The Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 27, 2022

Luke 15:1–3, 11–32

Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So to them Jesus addressed this parable: “A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, ‘Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’ So the father divided the property between them. After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings and set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation. When he had freely spent everything, a severe famine struck that country, and he found himself in dire need. So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens who sent him to his farm to tend the swine. And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody gave him any. Coming to his senses he thought, ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have more than enough food to eat, but here am I, dying from hunger. I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”’ So he got up and went back to his father. While he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son.’ But his father ordered his servants, ‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Take the fattened calf and slaughter it. Then let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.’ Then the celebration began. Now the older son had been out in the field and, on his way back, as he neared the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing. He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean. The servant said to him, ‘Your brother has returned and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’ He became angry, and when he refused to enter the house, his father came out and pleaded with him. He said to his father in reply, ‘Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’ He said to him, ‘My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.’ ”

The way in which this Gospel reading is assembled helps us to understand a key point in the Lord’s parable.  The first lines of the reading tell us that the Pharisees objected to some of the people the Lord chose to eat with: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  They complained because, in their way of interpreting the Scriptures, these “sinners” were spiritually unclean and contaminated anything they came in contact with.  They distorted the laws concerning ritual purity so that they clashed with the Middle Eastern imperative of hospitality, by which a person fed those who came to their tent or door.  While originating in a society that was mainly nomadic and based on the fact that we all need help to survive the cruelty of man and the rigors of nature, it passed into later times and a more urbanized society.  That is part of the background to the Parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man.  Lazarus lay outside the man’s gate and yet he was offered nothing.

The Lord ate most of the with his Apostles, usually outside of the towns and cities, but on occasion he was invited to dinner and so he ate with with tax collectors, public sinners such as prostitutes, wealthy disciples, and even Pharisees.  He was shown hospitality and did not begrudge it to anyone else.  For the Pharisees, to greet a sinner was to accept him and his sinfulness.  To eat with one was to share in his sin and to become unclean too.  We might wonder why the Pharisees cared about the company with whom Jesus chose to eat.  The Pharisees wanted to debunk the idea that Jesus was a prophet or the Messiah.  They wanted to invalidate his teaching because it refuted theirs.  The Messiah they taught about would be a leader who would crush sinners and the Romans alike.  But they were only creating a Messiah to their liking, not examining the Law and the Prophets to learn of the one whom God would actually send.

The Lord sets up the Parable of the Prodigal Son in such a way that the climax comes down to the question of whether the older son will join in the festivities honoring the return of his sinful  and unclean brother.  It is a difficult question for him.  He wants to do as his father bids him and yet he is appalled by his brother and the impurity in which he has lived: his brother had “swallowed up your property with prostitutes”, he reminds his father.  He does not bring up the business of living with pigs, which he may not have known about.  The elder son cannot seem to set aside his loathing of impurity, yet in his hesitation at joining his brother at his father’s request, he disobeys the Fourth Commandment, which mandates honoring one’s parents.  Breaking a clear commandment of the Law would make the older son a sinner with whom others should not eat, but he does not see this.  He is wrapped up in his personal notions about purity.

We do not know if the older son relented and went into the house or not.  The Lord leaves it to us to finish the Parable, just as he left it to the Pharisees to ponder their own reactions.  

We must love as the Lord directs us to love.