FOURTH SUNDAY OF LENT, YEAR C
March 14, 2010
Lk. 15, 1-3, and 11-32

FIRST SERIES - RENEWAL OF OUR BAPTISM

Lent and Easter are a renewal of our baptism.  It was a more significant event in our lives than most of us realize.  If we did realize, it would change the direction of our life, and take us in a new direction in what we do in the church.  Vatican 2 said this, and I would like to unpack some of its implications. 

For a long time prior to Vatican 2, there was a going theology of the church and its ministries. It went like this. Jesus had one day assembled the twelve and set them up as a college.  He wanted the leading people, or ministers, in the church through the ages to be in uninterrupted succession (in real historical continuity) with him and with this college.  The most significant people intended here were the priests.  Ordination took hold of the whole person of the man being ordained, and consecrated him so that he would be a ‘man of God’ in the strongest sense, not just a delegate of the community.  He was a new being, he was a sacred person.  In those days, priestly ordination was the high point, and it overshadowed both the making of a bishop (by a further ordination) and the making of a new Christian (by baptism).  When a priest was ordained a bishop (often called his ‘consecration’) he received no further power in relation to the Eucharist, he simply received the power to teach and lead the church.  When a (present or future) believer was baptized, she was admitted to the rank and file of the church, but given no special role, or ministry in it.  Ministry was a matter of administration and commission, separate from any sacraments received.  A lot of catholics still think like this, about priests, bishops, and the baptized. 

But Vatican 2 did not go along with this.  It discovered an older, and very different idea of the church.  I want to point out the big difference it showed us about baptism, but let me begin by looking again at the bishop and the priests.  For Vatican 2, the bishop came out as much more important than the priests.  The bishop, by ordination, was admitted to the college of bishops, which stood in continuity with the college of the 12, and so in a particular way with Jesus.  The priest who is not a bishop was seen as a member of a ‘presbyterium’ of helpers of the bishop in this role.  In a real way, Vatican 2 saw the priest as less important, and less central to the church, than the theology had suggested up to Vatican 2.  And after Vatican 2, the language changed: a new bishop was simply said to be ‘ordained’, not ‘consecrated’.  And of course, his presbyter-priests were also ‘ordained’, not ‘consecrated’.

This presupposed a different view of baptism. All those made priests and bishops had already been baptized (and confirmed).  That was indeed a consecration.  They, like all of us, were consecrated with holy oil called chrism.  [It is the same chrism that is used in the ordination of priests and bishops.]  Baptism consecrated the new Christian into a new holiness, and a new ministry in the church.  The new holiness has been written about a lot, and well.  It is not a case of removing original sin, it is rather a case of insertion into the holiness of the risen Jesus alive in the world and the church.  But did baptism really consecrate the person into a new ministry in the church?  It did.

In Baptism, the new Christian is given the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit, as just said, unites us to Jesus.  But the Holy Spirit, in baptism, also gives us what we call ‘charisms’.  Unfortunately we often hear this word as describing flamboyant, almost ‘miraculous’ activities of highly unusual people.  A charism does not often or necessarily mean that.  It means a gift or talent that is meant to be used to help other people, all other people.  Its context and character are quite ordinary.  But its inner capacity, and its ability to help and serve others, is really very big.  That is why such charisms are the foundation and ground of what we call ‘ministry’ in the church.  Charism is not meant to be locked up without use.  It is not meant for the private holiness of the baptized person.  It is not meant to be separate from ministry.  It is meant to lead to it.  Ministry is not meant to be without it.  Each baptized person, then, by virtue of baptism and nothing more, has a Spirit-given ministry in the church and charisms with which to do it.  These ministries are varied – and their variety is meant to be without competition.  [This can obviously be expressed in diverse ways, according to age, education, circumstances.]   Baptism is also not just an event in the past  - it is a living reality, and the Spirit is still giving us ministry and charisms.]

