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We seem to have great difficulty absorbing this basic fact of God’s mercy, his first and last word to humanity. Certainly my experience as a priest has shown me that many, many people—good, faith-filled people!—genuinely struggle to hold onto this fact.
That the Father, “seeing us from far off”—that is, seeing us long before we’ve gotten ourselves all tidied up and sorted out, long before we’ve figured out the problem and begun to take positive steps to resolve it, seeing us when we are still like the prodigal son in the parable, a bloody, raggedy, smelly mess, covered with sin and slime and shame—that his fundamental, essential divine response is to be filled with compassion?
To move out towards us in an embrace of tenderness? That’s his first response?
Oh, it’s hard to grasp this, hard to hold on to this. The mercy of God: an infinite fountain of love, tenderness, kindness, healing, forgiveness, flowing from the very heart of Being, flowing endlessly, without beginning or end, the very substance, source, center of all being, the very energy that fashioned and holds and restores and perfects all that is.
We can’t quite get it, can’t take it in somehow. Why is that? Is it that it’s too good to be true? Too much to hope for?
Maybe it’s too far removed from what we’re used to. We’re not like that, after all. We’re not filled with compassion at the ugliness, the wretchedness of our brothers and sisters.
When we see that no good prodigal reeling towards us, reeking of pig manure and looking (we know) for a handout, our response is more likely to be disgust and cynicism. “Oh sure, he’s desperate now, but wait until he gets a change of clothes and a bit of fatted calf in his belly. He’ll be back off to his prostitutes and high life!”
When our prodigal next door neighbors have (once again) played their music too loud, let their kids run wild on our lawn, left their mess all over the place (bringing down the property values, you know), when we see that dreaded prodigal co-worker coming towards us with his sweaty palms, body odor, long pointless stories and tasteless jokes.
When our inbox is filled with messages from that prodigal cousin who natters away at length, complaining about everything and everyone, when our prodigal spouse has done “that thing” again that he/she knows drives us crazy (and does on purpose!! Specifically to drive us crazy!!!)… well, our hearts are not necessarily moved with compassion.
We do not run out to meet them and embrace them. Why should we? Why should God? Does he?
Is it that it’s too easy this way? Does it let us off too lightly? Why is it so hard for us to absorb the fact, the reality of the mercy of God?
Maybe it is just that, that some strong stern Puritan sense of duty, of debts owed, recompense to be made rises up in us. If everything can be forgiven so easily, if God’s mercy is that lavish, doesn’t it put us in a position of perpetual irresponsibility?
The prodigal son could, indeed, be out the door again as soon as he’s finished plundering the father’s goodness a second time. The question arises: is God’s mercy really good for us?
If God’s mercy were that way, like a kind of cosmic get-out-of-jail-free card (like in the game, Monopoly), then it would indeed have a corrosive effect on our character.
It would lead us into just such a feckless irresponsibility, a life of lax permissiveness where we could turn around at the end of whatever vice we are engaged in and casually murmur, “oh, sorry God!” Forgiven, then we could return to our pleasures.
This is not the way God’s mercy is, though. Rather, God’s mercy does something to us, more than just letting us off the hook.
For one thing, to really believe in the mercy of God takes away our excuses. If God truly comes to us in our sin and truly embraces and loves and cleanses us, then we have no real reason not to surrender ourselves to him and follow him wherever.
So often we can use the (true!) fact that we’re not really very nice people as a way of justifying our not becoming saints. Mercy eliminates that excuse. Mercy, far from being a quick fix, throws us into a life that asks everything of us.
The Father does not simply meet the son on the road, embrace him, and then leave him in his wretched state. He enfolds him into his own life.
The son is dressed in a robe and given a ring—signs of being brought back into the family and its ways. He is brought into the house, and this house is not simply a new base of operations for his prodigal ways, a place for him to throw raucous prodigal parties with all his little prodigal friends, now that he’s back in the money.
The Father’s house is the house of mercy, the house of love. Mercy changes us. Most importantly, it changes us so that we ourselves become merciful, and blessed are we once this change happens (cf Matthew 5:7).
Mercy—true mercy, truly given, truly received—pulls us into a depth of encounter with God that changes everything in us. God died for mercy’s sake. This is no get-out-of-jail-free card, although it certainly does get us out of the jail of our selfish selves. There is nothing “free” about it, even though it is freely given.
It is a free gift the price of which staggers our imagination, staggers our puny minds and hearts and their ability to absorb it. A free gift that, when we receive it, calls us inevitably and inexorably into giving that same gift to others, even to the point of death.
Entering the father’s house means entering the Father’s business, and his business is to love to the end, to the fullest measure of gift and grace.
To receive mercy incorporates us, if you will, into this business, even to the point of death with Christ through to the point of rising with Christ. And this is what it means to be a member of the Body of Christ, the Church.
And yet in all that, the mercy of God remains just that—mercy.
It is our joy, our consolation, our hope. It is laughter and delight. The first and last word of our faith life is not the wretched knowledge of our sins or even the blessed knowledge of our poverty or even the awesome overwhelming awareness of our own call to be merciful.
The first and last word is happiness. It is home. The first and last word is “Father.”
Fr. Denis adapted this article from chapter 5 (pp. 44-56) of his book, Going Home, Justin Press, (2012), available from MH Publications. The entire book is a meditation on the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15: 11-32), the Gospel for the 4th Sunday of Lent, March 31.
