READINGS

Luke 15:1-3 The Parable of the Lost Sheep Luke 15:11-32 The Parable of the Lost Son

Genesis 27:15 Genesis 41:42-4 Genesis 33:4 Genesis 45:14-15 Genesis 45:16 Genesis 46:29

Exodus 10:16 Leviticus 8:12-14 2 Chronicles 7:5

HOMILY

And the Gospel today is the Gospel all about rejoicing.

Luke 15 starts with the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus and the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying: this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.

And our Gospel then jumps from that verse to the beginning of today's parable.

But in between that and this there are two other parables.

The first is the parable of the lost sheep: there's a hundred sheep, loses one, leaves the 99, goes after the one, then brings them back. And at the end there is a party, says: I need to rejoice because it's been found.

The second is the widow with her 10 coins and she loses one, goes and finds it, comes back and throws a party because there's a need to rejoice: that which is lost has been found.

So we can tell what the key to interpretation of the third one is: out of two sons, one is lost and later found, so this needs to have a party and rejoice.

Rejoice is the key word. Party time is what this Gospel is about.

I don't think the phrase parable of the prodigal son is a good title.

My personal preferred title for it is the parable of the self-effacing father.

Or the parable of the two quarrelsome brothers.

So Jesus said: there was a man who had two sons. That's a perfectly straightforward piece of storytelling in a world in the Hebrew scriptures in which there are often two sons.

The younger of them said to the father: father give me the property, the share of the property that will belong to me. So he divided his property between them.

The surprise versus so he divided his property between them.

That means he didn't say: okay, you, the younger son, take the one-third that is allowed you by Deuteronomy, meanwhile I will keep the remaining two-thirds and I will eventually give it to my elder son, or he'll get it when I pop my clogs.

None of that! The father, effaces himself from being a property owner, he gives it away.

He is now only the nominal principal of the property, but it's not his, he's given it away both to the younger son and the other son.

The question is how are each of them going to treat it. I bring that out because that's going to be very important at the end of the parable.

We don't realize that he's actually given the property already to the eldest son.

A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country.

Now that gathering all he had didn't only mean you know putting his sports trophies in his rucksack. It meant selling his part of the property.

In other words, it was a very considerable public shaming of the father who had known that the son was fed up with life at home and was going off, because that something, I'd thought of the property, will have required realizing fixed assets, making them liquid.

And there he squandered his property in dissolute living. It just says he spendthrift it.

So remember we tend to think of oh he spent it all on whores. Why? That's because that's what the elder brother says later. But it doesn't say that, we don't know what he spent it on. It may just be that he wasn't very good with money.

When he'd spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country and he began to be in need. Obviously, references to Egypt: far country, Egypt, famine (all of these bells will have gone up in people's minds).

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. So the ultimate humiliation for a good Hebrew boy - having to look after these radically unclean animals.

He would gladly fill himself with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything.

In other words, he was beyond caring about issues of purity, he was just very hungry.

And it says: when he came to himself.

It doesn't say: then he felt sorry for what he'd done.

There's nothing theological about this, there's no act of repentance involved here.

When he came to himself, he said: how many of my father's hired servants have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!

I will get up, I'd go to my father and I will say to him: father I have sinned against heaven and before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me like one of your hired ones.

He's saying: I realize my dad doesn't owe me anything, because I've already had my portion, but I can at least turn up and ask to be treated as a servant and burn my living. Perhaps that will work.

His coming to himself - there are no great theological shakes here.

However, about the interpretation of the phrase "father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy to be called your son, treat me like one of your hired ones".

The first hearers are likely to pick this up in two ways.

The first thing is that it was actually the form of confession that happened at the right of the atonement, according to Mishnah Yoma.

This would have been a bit like how we say at the beginning of Mass I confess to you, Almighty Father, and to my sisters and brothers.

But it's actually a quote from the Hebrew scriptures, from Exodus.

And you'll be surprised at who says it to who! - The answer is pharaoh says it to Moses.

And it's a trick, it's a fake confession, it's merely pharaoh jumping through the hoops to try and get Moses off his back with all these magic tricks which Moses is doing rather better than pharaoh's own magicians.

So this wasn't about sinning against you and against heaven and before you, it's ironic, it's not repentance.

He's being presented to someone who's jumping through the hoops, not as someone who's deeply brokenhearted if you like about what's going on.

So here we have this entirely realistic, but you know not particularly upset, but just entirely realistic son.

He goes off to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion.

He ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.

Now, this is the line of course that everyone remembers.

It's also a bit surprising, because it's a direct quote from the Hebrew scriptures actually.

It's a triple direct quote, it was three times in Hebrew scriptures, but (and here's the secret), it's never the father who falls on the son's neck and kisses him.

