GOD’S ‘CRAZY’ LOVE
(A biblical reflection on the 4th Sunday of Lent, Year C – 10th of March 2013)
First Reading: Josh 5:9,10-12; Psalms: Ps 34:2-7; Second Reading: 2Cor 5:17-21; Gospel Reading: Luke 15:1-3,11-32
Once there was a man who had a wife whom he loved very dearly until one day she ran off with another man and became his mistress. When the man got tired of her, he sold her into slavery. One would think that her husband gloated over the misfortune of the unfaithful wife. No. He hears of her plight as a slave, buys her back – and makes her his wife again.
“Crazy,” you might say. But as a married friend of mine once, said, “To be in love, you must be a bit crazy.” (Difficult for a celibate like me to understand!). But the man’s insane love is true. You can find his story in a most unlikely book – Old Testament: on the forgiving love of the prophet Hosea (Hos 11:1-9).
From Hosea’s hard-school of experience, the poignant message dawns on him, albeit painfully, that if Hosea could be so forgiving, how much more with God.Hosea’s personal experience is, of course, a prefigurement of God’s “crazy” love for sinners as depicted in the Parable of the Prodigal Son (Lk 15:11-32).
Many Bible scholars have said that the Parable of the Prodigal Son is a misnomer. It should be called the “Parable of the Father’s Love” or of the “Prodigal Father” because the whole point of the story depicts the overwhelmingly, lavish love of the father on his errant son.
This kind of love is shown when the father reluctantly gave in to the wish of his son who insisted on his freedom by getting his inheritance and breading away from home. Although the father knew the danger that lay ahead, he let him go. This gives us an insight into God’s love: for love to be true it must be freely given; it cannot be forced.
After the profligate son had spent all his patrimony in “loose living,” He was despondent, broken, abandoned by his good-time friends.How true it is in life. As long as the money holds out, we’re surrounded by “friends.” But when the “wells run dry,” we’re left on our own.
In order to keep body and soul together, the impoverished lad had to work in a piggery feeding swine. Now this has some interesting symbolism. For the Jews pork is forbidden. Hence, to be reduced to the job of feeding swine and eating the “husks the pigs ate,” means you’re scraping the bottom of your existence.
“Then he came to his senses,” the story continues. For the first time he realized what a big mistake he had made. He says to himself, “I will arise and go to my father.” So he did. While he was still a long way off, his saw him and had compassion.”
Did it ever occur to you that the father saw him even though the boy was at a great distance? It must have happened because the father had always spent a good deal of time looking down that long stretch, hoping that he would catch sight of his boy returning. Otherwise he never would have seen him until he actually had arrived and knocked at the door.
What did the father do? Did he first reprimand him to this effect, “After making a fool of yourself, you return? That should teach you a lesson, you ingrate”! Nothing of that sort. The father ran and threw his arms around him and fell on his knees and kissed him (despite the stinking smell!).
When the boy began the speech which he probably had rehearsed, the father must have covered the boy’s mouth with his hand so the words would not come out. The father would not enjoy the humiliation of the son. He cried out, “Bring quickly the best robe and put on him; and put a ring on his finger …” The ring symbolizes his son’s reinstatement to his former filial position.
The loving father in the story represents God and the wayward son is every sinner – us. Christ is saying that after even the most stupid of mistakes, the most degrading of sins, God will be looking for us and, with open arms, will take us back.
All that is needed is: awareness and acceptance of our sinfulness. Repentance and sorrow followed, and he resolved to make that journey back to his father.
Lent provides us the best opportunity to do just that – return to our “Prodigal Father.”
Note: Taken from Fr. Bel San Luis SVD, WORD ALIVE – REFLECTIONS ON THE SUNDAY GOSPEL – C CYCLE 1998, Manila, Philippines: Society of the Divine word, 1997 (second printing), pages 40-42.