I am reminded as I reflect on today’s readings, particularly the gospel (Lk 15:1-3, 11-32), of a certain childhood experience.When I was very young, my family, living in Milaca, had a house on Central Avenue, at the crest of a gentle hill coming up from the direction of the Rum River.A block or two down that hill was my father’s Culligan Water Softeningbusiness.The memory being stirred up today is one involving my father and my youngest sister.Occasionally, Lynn and I would be outside, in the front yard, at the time my dad would be walking up that hill coming home for supper.We would catch sight of him, start walking and then running down the little hill to meet him.By the time we got to him we would be running about as fast as our little legs would carry us, right into the open arms of dad, who would grab us up, hold us, and carry us along for several feet.Then we would walk the rest of the way home with dad.
It really is, for me, a memory of tenderness and the enthusiastic joy of a child encountering a parent.
That is the heart of Jesus’ parable.The tenderness and enthusiastic joy of a son encountering a father.Here, though, that tenderness and joy is amplified.Amplified by a separation most disrespectful, by an absence of great duration, by the son’s fear about what kind of reception he would receive melting away in the amazement of mercy, and by a father’s surge of joy with the disappearance of an agony as he realizes that his son is not dead, but alive!
This amplification of tenderness and joy is captured in one line of the parable.I remember running toward my father.The Father of Jesus, though, “ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him” (v. 20).Dirty, broken in spirit, shamed and foolish, still somehow, and it is beyond comprehension, the son remains utterly attractive to the father, the father remains utterly caught up in love for the son.
This Lent we have already heard the call to repentance many times.The depth of our bondage to deadly passions has frequently been pointed out.The immense need for forgiveness in our relationships has been made ever so clear.
When all is said and done, though, today’s gospel parable tells the true tale.The real problem with all that is that it serves to keep us from a Father who loves us, delights in us with a running out to us sort of love, a Father who wants nothing more then to embrace us, kiss us, and bring us around his table to demonstrate his celebrating love for us.
We are a wounded people.I, at least, am a wounded person.How hard it is for me to get this reality of the God of Jesus Christ into my heart.How many times and ways I still go off, like that younger son, searching for my hearts fulfillment when I have a Father who is Lord of all that is and who says to me “My son…everything I have is yours” (v. 31).
Today, I need to pray, to really bring my heart to the Father. I will ask him to heal all that keeps me from his love, from living in the reality of his love.All the false images, the self-condemnation, the distortions of my wondering passions.I will repeat, slowly and within myself, the response to today’s psalm, “The Lord is kind and merciful…the Lord is kind and merciful…the Lord is kind and merciful…”