Browsing Reflections

Fr. Jo's Reflection for the 4th Sunday of Lent Yr C, March 27, 2022

Suppose you have two $50 bills, one rumpled and dirty and the other crisp. Which of them has a higher value when you go to deposit them? I guess you know the answer. The difference between a bad person who returns to God and a good person in the sight of God is the kind of welcome they’ll receive. In Luke 15:7, Jesus spells it out: “I tell you that there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.” Which is better: To sin and repent or remain righteous and miss the party? I’ll skip that question and go ahead to suggest what is best, and that is: to remain righteous and join the party for the repentant sinner. When we’re ready to tell ourselves the truth, we’ll come to the realization that as Henry Nouwen says: “We are all handicapped; some more visibly than others,” and St. Paul more precisely stated: “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Yet, God loves us immensely. If God had a refrigerator, your magnet picture would be on it. If He carries a wallet, chances are your photo would be inside it. He loves you beyond words and Jesus’ parable today proves that.

  Today’s gospel found in the 15th chapter of Luke is called “the gospel in the gospel.” It contains the distilled essence of the Good News and sums up the entire Luke’s Gospel, and all gospels, as some scholars suggest. Luke’s gospel ended in this 15th chapter, which forms the penultimate recapitulation. Everything that followed was commentary and story about how it all came about. And the story is that God doesn’t mind how filthy you are in so far as you’re willing to take the next exit and steer your way back home.

Jesus illustrates this by telling this story to which, in my opinion, we gave the wrong title, “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.” Yet, if prodigal means to be wasteful, extravagant, lavish and profuse, I would think that the father outdid that son of his in prodigality. He was extravagant, profuse and exceedingly lavish in showing mercy to an unworthy son. Jesus makes that same point in this parable that though our sins have caused us to stray from our father’s house, His loving heart always follows us gently, whispering in our hearts: “Come home! Come home, my daughter! Come home, my son! It takes time for someone in a horrible state of sin and dissipation to realize his or her shameful state. A drunkard must need the last bottle that would land him in the gutter; a thief realizes himself or herself only inside the prison bar; a philanderer, a prostitute, a fornicator fails to realize that she is merely feeding pigs. Reckless lifestyle drains one’s fortune and reduces people to slavery and misery. God tells Joshua and all Israel as they arrived the Promised Land: “Today, I have taken the shame of Egypt away from you” (Joshua 5:9). The shame of Egypt is the yoke of slavery; slavery to drugs and alcohol, to sex and pornography, to lies and gossips, to anger and resentment, and to self-pity and depression. God calls us to shake off the shame of Egypt today and return home.

  Our wild, fun-loving, sinful young star of today’s gospel has one thing going for him. He is not too proud to go back and say, “I have erred; I am sorry.” The elder brother, who represents most of us, in his intolerance, self-righteousness, and anger wants to teach God the meaning of justice and distances himself from the family celebration. After teaching her CCD class about the Parable of the Prodigal Son, a smart teacher asked the kids: “Now, tell me, who suffered the most in the story?” A tiny hand went up: “the fattened cow, I guess.” Absolutely! And next to the fattened cow comes the elder son who shut himself out. He didn’t even taste the fattened cow he helped raise, all because he stuck to his ideas of fairness and justice. Don’t let yourself be shut out of heaven because God in his “reckless mercy” let in your enemy. God’s ways are not our ways. Today we are donning the rose vestment to join in the feast.

Fr. Chukwudi Jo Okonkwo

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