One of the most famous and endearing parables of Jesus is the Parable of the Prodigal Son. It speaks of the total, unconditional and totally forgiving love of a father. It gives great comfort to a habitual sinner like me – always in need of forgiveness. There are times though, my thoughts turn to the other brother and I somehow feel the unfairness of it all. There are times when my efforts at being good and doing good do not seem to bear fruit or go unrewarded. Peter, who always speaks his mind out, says it best for me: “We have left everything to follow you! What then will there be for us?”
I guess it is our unredeemed nature that desires love, mercy and forgiveness when we have done wrong but demands justice and retribution when we have been wronged. So, depending on what the weather is like, we desire one or demand the other. But the sun keeps on shining whether the weather is stormy or not. The sun does not depend of the weather to give out its light and energy to all. So does God keep on loving whether we are faithful to him or not. He does not condition his love on whether we love him or not. He himself said “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
And to those who have left everything and followed him, Jesus has promised: “Truly I tell you, no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.”
Prayer is where and when I come to understand what these words truly mean.
His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” Then the father said to him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32