Fourth Sunday of Lent Luke 15, 1-3,11-32

The ever-present phenomenon of the “prodigal son” (Luke 15:1, 11-32)
To personally experience your sin before the face of your kind God the Father.

If we were to describe it, our life would make a pretty thick book. And what about its contents? For example, relationships, views, attitudes, opinions… We find it hard to admit that we are wrong. Others harm us, don’t wish us, don’t wish us, envy us… We are indulgent towards ourselves; we talk about being entitled, we say that we belong… But we seem to have different eyes on others, we also speak differently about others, we are no longer so gracious, kind, forgiving… And when we examine our hearts, how much love is there for God and neighbor, and how much for ourselves? We reflect on ourselves! Let us be honest with ourselves, and we will be surprised. Let us do something similar today on this fourth Sunday of Lent.

For the Pharisees and scribes murmured over Jesus’ behavior: “This one receives sinners and eats with them.” (Lk 15:2). “A certain man had two sons.” (Lk 15:11).

This pericope is one of the most famous parts of the Gospels—several biblical scholars, e.g., A. Julicher or scholars, have called this text “the gospel within the gospel.” The parable of the prodigal son has always been a focus of attention, not only in the spiritual, spiritual, mystical realm, but also in the artistic, sculptural, and so on. What is so brilliant about this parable? It can also be expressed like this: The Lord Jesus compared our God to a “good father.” That is why many call the parable the parable of the “best father.” The fact that two sons are featured in the text is an age-old problem of all time. That is why the parable continues to have our attention today. The fates and characters of the two sons serve only to bring out the greatness of the “good father.” Nowhere did the Lord Jesus show us God the Father so clearly and now. Whoever pays just a little attention to the words of Jesus discovers again and again what he has learned and recognizes even his reality of life. In this Gospel, our destinies come alive, and love begins to come alive in us. The parable sums up the whole history of man. Jesus introduces his Father and our Father and tells of the two sons that we humans are.
When the younger son thinks that his father’s thresholds limit him, the principles of family life seem difficult and unpleasant, and life itself not attractive enough, he wants to leave. Interestingly, the father does not restrain the son too much by retreating from moral principles, making promises, making excuses, and plotting something for him. He doesn’t even say goodbye to his son as if they were never to meet again, but as if they would be together tomorrow. And that without anger, cursing and insults. As he leaves his son, the father says My son; if you get sick, if the world makes you sad, if something terrible occurs, you can always count on me. I will be waiting for you even if you compromise yourself, become wholly despised, even if everyone abandons you… even then, you remain my son and I your father. Come! The father senses foresee what will follow and gives him a portion of the property that belongs to the son. The son goes where he does not return quickly and easily. He has gone to a strange environment, among strange people. There is a picture of sin in the son’s distance from the father, as man distances himself from God when he sins. “Home is only home,” says the proverb, but “there” means far from home, where life is hard. Without God, life is hard, even if one has everything: friends, material goods… One remembers “father’s house” when there is nothing left of what one considered valuable, necessary, beautiful in the world. When all the people have left him and his health, his achievements… For many, this is the moment before death. Many call it grace. Man, in his resistance to God, will try anything and everything. He does not want God. The loss of love, and especially pride, prevents man from returning, from acknowledging his mistake, his error, his fall… …and so he gives himself to a new and further service to evil and sin, and finds himself in even greater filth, more filth, more filth, more filth… He does not realize it, but there is total humiliation. The Lord Jesus describes this condition with the son’s image being put into service as a herdsman of swine. But as if that were not enough humiliation, he has nothing to satisfy his hunger. To the Jews, the jerk symbolizes the greatest wickedness, both physical and moral. Here the turning point occurs. What until recently, he understood as happiness brings incredible pain. These words point to the reality of what and where sin brings us. Only now does one begin to realize what he has lost, what he has not valued at home, what he has despised. He realizes his guilt and experiences remorse that he no longer deserves to be called a son because he is reliving what he did to offend his father when he left him. And it is the father’s love that is to be understood as his gift: inside, in the son’s heart, it will evoke the strength to return to the father. Although the son’s reason and compassion say that he has no right to call himself a son, at least he will be close to the father. The proximity to the father’s house will provide what he did not value. Thus, returning to the father is a change of the previous life, of the philosophy of life. This change must touch the bottom of the soul of man. What Jesus goes on subtly pronouncing becomes a light and a warmth, which cannot. keep the boundaries of the world growing up to the Kingdom of God. A father’s behavior outgrows the greatest and boldest expectations. The father waits impatiently for the son’s return. The father does not greet the son with shouting, anger, or reproach. On the contrary, already in the distance, he sees the son. The closer the son is, the more the father’s forgiveness towards him grows, which he does not yet know. The son thinks that he is going to the father, but the father is running, hurrying to greet the sun. The father will do everything he can to make it as easy as possible for the son when they meet. The father embraces the son and kisses him, which is a sign of forgiveness, forgetting, not remembering what was, and all for the father’s love. The son began his prepared confession, “Father, I have sinned… I am no longer worthy of being called your son.” (Luke 15:18-19), but the father did not allow him to finish because he gave the order to the servants, “Quickly bring the best clothes and clothe him! Put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet! Bring a fated calf and kill it. Let us eat and feast merrily…” (Luke 15:22-23). The father restores the lost rank and accepts him into the family as a son to the son. The command to feast tells how the father evaluates the son’s return. He does not blame or remind him of anything; on the contrary, an atmosphere of jocularity is created, and he rejoices in the son’s return.

