Homily for the Fourth Sunday of Lent
Homily delivered by Fr Nicholas King SJ
Scripture readings: Joshua 5:9-12; II Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:1-32
Today is Mid-Lent Sunday, when you are permitted briefly to relax whatever it is you are doing for Lent; I am not sure what happens if you're still deciding what form your austerity will take this year. It is also “Mothering Sunday”, of course, and I hope that you have done something appropriate to express your gratitude to your own mother, living or dead.
What I want to say this evening is aimed largely at you who are young, and have so much to teach us who are more stricken in years, about what God might be asking of us today. Pope Francis is strongly of the view that your idealism, energy, and courage are the place we should be looking to hear the gentle accents of the Holy Spirit. Therefore it is important that you perform this task for us, and so challenge us to respond. It is inevitable at this point in history that you may find yourself asking, as you gaze in horror at the TV news: “How can God possibly allow this to happen?”. The answer of course is that God is there somewhere in the mess, waiting for us to play our part.
Perhaps today’s readings may help. The first reading speaks of a most significant moment, when after 40 years of wandering in the desert, the people of Israel have arrived in the Promised Land, and now are going to celebrate their first-ever Passover (a reminder of their escape from Egyptian slavery, you remember) in the land for which they have been headed all this time. So there is something of a triumph in all this. It is also a time of growing up, because the manna that has fed them all through their wanderings now ceases; for they are permitted to eat of the food grown in their own new land of Canaan. So in the generosity of God they are no longer to expect easy answers, eating whenever they feel like it, but actually having to work for their food. They can dispense with this now as the manna is no longer needed; does this new turn of events mean that God is no longer on their side? Just think of similar situations in your own life when God appeared to have ceased to operate on your side: were you right to despair at that point? Or did the story run deeper and point to God’s unfailing love?
The God of our Bible, you see, is one who is on our side; there is a heading in the opening line of the psalm for today, which attributes it to David when he pretended to be crazy. But it continues our theme of total trust in God: “I will bless the Lord at all times, his praise shall be always in my mouth”. and the singer is looking back to a time when God rescued him: “in my misfortune I called, the Lord heard, and saved me from all distress”. We might recite these lines to ourselves anytime we feel that God has abandoned us.
In the second reading, Paul is exploring what God has done for us in Christ; and the rather daring phrase he uses is that of a “new creation”; then he adds another image, from politics or human relations, that of “reconciliation”. This idea is obviously very important to him, since he uses it no less than five times in this section. And he turns to us, and also to his Corinthians, and begs us “for Christ’s sake be reconciled to God”. Then he ends with a very striking image, that God “made the one who did not know sin into sin on our behalf”. We should reflect on this idea and savour it, that God sent Jesus to us, so that he might fully identify with us in our weakness. I suggest you spend this week prayerfully contemplating this extraordinarily rich idea. And perhaps pray for reconciliation in the Ukraine.
Then today's gospel invites us to contemplate the mercy of God. it is the last of three stories (the “Lost Sheep”, the “Lost Coin” and the “the Lost Son”) in Luke 15, all responding to people’s annoyance about Jesus and his terrible friends. Of course we should be quite glad at Jesus having terrible friends, because that means there may be room for us in the household. The story of the Prodigal Son is the most astonishing of all these stories: the younger son is pretty unpleasant, regarding his father as good as dead, and demanding his share of the will before it gets too late for him to enjoy it. Luke comments, though it does not always come out in translation, that he “divided his life between them”. And there you have the utter generosity of God. You remember what happens next, as the younger son goes off on a year abroad, where he raises Hell until the money runs out, when he is forced to feed pigs! (unclean animal). But he's not allowed to eat their food. So what do you do in that situation? You go back to Dad, with the speech ready prepared. Which leaves us wondering what the father is going to do. To our utter amazement, he has his binoculars trained on the road by which the boy might return, and the carefully rehearsed story never gets delivered. We learn that the father is “gutted”, and instead of getting out a big stick and doing what is now illegal in Wales and Scotland, “he ran and fell on the boy’s neck and kissed him”!
That is not what it prescribes in the manual for bringing up adolescent children. Nor does the shock end there, because without so much as listening to the prepared speech, the father orders a party to be thrown; and it is a serious party, such as you young people would undoubtedly enjoy. But he does not stop there; you will remember that there is another brother, and his nose is now put seriously out of joint. He cannot stand this soft-hearted behaviour and absolutely refuses to join the party. But the father loves him too, and goes out to persuade him in, concluding “it was essential to rejoice and exalt, because this brother of yours was a corpse and came back to life. He was lost; and he was found”.
With supreme artistry, Luke does not tell us what the result of this argument was: did the elder brother continue to sulk outside? Or did he go in? it's up to you; imagine yourself in that situation, and ask yourself, “What would I have done?”.
Do you see how each of these stories challenges each of us who listen?
That is how the Bible works. How do you find yourself responding this evening?