Gospel for Sunday, March 30: IV Sunday of Lent Year C – Luke 15:1 – 3. 11-32
1 All the publicans and sinners came to him to hear him. 2 The Pharisees and scribes murmured, “He receives sinners and eats with them.” 3 Then he told them this parable:
11 He said again, “A man had two sons. 12 The younger said to his father, Father, give me my share of the inheritance. And the father divided the substance between them. 13 After not many days, the younger son, having collected his things, set out for a far country and there squandered his substance by living dissolute. 14 When he had spent everything, a great famine came to that country and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and entered the service of one of the inhabitants of that region, who sent him into the fields to herd swine. 16 He would have liked to have been satiated with the locusts that the swine ate; but no one gave him any. 17 Then he came to himself and said, How many wage earners in my father’s house have bread in abundance, and I am starving here! 18 I will arise and go to my father and say to him, Father, I have sinned against Heaven and against you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your servants. 20 He departed and set out for his father.Quando era ancora lontano il padre lo vide e commosso gli corse incontro, gli si gettò al collo e lo baciò. 21 Il figlio gli disse: Padre, ho peccato contro il Cielo e contro di te; non sono più degno di esser chiamato tuo figlio. 22 Ma il padre disse ai servi: Presto, portate qui il vestito più bello e rivestitelo, mettetegli l’anello al dito e i calzari ai piedi. 23 Portate il vitello grasso, ammazzatelo, mangiamo e facciamo festa, 24 perché questo mio figlio era morto ed è tornato in vita, era perduto ed è stato ritrovato. E cominciarono a far festa.
25 Il figlio maggiore si trovava nei campi. Al ritorno, quando fu vicino a casa, udì la musica e le danze; 26 chiamò un servo e gli domandò che cosa fosse tutto ciò. 27 Il servo gli rispose: È tornato tuo fratello e il padre ha fatto ammazzare il vitello grasso, perché lo ha riavuto sano e salvo. 28 Egli si arrabbiò, e non voleva entrare. Il padre allora uscì a pregarlo. 29 Ma lui rispose a suo padre: Ecco, io ti servo da tanti anni e non ho mai trasgredito un tuo comando, e tu non mi hai dato mai un capretto per far festa con i miei amici. 30 Ma ora che questo tuo figlio che ha divorato i tuoi averi con le prostitute è tornato, per lui hai ammazzato il vitello grasso. 31 Gli rispose il padre: Figlio, tu sei sempre con me e tutto ciò che è mio è tuo; 32 ma bisognava far festa e rallegrarsi, perché questo tuo fratello era morto ed è tornato in vita, era perduto ed è stato ritrovato».Lk 15:1 – 3. 11-32
Dear sisters and brothers of Misericordia, I am Carlo Miglietta, a doctor, biblical scholar, layman, husband, father and grandfather (www.buonabibbiaatutti.it). Also today I share with you a short thought meditation on the Gospel, with special reference to the theme of mercy.
Just two parables
We generally consider three separate parables: the lost sheep, the lost coin and finally the so-called parable of the prodigal son. Actually, upon close analysis of the text, we are faced with only two parables: one, that of the finding of what was lost, declined first in the masculine (the shepherd and the sheep) and then in the feminine (the woman and the coin), the other of the merciful father. In fact, syntactically, too, we read first, “Jesus told them this parable” (Lk 15:3), which is followed by the single narrative of the finding first of the sheep by the shepherd and then of the drachma by the woman; while the account of the prodigal son is then introduced by an independent beginning, “And he said…” (Lk 15:11).
God is joyful!
Pope Francis said, “The three parables of mercy: that of the lost sheep, that of the lost coin, and then the longest of all parables, typical of St. Luke, that of the father and the two sons, the ‘prodigal’ son and the son who thinks he is ‘righteous,’ who thinks he is holy, all three of these parables speak of God’s joy. God is joyful. Interesting this: God is joyful! And what is God’s joy? God’s joy is forgiving, God’s joy is forgiving! It is the joy of a shepherd who finds his sheep; the joy of a woman who finds her coin; it is the joy of a father who welcomes home his son who was lost, was as if dead and has come back to life, has come home. Here is the whole gospel! Here! Here is the whole Gospel, here is the whole of Christianity!”
In fact, all three parables emphasize God’s joy at the conversion of the sinner. At the end of the first one it says, “There will be more joy in heaven over one converted sinner than over ninety-nine righteous ones who do not need conversion” (Lk 15:7); at the end of the second one, “There is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who is converted” (Lk 15:10); in the third one the Father commands, “Let us make merry, for this son of mine was dead and has come back to life, was lost and has been found” (Lk 15:23-24). Indeed, in the conclusion of the last narrative, the Father emphatically states, “It was necessary (isdeed) to make merry!” (Lk 15:32). The theme of joy runs throughout Luke chapter 15, recurring eight times (Lk 15:5-6,7,9,10,23,24,32).
The discourse then is not moral but theological: the focus of the parables is not on man’s repentance but on God’s joy. No longer is presented a stern and frowning God who waits to punish the wicked, but a God who is joyful and jubilant because he wants to re-embrace his lost children.
