Today's Gospel reading is very appropriate for Father's Day. This day, in which we remember the men of our households, in Venezuela often is not observed with the same enthusiasm as Mother's Day. There also is the temptation at other times for children to take their fathers for granted, because mothers are more expressive in their affection and are always available, while fathers are working outside the home to provide for the family.
However, the Fourth Commandment applies in equal measure to fathers and mothers. "Honor your father and your mother", and furthermore this is the first commandment that contains a promise: that you may be happy and live a long life on earth." According to God's grand design, our fathers and mothers are the first authorities that we must respect and obey. Our relation with them is the model for our relations with other authority figures, for example, the government, the police, our schoolteachers, our supervisors at work, and so on. Also with God, because our parents are God's representatives for us while we are children.
Now it is normal for a father to love his children more than they deserve, in the same way that God the Father Almighty loves us. A father's love is the metaphor for the love of God in today's Gospel. The man with two sons, who symbolizes God, loved both much more that either of them understood. Both of them underestimated their father in different ways.
Let's start with the younger son. It's a father's responsibility to make rules for the hom and to teach his children about things that are important, especially the Word of God. Sadly, it is all too common for sons to chafe under a father's authority, especially those who do not understand that rules of the world outside the family are a lot harsher.
So in the parable, the younger son says to his father, "Give me my inheritance and I will go live my own life without your rules." And he went to live in a distant province. What happened? He wasted his inheritance in wild living. That is, he spent it all on non-stop partying, beer and women and did not save anything to invest in things with long-term value, such as a house, business or education.
And when the money was all gone? When there was no more beer or women? His fair-weather friends said, "So long." Probably, the prostitutes moved on first. And the prodigal son did not have any money to live on, to purchase clothing, food or a place sleep. Eventually, he found work tending pigs, but still did not have enough to eat and longed for the husks that the pigs ate, but he was not allowed even that.
Therefore the prodigal son thought, "How many workers in my father's house have plenty to eat while I am dying of hunger. I will go to my father's house and say, Father I have sinned against heaven and against you. Now I am not worthy to be called your son. Treat me like one of your servants."
And so he did. How did his father respond? With the judgment and anger that the prodigal son deserved? No, because the son repented and confessed his sins. The father, that is, God, does not desire the condemnation of his children. We are children of God in the first place according to the order of creation. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the first humans, Adam and Eve. God also created us, using our biological parents as the instruments of His power.
But we also are children of God according the order of redemption. We lost our inheritances as children of God when Adam and Eve fell into sin and from that day forward, we have been sinners who live apart from God. Because of Jesus Christ, God has restored us as His sons and daughters in holy baptism. Yesterday, our sister, Anyi Vanesa Garrido Santana, was born again in baptism with all the promises of God's mergy and eternal life in Christ. Thanks be to God for the gift of faith in baptism. And thanks be to God also because Jesus Christ suffered and died on the cross to pay the price for all of our sins.
When his father embraced and kissed him, the prodigal son understood that he had his father's love, even though he did not deserve it. But not the other son.
Both sons misunderstood their relation with their father as a contract. Both thought that were entitled to something from their father. The younger son looked for his inheritance from his father apart from his father's discipline, that is , apart from the Law. He did not recognize the Law as something good and holy, and instituted for his own well-being. This is the position of many people nowadays who have not repented of their sons, but claim "God is love" and will not punish them.
There also are people who think, like the older son in the parable, that they have earned the love of God by fulfilling the Law (so they think) in their outward actions. They may attend church every Sunday, pay their taxes, care for their children and live as model citizens. But it may be that they do not attempt to rob or murder their neighbor because they do not want to go to jail, or perhaps they have never had the opportunity to commit adultery with their neighbor's wife or husband. That is why the ninth and tenth commandments address the desires of the heart, rather than outward actions.
Even worse, like the older son, they may think that their good works actually merit God's favor. But our relation with God is not a contract, an even exchanges of goods and services. God has done everything for us, much more than we deserve.
Therefore, as our Epistle (1 Peter 5: 6-11), let us humble ourselves below the powerful hand of God, placing all our cares on Him, for He cares for us. Amen.
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