The Fourth Sunday in Lent is traditionally known as Refreshment Sunday or Rose Sunday as some churches replace Lenten Purple with Rose Colored Vestments. In Great Britain, it is also called Mothering Sunday because students went home for a break, and traditionally people would go back to their mother church and visit their moms too!
It is a kind of half time when we loosen our Lenten Disciplines and enjoy a day of feasting and rest in the middle of our season of Lent. Maybe even tell a joke…
St. Peter and St. Paul are at the Pearly Gates. Paul is looking through The Book of Names, and he says to Peter, "There are more people in heaven than there is supposed to be! Go find out what has happened!" Peter runs off, and some time later he returns to Paul. Paul says, "Did you find out why there are too many people here?" Peter says, "It's Jesus. He's helping people in over the back fence again..."
Some of us may just get in by that back fence… No scripture better fits this Sunday then that of the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
It is Jesus way of using repentance and refreshment to help us see through the eyes of God.
As I said last week, Archbishop William Temple reminded us that: “To repent is to adopt God's viewpoint in place of your own.”
And that is true in this parable as well. To see through the loving eyes of that father. But there is more to this parable then repentance alone.
As I sat with the parable this week, I found that Buddhism has a similar story. Thich Naht Hanh, a Vietnamese Buddhist, tells the story of a Destitute Son…
Once there was a young boy who ran away from home and went off through many countries traveling around looking for work, food and shelter. For fifty years he moved about from place to place in this way becoming very destitute, finding only the lowliest day labor and whatever meager provisions were given to him. The father during this time lamented the loss of his son and searched far and wide for him without success, but kept his sorrow to himself, never telling anyone of his lost son.
During these years, the father became a fabulously wealthy and successful merchant, eventually settling in another city, living in a great palace surrounded by inestimable luxury, fields, gardens and treasure-houses, workers, servants and retainers. His fame and wealth were so great that even kings and noblemen came to his home to ask his advice and assistance. The poor son in his travels one day came to the gate of the palace and seeing the father, but not recognizing him, surrounded by this great wealth and many visitors, became afraid for his own safety, thinking to himself, ‘this must be the home of some king. This is no place for me. If they see me here they will arrest me and I will become a slave’.
The son runs off, but the father, having seen him through the gate recognizes him instantly and is filled with joy at his son’s return. He sends an assistant to bring him back to the palace. The assistant comes up to the son and tells him to return, but the son taken by fright thinking he is to be arrested and perhaps even put to death refuses and tries to escape. The assistant seizes him and the son falls into a faint from the horror. Seeing this from the distance the father realizes his mistake and tells the assistant to revive the son and to set him free. The son, greatly relieved at his escape goes off to a nearby village where he can safely find a little work and a few scraps of food.
The father devises a plan to entice the destitute son back to his palace using skillful means. He still has not told anyone that this man is his son, but instead sends off two of his workers dirty and dressed in rags to offer the son a lowly and humble job. The son accepts and returns taking up the task and lives in a little hut on the palace grounds. The father continues to watch him from afar to see how he works and one day disguises himself in dirty cloths and mud in order to get close to his son. As he does, he praises the work of the destitute son and tells him that he will be treated like an adopted son and he would be treated as well. No need to worry.
The son rejoices at his unexpected well-being and being treated so well, but still considers himself just a humble hireling, continuing to do the humble tasks he has been given and to live in the same simple hut. Over this time confidence grows between the father and the son. As the father ages, he gradually introduces the son to running the business and teaches him how to manage the wealth and the household, tasks the son carries out successfully, but all the while still thinking that he is just the hired help having no desire or expectation that the riches were his. Finally the father, recognizing that his own death is approaching calls together all the household, his relatives, the king and his ministers and all his business partners and announces,
‘Know, gentlemen, this is my son. It is over fifty years since he left me and ran away to endure loneliness and misery. At that time in that city I sought him sorrowfully. Suddenly in this place I met and regained him. This is really my son and I am really his father. Now all the wealth which I possess belongs entirely to my son and all my previous disbursements and receipts are known by this son.’
The son was filled with great joy hearing this unexpected news that he really was in fact the son and that all this wealth he had cared for was actually his. Never in all the time he lived and worked for the father had that thought crossed his mind and so he had no desire for it or expectation that he would attain it. (from The Lotus Sutra – Chapter 4 – Faith Discernment)
It’s story is similar in some ways to what Jesus tells but its purpose is different, revealing in Buddhist scripture, a parable about attaining wisdom. In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, I think Jesus has some wisdom to teach us as well.
That wisdom lies at the heart of the Father’s love.
The youngest brother, who ran off and spent all that he had, has to remember that love, which he finally does when he finally hits bottom as he feeds swine and he returns home.
The elder brother, working in the fields as he has always done, has to find that love, when his lost brother comes home and is welcomed back.
Abbott Andrew Marr says, “We are likely to judge the younger brother for his callous irresponsibility and the elder brother for his amazing insensitivity. But if we do that, we find ourselves ensnared in the same struggle between the two brothers, comparing them and taking sides until our own capacity for love is obscured and our capacity for celebration fizzles.
The Prodigal Father does neither. He does not upbraid the younger son for leaving; neither does he upbraid his elder son for being such an insufferable prig. He invites both of them to the party. Most of us have a hard time even wanting to be a father like that!
The parable ends with this challenge of forgiveness and unconditional love: Do we rise to the challenge of the Prodigal Father and renounce our irresponsibility and self-righteousness?” (https://andrewmarrosb.blog/2013/03/06/the-prodigal-father-and-his-sons/)
When Jesus is accused of welcoming sinners and eating with them, Jesus tells this parable of the Kingdom of God, of a father’s love for both of his kids.
It is a parable that does not leave us with any easy answer but a challenge in our life today.
“Unlike a fairy tale, the parable provides no happy ending. Instead, it leaves us face to face with one of life’s hardest spiritual choices: to trust or not to trust in God’s all-forgiving love.” (Henri J.M. Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son)
The wisdom of God in that parable and in the life of Jesus invites us to focus on love, to trust in God, and in turn to be that forgiving and welcoming father or mother in our own lives.
May we see the world as God does, love it with God’s love and break bread with one another. Amen.
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