Now ministries are actions.  For ministries to exist, they need to be given some structures in which they can happen.  For example, we have ordinations and commissionings of baptized people for particular ministries: these rituals bring a call to, and an expectation of a new activity in the church for the good of others.  The present arrangement of deacons/priests/bishops is a case in point.  The whole idea of baptism, and the gift of the Spirit in it, is that there is no ministry in the church at any time that is not ‘charismed’.  One might be permitted at times to wonder if some of those ordained and commissioned to various ministries (including priests and bishops) are really all that ‘charismed’…..

But my point is not that.  My point is that, after Vatican 2’s rediscovery of this vision, hardly any new structures were developed through which most of the baptized (not called to priesthood or episcopacy) could use their charisms for the service  of others.  A charism deprived of such possibilities of expression often turns inward, against the intention of the Holy Spirit, and we end up with a strange kind of private ‘spirituality’.  A ministry allowed to happen randomly without such possibilities is often not clearly marked by the charisms at all.  You recruit uncharismed people!  The church is not recognizing ‘talent’ in its baptized ( = charismed) members.  It is not using it sufficiently.  It is not sufficiently open to the movement of the Spirit if it doesn’t.

Some examples.   We now have many, very good lay persons (baptized) working as teaching in our schools.  Great.  A real ministry.  But is it really as charismed as it might be, as it ought to be if we respected the baptism of these people?  We now have many, very good lay persons working as pastoral associates in parishes, or as lay-chaplains in hospitals, etc.  Same question. 

There are always some who are afraid of novelty here.  They believe that the present structures of ministry in the Church are eternally fixed by the will of Jesus himself, and cannot be changed, taken away or added to.  There are others who perhaps are more willing to jump into new things than they might, if they had more caution.  The make or break here is a discernment of what proposals come from the Spirit of baptism, and are much more than a sudden whiff of enthusiasm.  Perhaps it is the Spirit who will show us what our baptism was always meant to do for us, and for others.

Lent is meant to be a renewal of baptism, and we are meant to celebrate it at Easter…                                                           
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SECOND SERIES - GROWING UP TO ADULTHOOD

We listen this weekend to the parable of the prodigal son.  We often read it piously and focus only on the compassion and forgiveness of the Father, for a son who has lived a life of irresponsible, tragic failure.  I would like to suggest that there is another way of reading it, and it may be closer to what Jesus wanted to say.  I would like to read it with you as a story of a young person who has courageously and successfully grown up into adulthood.  This young person is the prodigal.  I would also like to read it as the story of a beleaguered father with two equally difficult sons.  And I would like to include the reactions of the villagers where they lived, who were offended by their behavior.  In the end, the story is about the reintegration of this (dysfunctional) family with its (demanding) neighbors.  

When the story begins, the two sons have not yet led lives they could call their own.  They are part of a close-knit family.  They live there like small children.  Theirs is a very closed world. They are all fused together in that family.

This situation is interrupted by the initiative taken by the younger son. He wants his share of his inheritance, and he wants it NOW.  He wants to live independently. He wants to break away from the family and lead a life of his own.  He declares his father dead for all practical purposes.  He wants his inheritance now, and he leaves the village for the city.  It must have been a shock to everyone there.   It is outrageous.  But his father accedes to his request.  He separates from his father physically: he goes ‘far away’.  He revolts against conformity.  He doesn’t want to be like his father.  He tries to rid himself of all vestiges of dependency on him.  He loses all of his father’s money.  He abandons all the ideals and principles learned from his father.  He is on his own, in his first step in the quest for life.  He is an adolescent wanting to be himself (whoever that is), and experimenting how to do it.  It isn’t long before the whole village knows all about it.  The prodigal is a villager who has gone off to the city.  Cities had a fatal attraction for peasants in those days.   Solidarity of the family with the village community is threatened.   The village closes ranks lest the contagion spread.

For a while, it works for the young man.   He lives it up.  He has “left home” and moved into a whole new world of his own.  It is great for a while, till the money runs out.  Then he experiences real inadequacy – he begins to feel the pinch – he is starving.  He needs food.  He realizes he could have food at home, but at the price of losing his freedom and independence.  At the price of behaving like a good little boy again.

He experiences the devastating impact of the city on himself, a displaced peasant.

