Looking at the story of the Prodigal Son, Fr Oliver Treanor is able to show us the extravagance of the love God the Father and Jesus has for each one of us.
Jesus’ boldest parable, the most stunning of all of them, was his story of the Prodigal Son. Here he set out to do the impossible to measure the immeasurable mercy of God. It is also the simplest of stories, the most credible. A parent worried about his adolescent child. A son gone off the rails. The generation gap, youthful arrogance, a break from home, a youngster away on his own and no word from him.
Understanding love
Incredibly modern, isn’t it? It could be inner-city Dublin or rural Donegal. The problem of wayward children and heart-broken parents doesn’t change very much through the centuries. What makes Jesus’ parable so poignant (he understood the pain people go through so well) is the utter goodness of the father of the boy. He didn’t cause a row, have a confrontation, utter rash words, bang doors. He just quietly accepted the situation and said nothing as the boy gathered his things – including his father’s money – and left.
The man’s silence was not indifference. The fact that he ran out to meet his son when the lad returned meant he had been watching out for him at the door. Not just for a day or a week or a month, but for the length of time it takes to squander an inheritance, live a life of debauchery, run out of cash, look for a job, start to feel wretched and decide to come home.
Waiting to welcome
In this the Prodigal’s father is like Jesus’ Father. Ready to wait for a life-time for his children to come to their senses, and come back.
And that is what all Jesus’ parables are about. A Father waiting to welcome all who return to him freely, a tender-eyed parent who watches in hope that some day the money will run out and the children will reappear, if for no other reason than that they are hungry and destitute.
It did not matter to the father in the story that his son’s return was as selfish as his departure. The boy was shrewd. He sized up his chances when his fortune changed, took advantage of his father’s soft-heartedness, and grasped the opportunity of a reconciliation that suited his needs.
A lesser father would have let him stew in his own juice, work for his keep, repay what he flittered away. But not this one. Because he was like God he threw a party to celebrate his son’s coming home. ‘He was lost and was found,’ he said joyfully, ‘was dead and has come back to life’.
So he killed the fatted calf to make it a feast to remember.
Extravagant love
It was a bit like defrosting the Christmas turkey in October! ‘You never did that for me,’ complained the other son who was quite unlike his brother. And indeed one can understand his point. It was one thing to take the Prodigal in without recrimination. But then to go over the top by slaughtering the calf they had been saving! It was a desperate extravagance. Away beyond what the occasion called for. And totally undeserved. There was no need at all to humour the brat. Anyone would think he was being rewarded for his sins.
Why did Jesus have to exaggerate? The reality is even greater than the parable. To celebrate the sinner’s conversion, it was no fatted calf that God killed but his own Beloved Son. For it is the body of Christ, clubbed and slaughtered on the cross that provides the food at the reconciliatory meal when wayward sons and daughters come home to him again.
The extravagance of God’s love boggles the imagination when you think about it. It doesn’t make sense; love never does. No sacrifice is too much when one loves as God loves. One doesn’t think when the heart overrides the head. The heavenly Father’s heart overrode the head on Good Friday. Jesus saw it coming and accepted it with out a murmur. The fact that he composed the parable shows he understood why it had to be done. How else could the world be convinced there is no limit whatever to divine mercy? What better way to persuade the unbelieving?
Regret
Isn’t it a pity that so many don’t get the message? Or even worse, that they don’t care. If they did they would not avoid the home-coming sacrament of reconsiliation or absent themselves from the celebratory banquet of the Mass.
This article first appeared in The Messenger (March 1998), a publication of the Irish Jesuits.