We have all more or less found ourselves in about the prodigal son. By sin, we have distanced ourselves from the father. The father was still waiting for us. Even when we walked away from him, Father did not give up on us. In the same way, he helps us when we return. And we are to remember what awaits us when we return. Isn’t this a timely thing for us in Lent? It is the desire of God that we should forsake sin and return to Him.

We feel the significance of the parable even in what cannot be put into words: Have you sinned? Sin no more! Yes, we have betrayed, so we want to be faithful no longer. We have left God, but we want to stay with him permanently. We realize the greatness of God’s love that the Father will wait for us until the last moment to return. He reminds us with a parable that we will not escape his love.
In the same way, we realize that we must not behave like the second son who is offended by the father’s goodness. Though he has not fled bodily from his father, his heart is not like his father’s heart. We need to be careful of our behavior so that we do not condemn anyone whom the father forgives. On the contrary, we want to follow the father in love. We must not forget that we do not know when the last minute of our life will be. We must not presume to rely on the mercy of our Father. It is fitting that as a former prodigal son, I want to rejoice again in the symbols we have received: the ring, which symbolizes that we are sons again the shoes symbolize that we are free again, we are no longer enslaved to sin the clothes represent that we are in the right place. The return on our part is to be marked by our conviction that we no longer want to renounce the Father and want to live in His presence permanently. Then the new life brings us more of God’s grace.
A Spanish proverb says: “If your house is on fire, warm yourself by it.” May it mean that having understood today’s parable, we would like to implement it as faithfully as possible in our lives.
We may also be reminded of this in a passage from The Sower Sows Seeds – A Memoir of Thomas Edison, whose laboratory was destroyed by fire in December 1914. Although the damage amounted to more than two million dollars, the building was insured for only $238,000 because it was built of concrete to be fireproof. Most of Edison’s life’s work ended up in a massive fire that December night. In the heat of the flames, in the smoke and debris, Charles, Edison’s twenty-four-year-old son, is searching for his father. His father stood wordlessly watching the whole scene when he finally found him. His face was alight with fire, though, and memory, and his white hair blowing in the wind. “My heart aches for him,” said Charles. “He’s sixty-seven years old-he’s not the youngest any more-and the fire has taken everything from him.” When he saw me, he screamed: “Charles, where’s the mother?” When I told him I had no idea, he ordered me: “Look for her and bring her here! She’ll never see anything like this again in her life.” The following day Edison looked at the ruins and said: “This misfortune is of great value to us. All our mistakes have burned in the fire. Thank God, now we can start anew. Three weeks after the fire, Edison handed in his patent for the first phonograph.
God showed us in a parable that we must take advantage of the new grace of forgiveness. It is a remembrance.

Our lives can be compared to a novel. However, when we meet God the Judge, we must end it that we will belong wholly and entirely to God. To be God’s and God’s alone.