Jesus tells a parable about a loving God to fathers unlikely to believe in one. He uses the setting of a home to do so. The parable begins with an unloving son who wants to leave home and gets his father’s money to do so. But he “squandered his inheritance on a life of excess harm… and found himself in dire need.” The son becomes repentant and longs to return home but does not believe his father will lovingly welcome him. Fortunately, “while he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him and was filled with love. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.”
Who are the sons of our era that are wealthy and repentant of the harm they do? Can the question be asked of Big Pharma’s Richard Sackler, Fox’s Lachlan Murdoch, and the Trump sons. Each son reaps the benefits of undeserved wealth and wastes it, harmfully. Are they able to repent, able to love? Are we as a society able to do so? There is evidence our society instead ‘doubles down’ on harm done. It means we are unable to love for we are even more hurtful than when first we did our harm. For example, Don Jr. shows he is unable to love when he recently mocked Kamala Harris discussing the Americans with Disabilities Act and doubles down on his insults. We also have Junior’s father show us he is unable to love when he mocked a disabled reporter and refused to have disabled veterans in his parades, then doubles down on that hurt refusing to have them at his rallies. Those in association with such hurt and such doubled down hurt are the unloving fathers of our age. They are willful in being un-able to love. They are willful in being un-able to create a loving home as the essence of our society. Like the unloving fathers to whom Jesus tells his parable, these men need a witness of love. L’Arche can be such a witness. L’Arche has 38 loving homes across the world for individuals who are physically disabled. L’Arche means ‘The Ark’ in French and consists of pairs of community members; persons who are physically abled and persons who are physically disabled. But those classified as disabled are fully abled to love. Yet too often, as Trump and his sons demonstrate, they are mocked, rejected, and excluded. Unloving people hurt them and double down on that hurt. Some are not loved in the homes they were born into. Some are loved and are welcomed home in their birth families and in their L’Arche families. Birth families and L’Arche families able to love care not for wealth or status. They care about nurturing love – in all of its struggles and reconciliations with others in the place they call home. Loving families do not readily hurt and would not ‘double down’ on hurt. Loving homes can be a witness in creating a loving society, in creating a human family whose common home is love. The longing to live in a loving home and to be lovingly welcomed home is one of life’s strongest desires. We can create such a home.
“Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame… waiting for Warren… ‘Silas is back… Be kind,’ she said… ‘When was I ever anything but kind to him? But I’ll not have the fellow back… What good is he? … Off he goes always when I need him most… I’m done.’ ‘Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you,’ Mary said. ‘I want him to.’” “‘Oh, he’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove… I found him huddled against the barn-door, a miserable sight… I dragged him to the house… Warren, she said, he has come home to die: You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.’” ‘Home, he mocked gently.’” “‘Yes, what else but home?… Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in…’” “‘Silas has a better claim on us you think than on his brother? … Why didn’t he go there? His brother’s rich… He ought of right to take him in.’” “‘I wonder what’s between them… I can’t think Silas ever hurt anyone. I made the bed up for him there tonight. You’ll be surprised at him—how much he’s broken… Go, look, see for yourself’… Warren returned — too soon, it seemed to her, slipped to her side, and caught up her hand. ‘Warren,’ she questioned. ‘Dead,’ was all he answered.” (The Death of the Hired Man – Robert Frost)
Prayer: Beautiful Spirit, let us be the ones who create a common home of love.
Question: Who is an unloving member of my human family I need to lovingly welcome home?
Sep 11, 2022 Gospel Luke 15:1-32 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time