In the story of the Prodigal Son told in Luke’s Gospel this
Sunday, the father is the embodiment of compassion, suffering with his son (com-passion), such that any possibility
of judgment is excluded by the immensity of transcendent love. The father embraces his son, and, with him,
his son’s past, his sins, his transgressions – without judgment. You are
with me always, the Father tells his envious older son in an attempt to
reach beyond that child’s barriers, to pull him, too, back into intimate
relationship. God’s compassion is for all, even when we are incapable of
fulfilling it ourselves.
In Sunday’s first reading from Joshua, God removes the reproach of Egypt from the
Israelites. What does this mean? While in Egypt, the Israelites neglected the
practice of circumcision, a ritual grounded in their history that marked their
identity as children of God. When Joshua
circumcises the Israelite men, their identity is restored, transcending the
barrier they had placed between themselves and God, and allowing relationship
to flourish in the Promised Land. Paul
similarly points to restored relationship in his second Letter to the
Corinthians, inviting the people of Corinth to be a new creation, reconciled
through the death and rising of Jesus. They,
too, are invited to renew their relationship with God, and, more still, to be ambassadors for Christ, calling others
to right relationship with God.
In his invitation to covenant, God’s compassion knows no
limits; Jesus didn’t come to judge the world, but to save it. We struggle to accept this: to embrace what God offers and respond; to find
that that compassion moves us, and that the only thing that can truly fill us
is love. It’s up to us to allow God to
reach beyond any barriers we might erect, to be reconciled with God, to open
ourselves to the compassionate gift that is God’s love, and to be, ultimately, radiant with joy (Psalm 34).
This reflection is based on Fr. Pat's Scripture class.
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