Today’s Gospel contains, not one, or two, but three parables – including what is one of Jesus’ most well known parables – and yet all three parables are told to make the same essential point: God’s loving mercy is so extravagant, so over-the-top, so crazy even, that He does not wait for us to return to Him, He goes out and finds us when we are lost, and celebrates when He brings us home.
Jesus addresses all of these parables to the Pharisees and scribes who have criticized Him for welcoming and eating with tax collectors and sinners. To the self-righteous Pharisees and scribes, these lost ones were not worthy of Jesus’ attention. Jesus responds to his critics with a question, “What man among you having a hundred sheep, and losing one, would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?’
The answer, of course, is no one!! This is absolutely crazy! First of all, would the shepherd even be able to recognize that just one of a hundred sheep was missing? And even if he made a count and came up one short, common sense and the simple analysis of cost and benefit would cause the shepherd to stay with the ninety-nine sheep – especially in the desert where there are so many predators and dangers. To lose just one sheep would be considered a very profitable return.
And yet Jesus’ parable assumes the opposite. Jesus says that the shepherd DOES go in search of the one, and when he finds it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy, and invites his friends and neighbors to celebrate with him when he gets home.
The second parable Jesus tells is similarly absurd. A woman with ten coins – in the Greek, it is clear that they are mere pennies – loses one, and she lights a lamp, and sweeps the house, searching “carefully” for her lost penny. And then, after finding the coin she calls together her friends and says, “Rejoice with me, because I found the coin that was lost.”
What would you think of a neighbor or friend who invited you to a party to celebrate the fact they had found a lost penny in the cushions of the sofa? You would think they were crazy! Who celebrates finding a penny, and what sense does it make to spend so much more than a penny in order to throw a party?
And yet in both cases, Jesus concludes His parable by explaining that they are images of the Heavenly banquet: there will be “more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents” He says, “than over ninety-nine righteous who have no need of repentance.”
Typically, when the Scriptures speak of repentance, there is an understanding that repentance requires a sinner’s decision to return; their choice of conversion. And there is, of course, great truth that understanding. But the parables in today’s Gospel make clear that there is another, even more important movement involved in repentance.
The absurdity of the shepherd who searches for one sheep, and the craziness of the woman who celebrates finding a penny, are meant to shock us into realizing that repentance is a matter of being found by a loving God who searches for the lost, carries them home, and celebrates their return.
Even in our second reading we get a glimpse of this, when St. Paul writes to Timothy: “I have been treated mercifully: the grace of our Lord has been abundant.” Paul knew that he did not effect his own conversion. While he was still lost, still persecuting the Church, God sought him out, and found him, and brought him home.
And so too, it was “while we were still sinners, that Christ died for us, the righteous for the unrighteous.”
This is the proper context in which to interpret the third parable in today’s Gospel. It’s one of the best-known parables in all of the Gospels, and we typically call it the Parable of the Prodigal Son. That’s because the story begins with a younger son who demands his share of the inheritance, and then spends the money recklessly – in a wastefully extravagant way: prodigally.
But the story really isn’t about him! It’s about his father, and the way he responds to his son.
After his life of dissipation and defilement, the son has to hire himself out – making himself a slave, working with unclean swine. And he recons that the pigs have it better than he does! So the son plans to return to his father’s house, and he practices his speech of repentance.
Is he truly repentant, is he really sorry, or is he just desperate? That’s unclear – and for the point of the parable, it doesn’t matter!
The point is that the father, presumably an older man of considerable means, embarrasses himself by running out to meet his son – “while he was still far off,” he welcomes him home.
There is no “I told you so” here. There is no anger at his son’s terribly insulting demand for his share of the inheritance. Instead the father interrupts the son’s confession, kisses him, puts sandals on his feet and puts a ring on his finger and throws a party. The son is not a slave or a servant – and never could be – he is still a beloved child, no matter what he has done.
So it’s truly the father who is prodigal, extravagant, even foolish in the way he shows love and mercy. And as in the parable of the lost sheep, and the lost coin, the lesson is that there is no length to which God will not go to welcome us back to Himself. He goes out to find us, and brings us back to His house. We are not slaves or servants – the Master calls us friends and the Father calls us beloved children.
And in case we still don’t get it, there is yet one more piece of the lesson.
Working in the fields the older son hears that his brother has returned and that his father has thrown a party to celebrate, and he becomes jealous and resentful. He refuses to come into the father’s house – refuses to join the family celebration. The elder son speaks of himself as a servant or slave, not as a son, and he even refuses to refer to his brother, instead calling him “your son.”
And yet what does the father do? Yet again, he humbles himself and goes out to his son. He pleads with him and says: “You are with me always, everything I have is yours.”
Brothers and sisters, we were the lost sheep, the lost coin, the unfaithful child. And yet, when “we were lost and could not find the way” to Him, God’s prodigal mercy and love sent us His only Son to come in search of us; to lay down His life to save us.
The Eucharist we now celebrate is that “joy in heaven,” that “rejoicing among the angels” over us lost ones who have been restored to the Father by the Lord’s sacrificial love. We give thanks for having been given a share in such a prodigal love.
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