Joshua 5:9-12; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke
15:1-3,11-32
During the past week I found myself in the ½ Acre café having a coffee with an Iranian doctor. He is an extremely interesting and deeply spiritual man. We began by speaking about the concept of mercy and somehow ended up talking about our fathers. You know, I was astonished at how similar our fathers were.
We concluded with all the predictable clichés about fathers: it's hard being a father, we must have mercy on our fathers, all fathers are in some ways defective, fathers can only do their best, and so on.
That conversation was still with me when I came to sit down again with today's gospel and the strong figure of the father at its centre. Obviously he was a good father. He loved both his sons and tried his best to show them this love.
Nevertheless, I wondered whether he was, indeed, a perfect father. Now I know he stands for God the Father in the parable so probably I must suppose that he was a perfect father. But then there are questions which arise, like:
How come he couldn't get
his sons to love him in return? (Because
neither of them did.) Was there something
more he could have, or should have, done to bring his two boys to enter into a
loving relationship with him?
My friend and I spoke at length about our own fathers and
the way in which they let us know they loved us. I must admit, they were not
very good at it. But we also admitted that they were no worse at it than the
two of us are at letting others know we love them.
It's difficult, isn't it – letting others know we love
them?
I am certain that the father in the gospel would have
said: I did everything I could to show my
boys that I loved them and that my love was unconditional. My younger son took
advantage of that while the older one refused to understand it. And for the life
of me I can't understand they did that.
The younger son is, of course, the same man we saw in the
gospel this morning. He was a great sinner and knelt at the back of the synagogue
saying, 'God, be merciful to me a sinner.' Like the younger son he was made 'at
rights with God.'
The older son represents the man who 'stood' (that's important)
at the front (that's important too) and told God why he was so good: I thank you, God, that I am not grasping,
unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not
like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.
These words are not so different from: Look, all these years I have slaved for you
and never once disobeyed your orders…
What sad, tragic words! What an unhappy family that must
have been deep down!
Sons are pretty good at blaming their fathers for their
own shortcomings. 'He never showed me he loved me!' You never offered me so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my
friends. (With his friends, not with his father.)
The father was too overjoyed as getting back his beloved
child for him to worry about asking his delinquent son about the money or how
he had spent it. His elder brother had no such qualms: But, for this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up
your property – he and his women – you kill the calf we had been
fattening.
And maybe that's where the rubber hits the road. The
elder son saw and understood, deeply, that his father had an irrepressible,
unconditional love for the younger lad – you
kill the calf we had been fattening – and he was so outraged by that that the
father's consoling words were lost on him: My
son, you are with me always and all I have is yours.
Yes, fathers are often not good at expressing their love
for their children but then children are not so good at expressing their love
for their fathers, or for each other. I guess that is where the other subject
of our conversation comes in – mercy – the compassion we have for the pitiable
state of others, and of ourselves.
