Ninth Sunday after Trinity AD 2024

In today’s Gospel we meet three characters: a father and his two sons. The most famous of them is undoubtedly the one we are used to calling the Prodigal Son. He doesn’t care about his father, only about the inheritance he hopes to receive from him. He can’t even wait for his father to die, and claims his share, cashes it in and lives a lavish, downright unbridled life.

It is only when all the money is gone and he has lost everything in his life, so that he becomes a miserable outcast, that he realizes how unworthy his lifestyle and attitude have been. He decides to return to his father and is ready to give up all his filial rights; his only wish is to be close to his father, be it as a servant.

The other son is loyal to his father – but only outwardly. In his heart he is as far from his father as his brother; he too cares not about his father, but only about his inheritance. He is self-righteous, he loves neither his father nor his brother.

We don’t know what became of him later, but we do know that while the Prodigal Son represents sinners in this parable, the older son is a type of the Pharisees, some of whom later became Christians – that is, even those whose hearts seem hopelessly hardened have hope.

The most important character is the father, in whose heart there is enough room and love for one and the other – both the sinner and the Pharisee. There is room and love in the Father’s heart for all of us – whether we are sinners or whether we act like the self-righteous Pharisees. God Himself gives us the spirit of true repentance, and we can always count on His faithfulness. He has saved us through the passion and death of His only begotten Son and has prepared for us an eternal inheritance in heaven.