24th Sunday, Year C (Gospel: Luke 15:1-32) Return of the prodigal son. The Father carries our shame.

This mass that you are at today, may be the last mass you will ever attend. It may be the last mass I get to celebrate. None of us knows. Two weeks ago, one of our parishioners was at Sunday mass. He died that night. It was the last mass that he would ever attend. That is something to think about, because that is the reality for all of us.

The fact that Jesus taught using parables, is a great compliment to our intelligence. What I mean is this: to understand a parable you have to think about it. If you are searching for the truth in it, you will find it. This means that Jesus is inviting us to think about what he is saying, so that we will come to know what he is teaching us. He is not just speaking to us like children, but acknowledging our intelligence. He is inviting us to search for the truth.

In the first century, there was a tradition, that if a Jewish son lost his inheritance among Gentiles, and then returned home, the community would perform a ceremony, called the kezazah. They would break a large pot in front of him and yell, “You are now cut off from your people!” The community would totally reject him and he would be publicly shamed and humiliated.

In this story, the prodigal son, having squandered his inheritance, was now coming back to the community. For him to have asked for it in the first place was the equivalent of having wished his father dead to his face. He couldn’t have insulted his family more. Then he wastes all the hard-earned money his family had made. Now he is coming home to face total shame and humiliation, not just from the family, but from the whole community.

Then it says that the father ran to him. In middle eastern culture at that time, a man, would never, ever, run, because to do so he would have to hike up his tunic so that he wouldn’t trip, but this would show his bare legs and that would be considered shameful. So why did the father run? Not only because of his joy to see his son return, but also so that he would get to him before the rest of the community, so that he wouldn’t have to go through that shameful ceremony of being publicly humiliated and cut off from the people. The father was prepared to be shamed himself, in order to spare his son the humiliation. This is pointing directly to the shame that Jesus took on for us, dying on the cross, which was considered the most shameful way to die, in order that we might have the happiness God intended for us; the inheritance God wants for us.

What it says more than anything else, is that God has no interest in condemning us, only in bringing us back to himself and that is probably one of the most encouraging things that our faith teaches us. God has no interest in condemning us. God is willing to be shamed, in order that we might receive our inheritance, that is, heaven.

In the parable, when the father welcomes the son, notice how there are no words of condemnation, or accusation. All he does is welcome the son and celebrate. The fact that he put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, also meant that his place in the family was fully restored. Slaves did not wear sandals.

Then there is also the older son, who has been faithful, but is seething with resentment at the younger son and how he is now being treated. He is also very insulting to the father in the way he speaks to him. He does not address him with a title and he accuses him of favoritism. But the father is equally loving towards him.

The parable of the one lost sheep is the same. It is telling us that God will go to the ends of the earth to bring us home. God only wants our happiness and will do everything to help us reach it, except force us. God will never force us to do anything because He has given us free will. That means that we can lose the possibility of heaven. We have to be careful about how we live, because our actions have consequences. God will always forgive us if we ask for forgiveness, but we cannot just presume it.

If everyone automatically went to heaven, regardless of how they lived, then God would not be just. The Lord warns us many times that our actions have consequences and we need to take that seriously. God only wants our happiness and will do everything to reach it, but we must play our part too.