A Concord Pastor Comments: Homily for March 31

Prodigal Son Parable by Thomas Bertram Poole

Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent
Scriptures for today's Mass

As you probably know, I write a daily prayer on my blog.

Here’s part of a prayer I wrote over 5 years ago:

The truth is, Lord, you and I have some unfinished business,
a few loose ends to tie up, an unsettled account or two...
You know it, Lord, and I know it –
even if I try to hide from it or forget it...
Remind me of your mercy and your pardon, Lord,
and give me the honesty, the courage and the strength I need
to be reconciled with you…

That’s a longer way of putting what we just heard from St. Paul
Be reconciled to God…
And Jesus offers the same message in the gospel,
at much greater length, in this parable of the prodigal son.
Be reconciled to God.

The story of this father and his two sons is perhaps the richest
of all the parables Jesus preached.

• There’s the desire for wealth and possessions
without having the burden of working for them or earning them.

• There’s a stretch of “good times” with no worries or cares.

• Then there are hard times and disillusionment

- along with sorrow and remorse.

• There’s the pain and embarrassment

of ending up in desperate circumstances.

• There’s facing the truth, swallowing your pride,
and the “walk of shame” back to the very one
who has every right to judge, reject and condemn you.

• But there’s also a surprise turn of events:
the father’s heart is a court of mercy; a court of amazing grace;
he embraces and forgives the guilty;
he welcomes home the offender, the infidel, the betrayer.

There’s so much to consider here;

so much spiritual food for thought;
so many dimensions to these well-known human experiences.
But let’s take some time to study

not so much the son’s return at the end
but rather the time he spent in the city.

There’s a value for us in seeing

that while the younger son was away,“livin’ the dream”

on his father’s credit card,
he thought of his life as blessed, not cursed.

His money and the luxuries and they life-style they afforded him

made him feel good, made him feel good about himself.

He mistook his material prosperity for a “blessed” life.

• His creature comforts kept him from seeing and acknowledging
his faults, his greed, his mistakes, his sins and his need for God.

• He totally lost sight of his need for that blessing, grace and peace
that no money, possession, relationship or experience can offer us.

• It’s probably fair to say

that while this son was enjoying the “high life,”
he thought he had no sins.

• Only when his personal economy tanked did he

“come to his senses,”
did he realize the error of his ways,
did he recognize how shallow had been his happiness,
and how foolish his choices.

• If we want to find ourselves in the story of the prodigal son,
we might do well to concentrate on that time when he thought
he didn’t really have any real sins.

(How many of us think just this way about ourselves?

“I don’t really have any real sins - nothing worth confessing!)

• We might focus on this period in the son’s life

when he perceived his material comfort to be an entitlement,

an entitlement that certainly kept him from seeing,

from tending to:
any unfinished business, the loose ends he needed to tie up,
the unsettled account between him and his father.

When we look to this part of the son’s story,

we might begin to look at

- what masquerades as contentment in our own lives,

- what keeps us from looking deeper, below the surface;
- what keeps us from acknowledging the truth of the
unfinished business, loose ends, and unsettled accounts
in need of our attention.

At least you and I have the benefit of knowing beforehand
the surprise turn of events that awaits us
every time we “come to our senses,” as the prodigal did,
every time we return to the open arms

of our God’s merciful welcome home.

Lent is a time for taking inventory,

a time for “coming to our senses,”

a time for wrapping up some unfinished business with God,
a time for coming home to the Father
and asking for his pardon and his peace.

In our own personal prayer,

in the Sacrament of Reconciliation
and here at the altar,
the Lord gives us the grace

to examine our hearts and come home to him.

As the prodigal’s father welcomed him back to a family feast,
so does the Lord want to welcome us
to the feast of the Table of the Eucharist.

So pray with me:

The truth is, Lord, we all have some unfinished business,
a few loose ends to tie up, an unsettled account or two...
You know it, Lord, and we know it –
even if we try to hide from it or forget it...
Remind us of your mercy and your pardon, Lord,
and give us the honesty, the courage and the strength we need
to come home to you,

to be reconciled with you…