The paradox of mercy
Jesus “told them this parable: ‘Which of you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until he finds it?’” (Luke 15:3-4). Did Jesus expect the onlookers to answer him, “Of course, we would have done that too”? But I think in reality few would have acted like the shepherd in the parable. Why risk the ninety-nine sheep to go in search of just one? Doesn’t a proper economic approach always include the possible “scraps of production”? Here a sheep stubborn and disobedient to the shepherd, or eager for autonomy, or tempted by who knows what other pastures, or simply distracted, is lost. The shepherd, in order to go after her, then abandons the other ninety-nine sheep who were instead obedient to him, submissive, content to stay with him. Many commentators say that the shepherd will have left them in a safe fold, or entrusted them to another keeper: but the text actually speaks of true abandonment (kataleìpe: Lk 15:4; aphèse: Mt 18:12). The shepherd abandons them “on the mountains” (Mt 18:12), we read in Matthew’s Gospel, or even “in the wilderness” (Lk 15:4), Luke’s Gospel tells us, that is, exposed to the voracity of wolves and lions, or to the assault of thieves and robbers.
Even the ending of the parable is outside our way of thinking (Lk 15:7): how can God be more pleased with one sinner who returns to him than with ninety-nine righteous ones who faithfully obey him every day, perhaps at the cost of great effort and sacrifice?
But here we are faced with that style of “paradox” that we often find especially in the Gospels: a sometimes even absurd situation is presented but to stress certain concepts.
Here we want first of all to stress that each of us is most precious in God’s eyes: each of us is God’s joy (Is 62:5). “The message of the parable is therefore that of the exclusiveness of each one of us…: no one should feel excluded from God’s attention” (Fr. Farinella). Each of us is unique to God; we are particular objects of his love. God loves each of us as if no one else existed, and continually seeks us out, conquers us, seduces us. For God it is not possible that anyone could be far from his love; God does not tolerate anyone being excluded from his mercy.
The poor seek God
The second story, that of the lost and found coin, reshapes the themes of that of the lost sheep, but with some specific emphases.
First, the protagonist is a poor woman. If the drachma is the daily wage of a farm laborer, this woman’s entire “treasure” was the wages of ten days. While the first story told us about a wealthy landowner who owned a hundred sheep, this second one presents us with a humble person of low status. “Precisely because of her poverty she is particularly interested and passionate in research” (R. Reviglio). Sometimes it is the poor who are the best seekers of the Kingdom of God.
But in the account there is also an ecclesiological emphasis: “If the woman instead of searching had ‘swept’ and thrown the ‘rubbish’ out of the house, she would never have found the coin again; if the community has no patience to check and wait for the growth and full maturation (conversion) of its members, but expels them because of unworthiness or impenitence, it will never happen that it can celebrate their conversion, their return or entry into the kingdom” (O. Da Spinetoli).
The Prodigal Father
In this what has been called “the pearl of parables,” Lord, of “prodigal” there is only You. Prodigal of forgiveness, of mercy, of tenderness, of Love.
From the very beginning, You baffle us with Your attitude of love: when Your second son tells You that he wants to leave home, You refuse to even inquire about his plans, his intentions. And when he leaves, you don’t utter any threats, you don’t issue any excommunication. You don’t tell him the classic, “Look, if you walk out that door…!”: you leave your heart open to him. The son, having reached the bottom of his abjection, will be precisely drawn to the sweetness of your home, even if he hopes to return to it as a servant at best. And he will not return because he is repentant, but out of interest, out of sheer necessity: “I am starving here!”(15:17). He will think to use and exploit you once again.
But you scanned the horizon every day hoping for his return. You spent your days waiting for him. And because of this, “while he was still far away” (15:20), you saw him, and you were deeply “moved,” you wept with joy, and you began to run toward him (15:20). For the Eastern culture, anyone who exercises authority, who starts running, loses his honorability (Sir 19:27; Pr 19:2). Moreover, the son is a swine-keeper; he is unclean. Well, you throw yourself at his neck anyway. You agree to lose face and become unclean yourself in order to impart life to him.
And when the son begins to recite the formula of repentance that he had previously elaborated, he does not let him finish, mad with joy: “This son of mine was dead, and is risen! He was lost, and is found!” (Lk 15:24). You make us understand that the most useless thing is to ask you for forgiveness: never in the Gospels does Jesus invite us to ask you for forgiveness, because you never feel offended. You grant your love to everyone, regardless of our conduct.
Then, oh Lord, you perform a series of actions that leave us truly amazed. The dissolute son is also immediately reinstated in all his previous rights, with a true rite of investiture, through three symbols: the robe, a sign of dignity, the ring on his finger, that is, the seal, with which he can perform all legal and administrative acts, and the sandals, a sign of filial adoption (Dt 25:7-10).
The reaction of your eldest son is very understandable, who sees the remaining capital now divided in two, and that to him, always dutiful to work and obedience, will now only be given a quarter of the initial assets. But Your logic is not that of human justice: it is that of love, of unconditional forgiveness, absolute grace.
And you will be a model of Love also towards the self-righteous and self-righteous son. You take the first step, going out to meet him; moreover You, who had not made any speech to the younger son when he wanted to leave, now beg, implore (parekàlei: 15,28) the firstborn to give up his rigidity.
Lord, help us to convert: let us move from an idea of You as a greedy and vengeful controller, to that of a God who judges no one, but who always forgives, excuses, welcomes, loves. Help us to walk from a religiosity made of observance and prescriptions towards a Faith in a Merciful God who freely saves everyone.
Thank you, oh Father, for being so wonderfully “generous” towards us!
Happy Mercy to all!
Anyone who would like to read a more complete exegesis of the text, or some insights, please ask me at migliettacarlo@gmail.com.