Receiving Forgiveness

Who is there like you, the God who removes guilt
and pardons sin for the remnant of his inheritance;
Who does not persist in anger forever,
but delights rather in clemency,
And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our guilt?
You will cast into the depths of the sea all our sins
Mi 7:18-20, from today's readings

Today's Gospel reading contains what is in my humble opinion the greatest and perhaps longest of Jesus' many parables. It is the greatest because:

• It so vividly portrays the love of God for us in human terms
• It's characters are vividly drawn with an extreme economy of words
• Like all great literature, it operates on multiple levels
• Its lessons are timeless

I've heard this parable many times as Mass of course, when you hear it all at once as a story, in which context its lesson seems singular and obvious. But it is a rich and detailed story. To get the full impact, it helps to break it down into chapters:

Chapter 1 -- Context

Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus,
but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying,
"This man welcomes sinners and eats with them."

All week long Jesus has been cracking on the Pharisees, his favorite fall guys. This chapter encapsulates both their big beef with Jesus and their fundamental sin. They believe in justification through their works (adherence to the law) while Jesus preaches justification by faith and conversion of the heart. The tax collectors and sinners get it. The Pharisees do not. So Jesus tells them the story.

Chapter 2 -- The Insult

'Father, give me the share of your estate that should come to me.'

To get the full impact of the story, you have to understand just how deeply the younger son insulted and disrespected his father. He is basically saying, "You have no value to me as a human being, except as a vehicle to provide me with the things that I value. Your fatherhood is worthless. I wish you were dead, because then I would get what's coming to me."

Chapter 3 -- High Times

(He) set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.

Not only did he take his inheritance from his father prematurely, he then wasted it in further sin.

Chapter 4 -- Reversal of Fortune

When he had freely spent everything,
a severe famine struck that country,
and he found himself in dire need.
So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens
who sent him to his farm to tend the swine.

For the Jews of Jesus' audience, to fall so low as to tend swine was an unimaginable disgrace, for pigs are considered unclean. This son was actually desperate to eat what the pigs ate.

Chapter 5 -- Realization and Remorse

Coming to his senses he thought,
'How many of my father's hired workers
have more than enough food to eat,
but here am I, dying from hunger.
I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him,
"Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I no longer deserve to be called your son;
treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.'"

Here is the moment of grace when the son realizes what he has done and begins his conversion of heart.

Chapter 6 -- The Eternal Love of the Father

While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him, and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.

Think about the meaning of "while he was still a long way off." After all the son has done, the second that the father first sees him trying to return, "he ran to his son." So much does the father love his son and miss him that at the first sign of his return he runs to meet him.

This is perhaps the most poignant moment of the story. In my mind I see the son trudging wearily up the dusty road. He is pale, thin, shoeless and dressed in rags, and bone-tired from carrying his immense sin alone along this long and difficult road for so many days. His father, with the classic white hair and flowing beard of all biblical fathers, sees him in the distance and instantly recognizes him. All this time he has never stopped thinking of him, never for one second stopped loving him. The realization of their impending reunion takes his breath away, and without thinking or a moment's hesitation he begins to run as fast as his old legs will carry him to the reunion he has longed for all this time.

Chapter 7 -- Confession

'Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
I no longer deserve to be called your son.'

The son recites the confession he has no doubt practiced a thousand times on his long journey home. It reminds me of trying to do an examination of conscience as a kid preparing to go to "confession", as the Sacrament of Reconciliation used to be called. As rote as it may sound, though, the father understands how deeply the son regrets his actions.

Chapter 8 -- Restoration of Sonship
"Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found."

Here is the most accessible and obvious lesson -- reconciliation with God is a resurrection of sorts. Our death in sin becomes resurrection and new life through the love of the Father and the death and resurrection of Christ. We see the same lesson in the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin.

Chapter 9 -- Resentment of the Obedient Elder Son

'Look, all these years I served you
and not once did I disobey your orders;
yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends.
But when your son returns
who swallowed up your property with prostitutes,
for him you slaughter the fattened calf.'

This is all too much for the older brother, who has worked hard for the father all the time his little brother was living it up. In fact, he probably had to work even harder because of the loss of his brother. He resents his father's leniency toward the younger son and refuses to join the celebration.

In a sense, he now commits a sin similar to his brother's. He rejects his father, his father's love and his father's values. It does not occur to him that the same kindness and mercy are available to him, and that in fact his father's love has already been lavished upon him.

Chapter 10 -- Resolution and Explanation of the Father

'My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again;
he was lost and has been found.'"

This final lesson is not only for us, but for the Pharisees as well, and in the final summation Jesus puts an exclamation point on his explanation of why he dines with sinners and tax collectors.

This particular parable has always resonated deeply with me, and for literally decades I did not know why. Then during a particularly dark time in my life, my therapist/mentor/counselor/novelist/friend Marilyn showed me a passage from the book The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri Nouwen:

One of the greatest challenges of the spiritual life is to receive God's forgiveness. There is something in us humans that keeps us clinging to our sins and prevents us from letting God erase our past and offer us a completely new beginning. Sometimes it seems as though I want to prove to God that my darkness is too great to overcome. While God wants to restore me to the full dignity of sonship, I keep insisting that I will settle for being a hired servant. But do I want to be restored to the full responsibility of the son? Do I truly want to be so totally forgiven that a totally new way of living becomes possible? Do I trust myself with such a radical reclamation? Do I want to break away from my deep-rooted rebellion against God and surrender myself so absolutely to God's love that a new person can emerge? Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing. As long as I want to do even a part of that myself, I end up with partial solutions, such as becoming a hired servant. As a hired servant, I can still keep my distance, still revolt, reject, strike, run away, or complain about my pay. As the beloved son, I have to claim my full dignity and begin preparing myself to become the father.

Fr. Louie has also said to me on multiple occasions that for many people receiving forgiveness is so very much harder than asking for it. One stumbling block is that in order to receive forgiveness from others, including God, we also have to be prepared to forgive ourselves. We have to let go of the past, because God is the God of the present. Another stumbling block is that receiving forgiveness requires a commitment to change -- to walk away from the life and actions and thought patterns that led to the sin in the first place. We don't trust ourselves to change, and rightfully so. We can't do it, we can only allow God to do it for us.

As we roll into the second half of Lent, our challenge is not only ask forgiveness, but to accept it as well, and in doing so to allow God to change us into something completely new.