Faith | Cats | Hope | Grace

The Gospel for this week of Lent is a beautiful but hard story, depending on where you see yourself in the story. The Prodigal Son takes his half of the inheritance, squanders it in the most irresponsible ways possible, and then comes home tail tucked between his legs. Instead of getting a very deserved stern talking to and a place in the community that would provide him his needs, he is welcomed home with open arms and celebrated. The elder brother who has remained at home and been the dutiful son comes home from work and sees this celebration and understandably is put out. As a perpetual goody-two-shoes, I see myself as the elder son, reliable, but overlooked. I intellectually get the “point” of the parable, but in that moment of his younger brother’s return, I would be lying if I said I wasn’t with the elder brother and the deep unfairness of it all.

I’ve sat with this story for years, and while it’s no less hard, there are two things I’ve settled on. The first, God’s love isn’t “fair.” That’s kinda the whole point. The story of the Prodigal Son is a story of boundless mercy and grace. The younger son comes home and there is no punishment for his behavior. There’s no plan put in place for him to earn back the money he lost. There’s no mention of trust that will need to be re-earned. Instead, he is met with open arms and great love. Instead, we can almost see the robe that is wrapped around him—the best one—as the stayed hand of judgement. The younger son knows there should be consequences for his actions and he is prepared to accept them, but through his father’s love he is shown great mercy. The celebration, the killing of the fatted calf, is a visible sign of grace. An undeserved favor. After his time of dissolute living, the Prodigal Son comes home and is wrapped in mercy and feted with grace.

And secondly, here is where I take comfort as the proverbial elder child, at some point we all have or will be the Prodigal Son. We may not ever recognize that moment in our lives and it may not be as dramatic as the Biblical Prodigal Son, but there will be times when we squander our gifts, when we experience a moment of mercy in our lives, when we are welcomed back with love and open arms. There is a danger in seeing ourselves only as the Elder Son and never as the Prodigal Son. None of us are as perfect as we would like to believe.  And it prevents us from seeing the love and gifts we have been given.

May we continue to be wrapped in mercy and feted with grace.