Finding Our Way Back Home
Julián Carrón - All the publicans and sinners came to Jesus to listen to him. With this phrase, St. Luke describes what had become a custom: the publicans often came to Jesus to listen to him. It is striking that the occupational term "publicans" is paired with the qualifier "sinners." This was how opponents labeled Jesus’ listeners—people who, by their trade, were considered reprehensible. Collecting taxes was an unpleasant task, so the Romans contracted it out to local inhabitants, known as publicans. These publicans had to collect taxes for the Romans and extra money for their own livelihood. Therefore, publicans were tax collectors who often exploited the ignorance of ordinary people to take more than required. To be a publican was, in the eyes of many, to be a sinner.
The fact that Jesus associated with publicans and sinners became a source of scandal for the Pharisees. For this reason, St. Luke continues, "The Pharisees and scribes murmured, saying, ‘He welcomes sinners and eats with them.’"
Jesus responds to this scandal with the parable of the Prodigal Son. He told them this parable: "A man had two sons. The younger of the two said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the inheritance.’ And he divided the substance between them." The father’s attitude is striking. When confronted with his son’s request to leave home, he not only refrained from anger but granted the request and gave him the inheritance due to him. The father was not indifferent to his son’s desire to leave. On the contrary, because he loved him, he understood the nature of the son to whom he had given life, yet he also knew that the son could only discover the value of being a son through his freedom. How does the father show his love for his son’s freedom? He simply lets him go. The father respects his son’s freedom, trusting that the son would not depart without carrying his identity as a son with him.
The son had to determine whether estrangement from his father would bring the fullness of life he once had. "When he had spent everything, a great famine struck that country, and he began to suffer from hunger. So he went and hired himself out to one of the inhabitants of that region, who sent him into his fields to herd swine. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the swine ate, but no one gave him anything." Loneliness made him aware of what he had lost. When he realized this, "he came to himself," as the Gospel says, and resolved to return to his father: "How many of my father’s hired workers have bread in abundance, while I am starving here! I will get up, go to my father, and say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against Heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired workers.’" He got up and went back to his father.
No one forced him to return, but now he had discovered the gift of having a father. Yet the best was still to come. Not only did the father refrain from rebuking him, but "when he was still far away, he saw him, had compassion, ran to him, embraced him, and kissed him," then celebrated his return. Everything he possessed seemed insufficient to welcome his son adequately. Through this return, the father used everything at his disposal to reveal his true nature as a loving father, full of affection for his son.
This is how Jesus responds to those who murmur because he eats with publicans and sinners: "I do this with them, despite their obvious mistakes, because my Father welcomes his repentant sons in the same way." To the elder son, who rebukes him for rejoicing over the returned son, the father offers the ultimate reason: "Son, it was necessary to rejoice and celebrate, because this brother of yours was dead and has come back to life; he was lost and has been found."
This is how God waits for each of us—like a father waiting for his son, regardless of the mistakes he has made. With such a father ready to celebrate our return, we can rediscover the joy of being sons, no matter what we have done.
Fourth Sunday in Lent - Year C
Notes from the Homily of Julián Carrón. The author has not revised the text and its translations.
March 30, 2025
(First Reading: Gen. 5:9-10, 12; Psalm 33 (34); Second Reading: 2 Cor. 5:17-21; Gospel: Lk. 15:1-3, 11-32)
