Homily

The other son, the unhappy son, complains to his father about the treatment that his brother is receiving. How unfair he believes it to be that his brother should be welcomed back home with such great joy. He’s angry with his brother. He’s angry with his father. He cannot see how much his father truly loves him, because his vision is focused on something else. The father tells him, or rather reminds him that they are always together, always available and that everything the father has he is welcome to it all. Both of the boys seem to have a problem with comprehending and appreciating their father’s love for them because they are focused on other things. And yet the prodigal son, once his focus is shattered by poverty and hunger, begins to see the value of his father’s loving care and decides to go and seek it out once again, even if he has to do it as a servant.

The two boys find it very difficult to comprehend their father’s love for them because they, themselves, did not have this depth of love within them, so it’s not hard to understand why they didn’t see it, or value it in their dad. They were stuck on lesser things. They were stuck on themselves. They were immature, grossly immature in love. That’s why they don’t recognize it in their dad.

This parable leads me to think about the love of God our heavenly Father, for us, for me. In Psalm 90 the psalmist says, “Our life span is seventy years, eighty if we are strong, and most of those are fruitless toil, for they pass quickly and we drift away.” We are finite, or maybe to be more accurate, our lives in this world are finite. We only have so much time given to us. And that tempts us always to focus on what is finite, on this material world and the goods and people that are in it. This is how the boys in the parable saw the world and their lives. It is very difficult for us to even try and comprehend the idea of eternal life, and it’s also very difficult, or it can be for so many of us, to try and comprehend the great depth of love our Father has for us. We give ourselves so completely to this passing world, it is hard to think of the kingdom that is yet to come. Our fallen nature struggles to embrace the infinite love of God for us. We think in much, much smaller terms. And we settle for so very, very little.

Last week I was struck with amazement when I heard about the size of the universe. Astronomers can come up with numbers but what do those numbers mean? If you count, kind of in your head, very quickly from one to one-hundred, you can probably do it in about 25 seconds. Now, if you counted to one billion, counting day and night, it would take you 50 years to do it, to count to one billion.

Astronomers think there are about 100 billion stars in our galaxy. 100 billion! If you counted from 1 to 100 billion, very quickly, day and night, it would take you over 5,000 years to do it. 100 billion stars in our galaxy and there are about 100 billion galaxies in the universe! It would take you a 5 with 12 zeros after it (5,000,000,000,000) in years to count to that number. I find it extremely difficult to even comprehend the idea of 100 billion galaxies that each have 100 billion stars. It’s much easier to think about what I’ll fix for dinner tonight and see if anything good is on Netflix. For better or worse I deal with the world right around me, what I can see, touch, hear and interact with directly and immediately, especially if it’s a party with music and dancing and a fatted calf is on the menu. That’s the life I am focused on. Maybe not so much on the incomprehensible love of my heavenly Father, Who I do not see, do not hear, and Who has not yet put a ring on my finger or shoes on my feet. Or has He? We get stuck in the small things because we think we can manage the smaller things for our good, and it is so easy to lose sight of the greatest good, because it seems almost too good to be true. Too big for us to handle.

I see Lent as a time to pull back, through prayer, fasting and almsgiving, to pull back from the smaller, finite world we are usually living in and look to see the greater love, and the greater glory of what our Father is calling us to. We may not fully comprehend 100 billion galaxies, each with 100 billion stars, we will not fully comprehend the love of a Father Who made all this for us, just as the two sons could not see their own father’s love, but if we can come closer to Him, like the prodigal, we will better understand it, and experience it, and be supported by it all the same. The Lenten effort is to pull back away from the ordinary and seek out what is extraordinary. To see more clearly that it was not a simple matter of nature doing its thing—but He Who made 100 billion galaxies each with 100 billion suns, has called us to Himself and sent His own Son to show us the way back home and to help us get there.

Let’s start thinking about it now. How will we pull back away from the ordinary this Lent, so that we can better see what is truly extraordinary? Can we devote seven weeks of this year to seeking a glory that is not of our own making? Should we take the time and effort to make sure that we’re on the right path to go home? And why not rededicate ourselves not just to our temporary home but one that will hold us forever, if we want it to do so?