Or a mother, for that matter.
One of the definitions we have for God is, God is Love. And we know that God is One in the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So when God the Son sets out to explain to His creation (mankind) how he should understand God, what description can He offer to help us understand that which is beyond our ability to comprehend?
He gifts to us the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
In the Gospel of St. Luke we find the scribes and the Pharisees grumbling. This Man receives sinners and eats with them. This is a judgmental attack toward God for His being loving and merciful!
And so our Lord attempts to lovingly bring them under His wing by offering not one, not two, but three parables.
First there is the parable of the man who has a hundred sheep, and he leaves the ninety-nine to go and find the one that is lost.
Second there is the parable of the lost coin and the fervent effort the woman makes to search for and find the lost coin, and of her rejoicing when she recovers it!
Continuing through the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of St. Luke, we finally we get to what this author considers to be the ultimate parable given us by our Lord, that of the Prodigal Son.
You see, the son was exceedingly cruel. Metropolitan Anthony says this about him: When he says, ‘Father, give me my part of your inheritance,’ do the words not mean, ‘I can’t wait until your death...It is now that I want to reap the fruits of your life… Let us come to an agreement—for me you are dead. Give me what belongs to me, or what would belong to me after your death, and I will go and live the life I have chosen.’
Isn’t this emblematic of our own behavior toward our Heavenly Father? While we are with Him, we receive all we need from Him. But we feel limited by His rules. He expects integrity and truth from us. He expects us to understand the true meaning of love from Him. But too often, these expectations toward us are too much for us. We take His gifts, then turn and use them not as He would intend, but only to profit ourselves, without any returns to Him.
I for one can’t imagine agreeing to the young man’s request, knowing his inexperience and the danger to which it would expose him. But this Father is wiser than I am. His caving to the request indeed exposes the young man to many things not immediately to his benefit. But spending all, having to find a means of living, seeing oneself envying the swine for the food he is providing to them, all of this brings him to a core-level change, he came to himself.
Please note that related to this revelation is the image of fasting. He would gladly have filled his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, but no one gave him anything.
It is this hunger that changes him, and immediately he considers his Father’s own servants, and brings him to the point of generating his fervent confession. Father, I have sinned! He offers no excuse. He knows this is all on him!
Now, see the love of the Father, Who seemingly unceasingly stayed fervently looking for His son’s return. Jesus tells us that the Father saw him and had compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.
The Father spoke no words to the son. He spoke only to the servants. Bring a robe. Put a ring on his finger. Put sandals on his feet. Kill the fatted calf. Let us celebrate!
As Metropolitan Anthony suggested the son’s motive of considering his Father as dead, so now the Father reverses this perspective. For this My son was dead, and is alive again.
Lord, instill within us a heartfelt desire to be faithful children, worthy of the love You show us each and every day of our lives.
Glory to Jesus Christ!
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