A few years ago, when I was a newly-ordained priest and serving in my first parish, I led a Bible study on the parable of the prodigal son with the youth group. I was excited about an opportunity to crack open one of my favorite Bible stories. As an interactive way to get inside this famous passage from Luke’s Gospel, the youth and I created a digital story using iMovie, including images from contemporary life to relate an ancient story to a modern way of living.
Just to refresh your memories, in the parable of the prodigal son, an arrogant young man demands his inheritance prematurely from his father, and goes off, squandering it in dissolute living. When he reaches rock bottom, he comes to his senses and decides to return and admit his mistake and ask his father for a place in his household as a hired servant.
The beautiful part is that the father seems to have been waiting for him to return all along. Rather than upbraiding him upon his homecoming, he throws a lavish party for him and welcomes him back with open arms.
In my discussions on this passage with the youth group some years ago, I wanted them to see the radical nature of this parable. I hoped to relate the abundant compassion of the prodigal son’s father to God the Father’s extraordinary ability to forgive. I truly believed that this incredible story could change their lives if they opened themselves to it.
I was dead wrong. My initial fervor in approaching this beloved parable was quickly squelched as the youth responded to the story itself. Rather than being astounded by the beauty of forgiveness found in the story, one person pointed out with some measure of weary scorn that the prodigal son didn’t even seem sorry for what he had done. He didn’t really care that he had deeply offended his father by asking for an inheritance far too soon. In fact, this son simply made the only decision he could make when things got rough. He would take advantage of his father’s compassion and be welcomed home. The son had never truly repented, this young person said. And it was grossly unfair that he was given a lavish party after all he had done. The gist of her argument was that this son should have gotten what he deserved.
Having heard this, my hopes of highlighting God’s mercy and compassion were somewhat dashed. I was trying to find good news in the parable, and the youth were not seeing it. In hindsight, I realize that something far more troubling was happening. These youth, although they didn’t know it, were struggling to believe in a God that could be so extravagantly, even foolishly, forgiving.
Now, today, we are not given the parable of the prodigal son. We will, in fact, get that parable a few weeks from now during Lent. But there is a strong connection between that parable and today’s Gospel lesson. Listen to what Jesus is saying to his disciples in the continuation of the Sermon on the Plain: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. It goes on and on until we are stupefied at what Jesus is demanding in the life of discipleship.
How do you love someone who hates you? What kind of weakness of character is required to turn the other cheek when someone strikes you? Is it even ethical to do so, especially when such violence becomes a pattern of abuse? How can we possibly take Jesus’ words seriously? The problem is that we can’t avoid these words. They are from Christ, and they are meant to throw a wrench into our usual way of behaving.
In a striking blow to ordinary habits of thinking, Jesus ups the ante in what he demands of his followers. It’s not difficult to love those who reciprocate that love, so what is extraordinary about loving those who are likeable? And in a tit-for-tat world, why should one bother doing something for someone who is unkind and nasty?
The temptation is simply to write off what Jesus has demanded and settle for an easier interpretation. Jesus is speaking in hyperbole. It’s not practical. Jesus was preaching to a different world. Surely, he doesn’t really mean for us to do exactly what he says. It’s the spirit of what he suggests that matters.
It even seems for a moment like Jesus has violated his own admonitions. The measure you give will be the measure you get back, he says. It sounds remarkably like tit for tat. And before too long, we are caught in the Gospel’s trap. Jesus is precisely right! If we only respond with tit-for-tat, then we will forever be a part of that vicious cycle, exchanging good for good, and bad for bad. We treat others as we want them to treat us, and so it’s self-serving. Our understanding of what is morally right and ethically sound is now transactional, weighing one side against the other.
If we’re honest, our approach to life is so often transactional. Why should we go out of our way to speak to the person who has offended us? If someone hits me, it would be an affront to my honor not to strike back. If someone commits a crime, it haunts them forever, even when they are no longer behind bars, for it is their just deserts. If one political party leverages a tactic to their gain, then the other party has their opportunity when they’re in the majority. If someone doesn’t have enough money to afford basic resources, it’s their own fault, so why should I have to be responsible for their welfare? There is no shortage of examples, and do any of these seem wrong to you?
As I think back on that youth group Bible study of the parable of the prodigal son, I realize that I was hastily judging the responses of the youth. How could they not see the good news in that parable? How could they not see the son’s father as our loving and merciful God? But Jesus says, judge not, lest ye be judged. And I was definitely judged because I hadn’t looked deeply enough at myself.
If I thought about it hard enough, I would have to ask how many times I failed to forgive myself. And each time I failed to forgive myself, did I subconsciously believe that God could not forgive me? And were the times in which I struggled to forgive others due to the same reason? The youth were no more engaged in tit-for-tat thinking than I was. I was also being judged.
What about you? Do you find it difficult to love an enemy because it feels powerful to harbor resentment against them? Is it uncomfortable to behave in the extreme and break the cycle of resentment because it feels too foolish and weak?
The truth is that many struggle to believe in a God who can forgive no matter how badly we mess up. Such a God does seem foolish and weak. It can be impossible for some even to respect a God who continues to call us back time and again when we turn our backs on him. Maybe this is why some can’t believe in God.
In response, Jesus offers a strongly compelling reason to believe in such a God. This is why he asks us to behave with such ridiculous abandon, to act in the extreme, motivated by love. If life is only tit-for-tat, it is a business transaction. And when the transaction turns sour, it leads only to evil, and evil propagates evil. But when we love recklessly, loving the enemy, praying for those who hurt us, and lending without any expectation of reciprocity, we have the power to break the vicious cycle. The world is changed by the Gospel not simply through good actions but by a profound faith in the One who lifts us beyond our cycles of human pettiness, violence, and retribution. This nasty cycle was broken supremely by our Lord’s death on a cross, where he forgave even those who had crucified him before breathing his last.
It is almost unbelievable to imagine God would never tire of loving us. It is almost unbelievable to imagine that we could begin to love those who hate us. And if we find ourselves struggling to love our enemies, it might have more to do with our inability to accept that God can love each one of us in spite of our sins.
I would love to go back to that youth group Bible study and say a few things. I now see that I shared the same struggles as those young people. If I could do it over again, I’d say this to them: you’re right. It is absurd and ridiculous that the prodigal son’s father threw a big party for him, even when he didn’t even necessarily apologize. It is unfair and even foolish that we are called to love our enemies and turn the other cheek. And this is how foolish and unfair God’s love is, because God doesn’t play tit-for-tat. It is so unbelievably amazing that perhaps the best response is simply to say thank you. Thank you, God, that you love us in the extreme. It is so unbelievable, that it must be true.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany
February 20, 2022