Our sins separate us from God

I am the prodigal’s older brother. I never understood the celebration and I always understood the anger.

I mean, I was glad the young man came to his senses and returned to the father, but I’m on the big brother’s side with, “you never even gave me a goat, let alone the fattened calf, after all my years of work.”

I also identify with Martha, who chastised Mary for eschewing housework to sit by Jesus; and Judas, who chastised the woman for pouring perfume over Jesus’ feet. I “get” their aggravation.

These Scriptural stories, along with the prodigal son, are pictures of profound love and mercy. My personality is somewhat aloof and practical; I was a church girl; I married a church boy and expected God to bless me because I was good, just like the older brother. It was more of a business arrangement than a love affair. Clearly, I was missing something.

The difference was love.

Love (and subsequent humility) is a dominant theme of Jesus’ “travel narrative” from the gospel of Luke — a chronological relaying of healings and teachings, and where the parable of the prodigal son is located:

“Go and do likewise (show mercy)” — 10:37.

“You Pharisees clean the outside but inside are full of wickedness” — 11:39.

“Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” — 12:32.

“Some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last” — 13:30.

“Let the little children come to me” — 18:16.

“There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance” — 15:7.

“Was no one found to return and give praise to God but this foreigner? Rise and go; your faith has made you well” — 17:18

“The tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but beat his breast, saying, ‘God be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other (‘good’ Pharisee) for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled but he who humbles himself will be exalted” — 18:13-14.

It took God’s “no” to a miraculous healing, years of King David-like keening (“Why do the wicked prosper? Hear my cry! Answer me!”), and conversion to the Catholic faith for me to learn a few things about God’s love. Also life, unfairness, suffering, rejoicing, my own ugly sinfulness, absolute forgiveness, and life-giving mercy.

For both brothers are sinners, the wild one and the do-gooder. Both brothers need the father’s extravagant love to pardon unpardonable acts — the one who squandered his inheritance in riotous living and the one given to anger and jealousy. Both brothers have a place in their father’s arms, the returning humiliated one and the present appalled one. Both brothers need forgiveness because all sins separate us from God — the big, obvious ones and the polite, acceptable ones. As Catholics, we all stand in the confession line together.

G.K. Chesterton, in “Orthodoxy,” imagines Christianity as a huge, ragged, romantic rock, compared with paganism’s smooth, symmetrical, marble pillar. This rock, although battered and swaying, is perfectly balanced because of its exaggerated excrescences distributed among all of Christendom. Even the Chartres cathedral contains planned, beautifully unmatched elements in various roof heights and materials, geometric forms, and stained glass subjects. The Church of Christ needs, uses, ministers to, and loves both kinds of brothers, all formations of the rock. There is a place for the wealthy benefactor, the homeless ill, and everyone in between.

The sins of the older brother are no less heartbreaking and vile, for all their civilities. What’s worse is his lack of humility and charity (which the younger brother understood, with all his troubles).

This is why Edmund is my favorite Narnia character. Sure, his siblings were brave, adventurous, and loyal; but only Edmund, forgiven after betraying truth and love, understood the lavish love of Aslan more deeply than the others.

So what must I, and other polite, sinful older brothers do with our discomfiture with those returning to the father after riotous living? We must fight it with big guns: fill our lives with Holy Communion, confession, Scriptures, and prayers; ask the saints and our guardian angels to pray for us. And above all, ask the Holy Spirit who loves to give us gifts to fill us with extravagant love for all people without the older brother’s haughty self-righteousness. “Love does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth,” (I Corinthians 13:6). Our Father, the Father of us all, reminds his oldest son that “Everything I have is yours. Now we must rejoice and celebrate because your brother was dead and is alive again!”

I will rejoice. I may not understand this unfair life but I will rejoice with my Father over lost loved ones coming home!

Allison Howell and her family are longtime residents of the Valley. They are Catholic converts and keep a hobby farm full of animals and children.