1. In the first, it's Esau, an elder brother, who falls on Jacob, his brother's neck and kisses him.

2. In the second, it's Joseph falling on Benjamin's neck so that's Joseph, an older one, falling on his younger brother's neck.

3. In the third, it's a Joseph again. This time falling on Jacob Israel, his father's neck, when he finally comes down to be with him.

At no time at all is this the behavior of a father. The father's behavior is completely unfather-like.

In fact, running towards him is what Esau did.

Running towards somebody for a father is a grossly unpatriarchal thing to do.

I mean, you lift up your skirts and waddle. In other words, this is part of the self-effacing father.

All the behaviors described are the behaviours not of a father but of an elder brother or a son.

The father is being depaternalized, depatriarchised at every stage of this parable.

So he ran around, put his arms against him. Then the son says to him: father, I've seen it...

The son tries to start trotting out his jumping through the hoops, you know: I'll get my speech out. But the father pays no attention at all. He doesn't even talk to him, doesn't address him by name or even talk to him at all.

In fact, the son disappears in the rest of the story.

The father simply says: quickly bring out a robe, the best one, put it on him, put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.

In other words, he treats him as pharaoh treats Joseph: as the high priest (with the best robe, with a ring on his finger).

The implication also is that he is this priestly figure having perhaps already been sacrificed.

Get the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate: this was the sacrifice for the inauguration of the Temple.

And it's quite probable that this parable was a homily for the feast of the foundation of the temple.

So we have the notion of the received son coming back and a huge party being organized for him.

But the son himself seems to have disappeared.

Get the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again, he was lost and his found.

And they began to celebrate. So here we have in a sense the celebration of the sacrificed son who's come back and has now risen to be with his father.

His eldest son was in the field. When he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.

The eldest son in the field - a quick reminder: Cain in the field - yes, all of that is fairly obvious.

He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.

And he replied - not as we'd expected: your brother has returned, and your father has killed the fatted calf, but: your brother has come and your father has killed the fatted calf.

Why do I make that point? Because if he said he'd returned, the verb return is a reference to the Hebrew verb which means to repent, but here it just says, quite literally in Greek, "your brother has come".

And it's again a direct reference to the Joseph story, in the Book of Genesis.

After Joseph has been reunited with the brothers, they have a huge party in the house and they make such a row that they wake up pharaoh's household; the pharaoh sent messengers who ask a servant boy: what's going on? Why is it such a row? And the boy answers: his brothers have come.

The only difference between the two quotes is that one is in the singular: his brother has come - and the plural in Genesis: brothers have come. So this is clearly a reference to that.

But then the other brother became angry. In other words, he's jealous and refused to go in.

And this is the tragedy: the brother refuses to enter into the rejoicing.

Then his father came out and began to plead with him.

Once again - the least possible patriarchal thing to do.

If you're the father and in charge of a party, the one thing you don't do is go out and bring in some recalcitrant son into the party.

On the contrary: you send out a servant or just conceivably you send out the guy's brother to deal with it.

So here please notice that the father has become completely self-effacing.

This is a person with no self-importance at all, his only interest is in representing the possibility of a reconciliation between the brothers.

His father came out and began to plead with him.

This is a reference almost to St Paul pleading: we've become an ambassador for Christ.

He's become an ambassador for his son.

And he [oldest son] became angry, he answered his father: listen, for all these years I've been working like a slave for and I've never disobeyed your command, yet you've never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.

So this is Cain annoyed at the successful sacrifice of Abel with the fatted calf.

He's annoyed that there's a party going.

This is all the brother's. He's been obedient, he's obeyed all the commandments, but he's failed to pick up that it was all his anyhow.

He could have had a number of goats he liked. It was already his.

Then he says: but when this son of yours, who has divided your property with prostitutes, came back, you killed the fatted calf for him.

The older brother says: this son of yours. In other words, refusing his own fraternity, won't refer to him as his brother.

Moreover, he hasn't any sense that this stuff was already his own. The father reminds him of it.

Father says: son, you're always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

In fact, curiously, he doesn't call him a son, but Teknon (child). It's a tender word, but it's not the same as the son.

Please notice what this parable is about: the true generosity and presence of the father are in producing the party.

That's all in a sense he wants to do, and the party's only really a party if he can get the brothers to rejoice together.

That's the longing of the father in this party.

We have to rejoice, will you come in? Will you dare to come in? It's the story of two quarrelsome brothers and the self-effacing father who is only realized, if you like, who only becomes a father when the brothers rejoice the self-effacing father.

This is not about a story of penitence, it's a story about someone attempting to produce togetherness amongst brothers.

And that's what the party is all about.

The suggestion what is our Lent is for: a time when we learn to be reconciled with each other so that we can celebrate together the great Passover in which the son has disappeared in our midst to be the beginning of the great feast.

That's what we are called to do today on this the Sunday of rejoicing, Laetare Sunday.