Jos 5:9, 10-12 / 2 Cor 5:17-21 / Lk 15:1-3, 11-32
A man was in urgent need of legal advice, so he went to the office of a very clever but very crooked lawyer.
"How much do you charge?" he asked.
"A thousand dollars for three questions," replied the lawyer.
"Isn't that an awful lot?" asked the client.
"Yes, indeed it is," smiled the lawyer. "And what was your third question?"
+ + +
Not a very nice guy! But he couldn't hold a candle to those two rotten sons in the gospel. The first son wanted his father dead so he could inherit the estate. When he got tired of waiting, he demanded his half now — as if he had a right to it. He took it, left town without a forwarding address, and before long he was broke.
The second son was the perfect little rule-keeper, dutiful, obedient, smiling, always on time. But underneath the mask was a heart burning with resentment. He hated his father, first for giving away half the estate, and then for taking the brother back. And he hated his brother for having a good time!
Each son in his own way had cut himself off from the one thing that every human being desires and needs most, and that is communion, big family, which is rooted in a willingness to give oneself to others without counting. Like all of us, the two sons needed to give and to share, but they'd burned their bridges behind them and had locked themselves in ugly little prisons of resentment and greed. And they were stuck there!
It would be tempting to say, "A pox on both your houses!" But that's not what their father did. He built a new bridge to each one — so nicely symbolized by that feast full of friends for the younger son, and by the father's words to his older son, "You are with me always, and everything I have is yours."
That's what God is like, constantly reaching out to us, building new bridges to connect us with Him and with each other, breaking down the walls of the prisons we've locked ourselves in, and pulling us back into the bosom of His family.
That's what God does for us. And that's what He asks us to do for one another: To build bridges, to bring people together, to help one another learn how to give life and receive it, to help one another break free of whatever enslaves or imprisons us.
That's our vocation as Christians, building family. It's a huge vocation; and, when we get it right, it's the happiest and best work in all the world!
May God bless us all, and bless our work as we build His family here, in this place, day by day. Amen.
