A reading from the prophet Micah (7:14-15, 18-20)
With a shepherd’s crook lead your people to pasture,
the flock that is your heritage,
living alone in a forest, in the midst of a garden land.
Let them graze in Bashan and Gilead as in the days of old!
Let us see wonders,
as in the days when you came out of the land of Egypt!
What god can compare with you
for pardoning guilt and for overlooking crime
for the remnant of his heritage?
He does not harbour anger for ever
since he delights in faithful love.
Return and have mercy on us,
tread down our faults;
throw all our sins to the bottom of the sea.
Grant Jacob your faithfulness
and Abraham your faithful love,
as you swore to our ancestors
from the days of long ago.
These words from the end of the book of Micah focus on the mercy of God, which will be richly illustrated in the gospel. God who cares for the people is often portrayed as shepherd (Psalm 80). The people are to ‘graze’, as in Bashan and Gilead, fertile land taken over during the conquest of the land. But God is called upon to do new ‘wonders’, such as were worked when they came out of Egypt. God ‘delights in faithful love’ (hesed). God will show mercy and submerge all memory of sin to the bottom of the sea, another allusion to the exodus, when Pharaoh’s armies were drowned. Now it is the greater enemy, sin, which is destroyed. In this way God maintains the faithfulness promised long ago to the patriarchs and renews it.
Psalm 103 (102) This great psalm of forgiveness reflects the words of Micah. The Lord is compassion and love, slow to anger, rich in mercy, removing sins ‘as far as the east is from the west’.
A reading from the holy gospel according to Luke (15:1-3, 11-32)
The tax collectors and sinners, however, were all crowding round to listen to him, and the Pharisees and scribes complained saying, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So he told them this parable.
‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, “Father, let me have the share of the estate that will come to me.” So the father divided the property between them. A few days later, the younger son got together everything he had and left for a distant country where he squandered his money in loose living.
‘When he had spent it all, that country experienced a severe famine, and now he began to be in need; so he hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants who sent him into the fields to feed the pigs. And he would willingly have filled himself with the pods which the pigs were eating, but no one would let him have them. Then he came to his senses and said, “How many of my father’s hired men have all the food they want and more, and here am I dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father and say: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired men.” So he got up and went back to his father.
‘While he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him. Then his son said, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring out the best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf, and kill it; we will celebrate by having a feast, because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and is found.” And they began to celebrate.
‘Now the elder son was out in the fields, and on his way back, as he drew near the house, he heard music and dancing. Calling one of the servants he asked what it was all about. The servant told him, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has got him back safe and sound.” He was angry then and refused to go in, and his father came out and began to plead with him; but he retorted to his father, “Look! All these years I have slaved for you and never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me so much as a young goat for me to celebrate with my friends. But, for this son of yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property with prostitutes you kill the fattened calf.”
Then the father said, “My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours. But it was only right we should celebrate and rejoice, because your brother here was dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found.” ’
The parable of the son who was lost and is found, the prodigal who comes back to life, can best be understood from the opening words of the chapter, that the Pharisees and scribes ‘complained’ that Jesus associated with sinners. Unique to Luke’s gospel, this parable contrasts the wild behaviour of the younger son with the dutiful service of his elder brother. The younger son who has the humility to seek forgiveness is welcomed back with a new robe, with music and feasting. It is the older son who has the greater problem. Is it possible for him to open his heart in forgiveness to his brother, whom he angrily dismisses while speaking to his father as ‘this son of yours’. The older boy stands for the religious leaders who are shocked by the mercy shown by Jesus. This ‘scandal’ of forgiveness is a constant in Christian history. That the lost should be found, and that the dead should be raised, these hopes, these realities, lie at the heart of the gospel. Recognising one’s own need for mercy may well be the key to accepting with gratitude the mercy God shows to others.
Why is it so difficult to accept God’s tender mercy shown to others?
For those who see mercy as soft and as a violation of God’s justice, we pray.