Fourth Sunday of Lent

Dec 16 2024

Scripture Study for

The first reading recounts the first celebration of Passover in the land. The story suggests that the people have just crossed the Jordan. However, mention of cakes and parched grain implies that they had been settled long enough to produce a harvest. Though the feast identified is Passover, there is no mention of the required lamb. Instead, there is a reference to unleavened cakes, suggesting the feast of Unleavened Bread. Whenever Passover was celebrated, it commemorated the Exodus from Egypt. The present story probably grew out of a celebration that combined the festivals of Passover and Unleavened Bread. Paul focuses on the reconciliation that puts an end to any enmity with God. He uses the notion of a replacement sacrifice in his explanation of how God’s reconciliation is accomplished. Though he was innocent, Christ became the sin offering for the guilty. Joined to Christ, believers now share in the righteousness of Christ, and through Christ, in the righteousness of God. Having himself been reconciled with God, Paul becomes the agent through whom God works in the lives of others. All of this God has graciously accomplished for sinners through the magnanimous sacrifice of Christ. This is the good news that Paul preaches.

Jesus singles out two groups of people, tax-collectors and sinners. To eat with such people was thought to somehow share life with them. The Pharisees and scribes, those who dealt with the Law and the things of God, criticized Jesus for the company he kept. Jesus saw this association as opening the reign of God to all. The parable illustrates the mercy that God shows to repentant sinners. It also contrasts God’s openness with the closed-mindedness of those who consider themselves faithful. Jesus is really contrasting the compassion of God with the mean-spiritedness of the Pharisees and scribes. Like the elder brother, they lack compassion and they seem to resent the fact that God is merciful toward sinners who repent.

Dec 10 2024

The Impatient, Running Father

History has called me “the prodigal son.” But you have never heard my story. Jesus knew. He lived next door in Nazareth. The arrogance of the Pharisees may have awakened his memory. I heard him say, “You wash the outside of the cup while the inside stays filthy.” He knew my brother.

What was it like to live with “Mr. Perfect”? All my childhood, he tormented me when nobody was looking. Kicked me around, mocked me, like I was worthless. When Dad came around, he was all pure and innocent and law-abiding.

I couldn’t take it anymore. When I got old enough, I had to go. I had to make my own way. So I left. Can you blame me? It took me eight years to come home. I saw a lot in those years. I grew to be a man. I tried to make it on my own. I got lost so many times. Why did I stay away so long? The problem wasn’t the money. The problem was facing his look of superiority, his loathing that I couldn’t make it. I’d rather die than come crawling back to that.

My father? When I was a teenager, I took him for granted. He was simply there. I was so bottled up about my brother that I just . . . didn’t see him.

One evening, when I pressed on my belly button, I could feel my spine. I was dying of hunger. That night, I dreamed of my father’s eyes, full of tears. He was waiting for me, wanting me to come home.

You know the rest of the story. My brother hasn’t changed. Life is good. I am sorry that he is too bitter to see that. But it doesn’t matter. I still love him.

My father wants me to be close. I want to be near. It is good to be here, home with him.

Consider/Discuss

How do we get so bottled up about the pains of earth that we do not see the compassion that surrounds us, the love of the Father who wants us close?
What’s it like to be the father in this story who wants his sons to be near? How is God like that? How does the prodigal feel to be so welcomed?

Living and Praying with the Word

Father of compassion, only you know the depths of hurt that family can cause. The pains of earthly life can so bottle us up that we cannot see straight. In this story, sometimes we are the one who wandered away. Sometimes we are the one who drove the other away. Sometimes we are a bit of each, all messed up from things that happened long ago.

Forgive us our bitterness, hates and jealousies. Forgive us our deepest faults this Lent, dear God. Help us to forgive those who have hurt us. Yes, we are broken. Yes, we are sinners. You welcome sinners. You run to meet us. No matter what we have done, you want us to be near. In you, we have our home. No other home can satisfy. Hold us close to you, Lord, and never let us go.

Dec 10 2024

Scripture Study for

The story of the promises to the ancestors continues with the triumphant entry into the land promised to them and their descendants. Moses has died (Deuteronomy 34:5); his successor Joshua now leads Israel. His first act in the land (which they reached by crossing the Jordan “on dry ground,” reenacting the deliverance at the Red Sea [4:4–24]) is to celebrate the Passover, which commemorates God’s redemption of Israel. The Lord had been sustaining Israel in the wilderness with manna; God now sustains them with the produce of the land. God’s providential care for Israel takes different forms, but it remains nonetheless the hallmark of God’s relationship with the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Paul has been exhorting the Corinthians to remember that they have received an imperishable gift by dying with Christ (and being raised again in baptism). Those who now live in Christ live not for themselves but for Christ (5:14–15). This new life is a full transformation, not just a continuation of their previous life, a transformation that begins with reconciliation with God. This has many implications, including the obligation to share this gift with others. To live for Christ means, among other things, to be his ambassador, announcing on his behalf the gift of reconciliation and inviting others to be reconciled to God in Christ. Those who are now in Christ will want what he does, beginning with new life for all by being reconciled with God.

The Pharisees and scribes have assumed, observing Jesus “welcoming” sinners and eating with them, that he condones their sins. Rather than disabuse them of this notion directly, he challenges them to look at things from God’s perspective. Even a human father is capable of grieving over an ungrateful and dissolute son who runs off and comes crawling back in fear and shame. Rather than stand imperiously waiting for the son to reach him with his rehearsed apologies, the father runs to meet him, overjoyed that he has returned. The Pharisees and scribes seem to assume a God who waits for sinners to come crawling back to him, perfect and perfectly contrite, rather than running out to greet them “while they are still a long way off.” Jesus welcomes sinners, we are meant to understand, because this is how God is.