4TH Sunday in Lent, March 30th 2025

Texts: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Joshua 5:9-12

Grace, Peace, and Mercy from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

In today’s gospel text, we have one of Jesus’ most famous parables. There are many titles for this parable, often we call it the parable of the prodigal son, prodigal meaning wasteful or extravagant. Another potential title is the parable of the two brothers or of the lost son. However, I like to call it the way my academic mentor in Puerto Rico used to call it when he taught me about this parable: the parable of the Loving Father, el Padre amoroso. The Loving or Forgiving Father is the heart of this story, the big surprise of this story comes from him. And through the story of the loving father, Jesus reveals to us so clearly who God is and how God acts.

So we have three important characters in this story: as I mentioned, the loving father; then we have the wasteful son who goes away and returns empty and guilty, and the faithful yet grumbly son, who remains in his father’s house and works tirelessly in the fields. We can often relate to different characters in this story depending on our life situation. We could feel like the prodigal son, who takes his share of his inheritance and squanders it in “dissolute living”. We could also feel like the faithful son, who has been careful about doing the right thing all the time and find no recognition for that effort. Some of us might even relate to the father, when we passionately hope for the return of a son or daughter who has lost his/her way. It is such a generative and intimate story.

So the story continues and the prodigal son, after having spent everything and then becoming impoverished and destitute, he is in the most dire need that he could ever be in his life. And at that point of dire poverty, he decides to return to his father’s house, but things are not so simple. He thinks, because there’s this voice of guilt that whispered in his ear that he had all this wealth, all this abundance that was given to him and he just squandered it. He felt himself unworthy of returning to his father. So he develops this little monologue that he was going to say to his father once he saw him. He was going to say: “I’m sorry, I know that I did wrong. I’m not worthy to be received back into your care, I’ll do anything you ask.” He’s under the impression that to get his life back in order, he’s going to need to go through shame, and that’s a certain kind of thinking that is very pervasive in our culture. We are a culture of “I told you so”. But here is where Jesus introduces the big surprise of the story. The loving father’s love is not conditioned by an “I told you so” mentality. We would expect the father to be waiting in this chair waiting for the son to explain himself, and the son is probably ready to receive the list of things he would need to do to earn back his father‘s love and respect, but that’s not how this father acts. This father does something that is completely different than what the society of Jesus’ time would’ve prescribed. And so we got to the moment where the wasteful son is out there in the horizon, walking back towards the father, and he’s probably practicing his little monologue. He’s rehearsing everything that needs to happen, but instead the father catches the smallest glimpse of his son‘s return, as my mentor described this scene, a

speck in the horizon. And instead of waiting for him to come and explain himself, the father rushes towards him. He does not scold him, he does not tell him “I told you so”, he does not shame him. Instead, he embraces him and showers him with kisses. He even interrupts the rehearsed monologue that the son was going to give him, and calls upon the servants of the family to look for the finest clothing, to prepare the grandest celebration. In other words, to give him back the dignity of his sonship, because this son whom he loved, who whom he thought lost, whom he thought dead, has come back to life. It is not a burden that has appeared, but celebratory joy at the son‘s return.

Now the other brother notices the difference. He was the responsible one and yet what does he have to show for all his good work? To which the father says: everything I have is yours. There’s no need to compete for the father’s affection. The father is extravagant in love. The logic of punishment is not what prevails in Jesus’ mind, it is the extravagance of God’s grace. We should respond with extravagant compassion rather than punishment. So in the end, there are two extravagant and wasteful characters in this story. There is the son who from his father‘s graces he wastes everything away, and then we have the extravagantly loving father, who pays no expense at showering his son with compassion and seeing him return to life.

So why does Jesus tell us this story? Jesus is responding to the criticism from the Pharisees, from the people who kept up religious law of why Jesus would hang out with tax collectors and sinners, so in response, Jesus tells them this parable. The

purpose is that the God of the Pharisees, and the religious professionals, and those that do everything right is the same God that welcomes those seemed unworthy, those who fail those and don’t measure up. Jesus tells us this story because he wants us to know that God is a loving father that God is not passive in the face of our waywardness, but at the most minimal sign of our return, of our repentance, of realizing our need that God will rush out to meet us, and embrace us, and shower us with kisses. He will celebrate with a feast our true belonging with him. How often are we wasteful of the blessings that God has given us in our lives and the response of God is not how do you prove your worthiness, rather he shows us the merciful gaze of Christ. He shows us the length that he is willing to go for us, he shows us his readiness to embrace us, even when we are at our lowest. So who is this God that we worship? He is the Loving Father. The father who is ready to forgive and restore us to life again and again.

What good news it is that we have such an extravagant God. Which means that we ourselves are called to participate in similar extravagance. God does not leave us at the margins of the feast, he wants us to broaden the table. As the apostle Paul said, we are called to this ministry of reconciliation, to be ambassadors for this Christ that lives in this radical way of love and mercy. We no longer regard others’ by a human point of view, we see them with the eyes of new Creation in Christ. Beloved, do not be sticklers for who is worthy or unworthy, be connecting points of the embrace of the Loving Father. Spread the good news: that God desires mercy, hospitality, love. We

are currently living in a time where cruelty gets a free pass. Christ calls us to a different kind of life. May we pray to be empowered to widen the gates of mercy in our midst. Let us pray.