Where do we feel at home?

Homily for March 6, 2016 (4th Sunday of Lent)
Joshua 5:9a, 10-12; Psalm 34; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

There’s an old saying that “Home is where the heart is.”  St. Augustine of Hippo, one of the Doctors of the Church, had a very definite and spiritual vision of home when he eloquently wrote in his Confessions:  “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord.”

Today’s scripture readings describe home as a place of arrival and a place of return.  In our first reading, Joshua and the people of Israel finally arrive in their Promised Land after 40 years of wandering—getting lost spiritually as well as geographically.  Instead of manna, they eat “from the produce of the land” and they celebrate the Passover, which commemorates God freeing them from slavery in Egypt and marked the beginning of their long sojourn in the desert.

In our second reading, St. Paul also writes of a place of arrival—not a physical place but rather a spiritual one.  He calls his readers to remember that if we are in Christ then we are “new creations,” that is, the people that God created us to be.  We have a different attitude.  We think, speak and act differently because we are God’s children.

However, like all children, we can be disobedient and stray; we can abandon God and the things of God for other pursuits.  That’s what Jesus describes in what is commonly called the Parable of the Prodigal Son but could more accurately be called the Parable of the Prodigals.  Merriam Webster defines prodigal as “recklessly spendthrift” but also “yielding abundantly.”  The son embodies the former definition and the father the latter:

The son says to his father:  “Give me my share of the inheritance that is to come to me.”  The father reminds his older brother:  “Everything I have is yours.”
In asking for his share of that inheritance early, the son essentially tells his father, “You’re dead to me.”  In welcoming his humbled son back, the father calls for a celebration:  “He was dead and had come back to life; he was lost and is found.”

The son wastes his inheritance.  The father is generous in his mercy. After losing everything and ending up in a pig sty, the son finally comes to his senses, rehearses his apology and begins the journey home.  Yet even while he is a long way off, his father runs out to greet him and welcome him home.

We are sometimes more like the son in our prodigality—recklessly wasting of our talents, resources and the other good things that God gives us.  But we are called to be more like the father: generously extending our mercy, abundantly sharing our love, and open-heartedly offering ourselves to others in works of charity.  That’s what Lent is about.

That’s also what Jesus, the friend of tax collectors and sinners, did; and it’s what infuriated the scribes and the Pharisees, who were like the older brother in the parable.  Jesus wanted to build bridges.  They wanted to build walls.  He wanted to extend God’s circle of love to envelope those who needed to be healed and transformed.  They wanted to keep the circle small.  He wanted to build a field hospital for the troubled and exploited.  They wanted to build a sanctuary for the saved.  What do we want?  Where do we feel at home?  +