He faces REALITY.  The ‘perfect’ satisfaction he thought he’d have, in his life of free spending and lavish living, has proven to be very unsatisfactory.  Reality means life isn’t like that.  He realizes that there have to be limits for himself.  Sometimes he has to say ‘No’! to what he wants, in the ways he imagines.  It is hard going.  Everyone has to learn that, sometime.

He learns. He learns to respect the desire inside himself, that urged him to move away from the womb of home and try to be his own person.  But, he also learns to respect the fact that this doesn’t come easily.  There are times when he must tighten the reins on his impulses.  He starts to realise what ‘being grown up’ is all about.  It isn’t the same as he imagined.

He starts to wonder if maybe his father, too, learnt this when he was young. Maybe his father would understand, from his own growing up, just what he is going through.  Maybe they are both limited, real people.  He never knew his father was like that. 

He decides to go to his father and find out.  He thinks he will offer to work for him as a hired servant.  He will not be dependent on his father again.  He will earn his own living.  He will be a real man.  It is not really a case of ‘repentance’.  It is a case of knowing reality, and people, in a different way. 

He knows there is a risk in going to his father.  He left a “fantasy father” whom he believed to have all the answers. He is about to discover his ‘real’ father, whom he has yet to come to know, adult to adult.  He doesn’t know what it will be like.

“While he was afar off…his father recognized him.”  The father runs (and old orientals don’t run – to show their ankles under their clothing would indicate lack of control), he embraces him, he kisses him.  It is as unexpected as it is shocking.  The father strains out towards him.  These are signs of welcome, but also signs to the village that a new man lives there.  He is part of the village again, but differently. 

The father recognizes that he has grown up.   He calls for new clothes and a feast to celebrate.  It isn’t a penance service.  The father freely consents to the new dignity he finds in his son.  He wants to relate to him as grown up father to grown up son.  That is a new RELATIONSHIP between the two of them.  It is something worth celebrating.

We don’t choose those who bring us into the world.  However, to have a “father” in the full sense, we do have to choose him later.  In the same way, the father has to choose his son.  He is father, not in the physical engendering, but in the responsible recognition of the one he has engendered, avowing him to be his.

Luke’s story has a happy ending, regarding the relationship between the father and the younger son.  There are stories that don’t end so happily.  Some prodigals, on returning home, don’t find parallel growth in the parent.  Some parents mature through the separation of their children, but find that their children haven’t matured in a similar way.  That is sad, and it hurts.  It is another stage in maturing, in settling in to reality.

The villagers, too, recognize one of their own.  In their eyes, both the prodigal and his father were ashamed.  But they are loyal to the family.  The father – the family – turns on a party, to welcome the prodigal home, and to appease the village.  The whole village dines on the fatted calf.  They come to the welcome home party.  But - do they live in the kind of naivete the two boys lived in, at the start of the story?  Do the villagers need to come to a positive awareness of what cities can do for people?  Do they need to get past their perhaps insular solidarity?

What of the elder brother?  He is the image of self-righteousness in a closed system.  He has never done anything wrong because actually he has never done anything with his life.  He is still a little boy.  Or is he?  Is he an angry, independent non-member of the family and the village?  After all, he got his share of the inheritance when his young brother took his.  He won’t join the village now in the celebration.  He prefers to stay outside.  He refuses to greet the guests, or help with the entertainment.  His father, perhaps a bit feebleminded or exhausted emotionally, begs him.  He cooks up false accusations.  He stays within his angry fantasy of wondering if an aging father and a re-accepted brother will look after him as he gets older.  The father counters the shamelessness of this elder son, in his disloyalty, with his own foolishness in going beyond all rational limits for the sake of belonging. 

Dom Helder Camara prayed:

                                “I pray incessantly for the conversion of the prodigal son’s brother.
Ever in my ear rings the dread warning:
the one has awakened from his life of sin;
when will the other awaken from his life of virtue?” (1962)

Maybe, when we read this parable, we might say a prayer.  We might pray for all the prodigals who are finding it hard to grow up.  We might pray for all the young generation that hasn’t yet taken the risk of trying to grow up.  We might pray for all the parents who watch and pray and are somewhere else while it happens.  We might pray that one day they might all come together and have a celebration of adult maturity – and that the big brothers will come too.

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