HOME-COMING
Joshua 5:9a, 10-12; 2 Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
My sister (and her family) and I were home for a holiday a few years ago. Mum was at the gate to receive us. We had reached in time for lunch. What a spread there was! There was each one’s favourite dish. In the days we were home, mum made “what you don’t get in Bombay”! It was a home-coming signified, among other things, by what we ate! The food was a symbol of our parents’ love and joy at having us home.
Home-coming! This phrase sums up this Sunday’s readings.
In the first reading, Israel is on the threshold of the Promised Land and is about to begin new life in their new homeland. This is signified by what they eat: not the manna they ate in the desert, but “the produce of the land in the form of unleavened cakes and parched grain”. In their home-coming, they experience God’s mercy and love.
The gospel recounts the return of the prodigal son. The old life of dissipation and of hard labour on the pig-farm gives way to new life in his father’s home. His home-coming, too, is signified by what he eats: not the pods on which the swine fed, but a home-cooked family feast. The finest robe, new shoes, a ring, and the feast signify the father’s happiness at having his son home. In his home-coming, the son experiences the father’s mercy and love.
There is a homecoming also for the elder son! Though he has always been with his father, he has not lived at home. He, too, experiences the father’s mercy and love.
For Paul, writing to the Corinthians, reconciliation is home-coming!
That’s the lesson of the parable of the prodigal son: God waits for us to return home and to forgive us; he is not interested in our list of sins and our prepared lines. This is what happens when we approach the sacrament of reconciliation.
That’s the lesson from Jesus’ interaction with sinners: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them!” This is what happens at every Eucharist. He welcomes us, and not just eats with us but he gives us himself.
Will I, this Sunday and this Lent, “come home”; allow the Father to forgive me; and partake of the feast he has prepared for me? Is there anyone I need to welcome “home”?
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