At last he came to his senses.’ Times were hard, he was hungry, he was living beside a pig-sty. Things had come to a bad pass. The money was gone on drink and loose living. He was home-sick. Maybe he would be better off at home. ‘So he left the place and went back to his father.’

Now, you’re the Da: ‘The father saw him and his stomach churned for him. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly.’ Remember, you’re the Da, and you’re throwing your arms around a son covered with pig-manure! But you don’t care! You’re jumping with joy, and don’t even hear the apologies being offered by the lad. You call for a Party!

Now, you’re the fatted calf, and wondering what’s all the shouting and roaring about, and who are these guys coming towards you with a shiny axe! ‘Oh sugar!’ is all you have time to say (or words to that effect), before you meet your end.

Now you are the Older Brother, out in the field. What’s with all the music and merrymaking? That scallywag is home! No way, I’m not going in. It’s not fair! It’s simply not fair!, you say to your Dad. I’ve been at home the whole time, and very faithful. No, you can’t just throw a party for that useless article that has arrived home. You can’t welcome him like this! It’s just not fair! I’m not going in.

It’s hard to take, this universal love of our God for the strays and for the lost,- for every human being on the planet. The party goes on. But will we come in? Do we resent God for being like this?

‘God is love.’ Are we?

Fr. Seamus.       seamus.devitt@redemptorists.ie

Can you share this with one or two others, and digest it prayerfully together? That’s community 4u.

FOOTNOTE: What some 14 yr-old lads taught me about this: I was taking a class of 2nd year lads (aged 13/14) a few years back, and we were looking just at the opening two verses of Luke 15, about the sinners and other outcasts flocking to Jesus to listen to him. We wondered together how these ‘outcasts’ and others might have felt, in the company of this Rabbi Jesus. Some said ‘They felt embarrassed’, others ‘They felt ashamed’, and so on in that vein. Then one lad said quietly ‘They felt holy’.  This stopped us all in our tracks,- it certainly stopped me. In the presence of this Jesus, for all their story, for all the mess and the stuff that they had got into or done, when they came to this Jesus, and they looked at his face, and he looked at theirs, one by one, ‘they felt holy’. They felt wanted, sacred, precious, important, welcomed, understood… you could go on and on. But that’s how they felt! And they were right. This phrase ‘they felt holy’ has stayed with me since then, and my heart delights in it whenever I remember it. With Jesus, we ARE holy, sacred… all of the above.

And, If you would like to get “The Prodigal Son, THE MOTHER’S VERSION“, click here.