2 March 2024 Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
Ask a hundred people to name a parable, and most of them will say, “The Prodigal Son” (the ones that don’t mention that one will say, “The Good Samaritan”). Ask a hundred people to tell you something about the Parable of the Prodigal Son, and most will say that they totally get the older brother: “It’s always the ones who misbehave the most, the ones who are the most trouble, that get all the attention. I know just how that older brother feels. What’s the point of all that faithfulness if it is the bad boys who get the finest robe, the fatted calf, the golden ring, and the party? I totally get the older brother.”
Understandable, perhaps, but also totally ridiculous.
What’s the point of all that faithfulness? It’s a question that answers itself. While the prodigals waste their time, their resources and their lives in riotous living, you can be with God in prayer; you can be with God in scripture; you can receive God’s very life in your hands, in your self, every week, every day. You have access to the sacrament of Reconciliation every time you stray just a little, so that every time you can be pulled back onto the right path. You know the peace that comes with quiet, the loyalty that comes with love, you know more about respect than regret, and have always known who and whose you are. Words to the wise have made you wise. You are protected from the chaos, meaninglessness, degradation and despair that all the prodigals of the earth call “daily life,” and you wonder what the point of all that faithfulness is because you didn’t get a party?
Really?
Sure, the Prodigal got a party because he was born again. Of course, now he has to grow up again, and that is all after the party is over. “Imagine yourself as a living house,” says C.S. Lewis to kid brother after the party is over, the finest robe is back in the closet, and all the guests have gone home. “God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing, and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably, and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of…. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come live in it Himself” (Mere Christianity, p. 163).
If you “totally get the older brother,” if you really do understand how very advantageous his position really was, that may mean that the building of the palace is already far advanced in you, and God has already moved in. Then you can help all the Prodigals of the world deal with the discomfort of the building that is only just begun in them. You can show kid brothers everything they have been missing, because you now have it to give. Kid brothers will look at you as a kind of angel whose every word is a relief of pain, a missing piece of the puzzle, a connection to a power source, a light in their darkness. Angels know that everything the Father has is theirs, and theirs to give. Always has been.
Who needs the party?
That’s the point of all that faithfulness. We get to be somebody’s angel.
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