The story is told about a soldier during combat. He was drinking heavily and was a constant menace to his comrades. His commanding officer had had him on the carpet several times. But on this occasion he was ready to throw the book at him. Said the colonel to his lieutenant, “I have given him every break.” The officer responded, “Sir, you have punished him and it hasn’t worked. Why not forgive him?” The colonel accepted the advice. To the soldier he said, “I have punished you many times. Punishment has not worked. This time I am going to forgive you. Your many offences will be removed from your personnel folder.” The soldier, who had expected a court martial, broke down and wept. More to the point, he never drank again.
This was probably the first and perhaps last time the commander acted in this merciful and indulgent fashion. However, such a procedure luckily for us is standard operation procedure on the part of God. Today’s parable clearly underlines this point.
In literature, this story is called the parable of the Prodigal Son. Prodigal the son was with his inheritance from his father but so have been countless other sons. But what does not happen often is that this son was totally forgiven by his father. And there was much more than forgiveness. He was restored to full honors in the family hierarchy. Despite the son’s expectations, the father spoke not one word of reproach against his younger child. It was Andrew Greeley I believe who said the parable might be better called the Parable of the Crazy Father.
Today’s parable is found in the fifteenth chapter of St Luke’s Gospel. For many people, this celebrated chapter is the summing up of the entire Gospel. To their reasoning, the fifteenth chapter offers to readers the very core of the wonderful message that the Christ came to preach.
The parable father, in Christ’s mind, is clearly a type for God Himself. What is emphasized in the parable is the father’s awesome love for his son even though he really deserves nothing more than hot tongue and cold shoulder. The father knows well the know-it-all boy is primarily coming home because he is hungry and needs a place to live. That he has wasted his money is of no importance to the father.
The Master then is telling us that God will forgive even the worst rogue among us unconditionally. All we have to do is start walking back to God. Like the prodigal son, our motives may not be the purest. Nor do we have to even finish the journey. God is quite willing to meet us before our trip is finished. He will bring us to honors which we humanly speaking do not deserve. Obviously God merits the label “this tremendous lover.” As William Bausch puts it, God is among the very few who stoops to conquer.
Abraham Lincoln, William Barclay tells us, was asked by a journalist how he would react to the rebels after hostilities ceased. Immediately the President answered, “I will treat them as though they had never been away.” President Lincoln must have reflected on this parable often.
The elder brother knew that his father’s heart was breaking over his missing son. Why had he not gone out in search of his brother if for no other reason than to give joy to his father?
The elder brother is of course a type for our selves. He had absolutely no sympathy for his brother. Had he had the opportunity, he would have tarred and feathered his younger brother. He would then have run him off the property on a rail. But his sibling’s misadventures cost him nothing. As the elder brother, two thirds of his father’s estate was legally his. His money was safe and protected. His brother had wasted the third of the estate that was rightfully his own by law. Notice too the older fellow had an ugly mindset. It was he who suggested that his brother had spent his inheritance on fast women and slow horses.
Lent is fast becoming history. Why not resolve to behave toward sinners as Lincoln did and not as the elder son? Can we, asks James Tahaney, be less patient with others than God is with us? The choice is ours. Recall the wise man who told us forgiveness and reconciliation are the oxygen of Christianity.