C: 4th Sun of Lent (31 Mar 2019) - THE BETWIXT SACRED SPACES - Lk 15:1-32

The concept of hybridization has become already a staple terminology in our present postmodern world. With the swift exchange of ideas, beliefs and culture in the global context, we are used to encountering so-called “hybrids” that adopt attributes, characteristics and qualities from multiple provenances. Often, they are wrapped within the principle of cut-and-mix where a syncretism of positive values and traits constantly (re)occurs.

In the postcolonial discourse, it similarly works albeit within the context of a deliberate adjustment of personal attitudes and biases. Hybridization, for Homi K. Bhabha, for example, would mean leaving one’s location of cynical prejudice toward a liminal position of openness. In such a betwixt position, pre-judgments can be suspended, marginalization can be avoided, and a healthy dialogue can transpire between equals since all stakeholders are not boxed by social stereotypes and are receptive to new (re)definition of each other’s truer identity.

The Story of the Prodigal Son is dubbed as the most beautiful love story in the gospels. It describes the “falling out of love” of the younger son from his father when he began to claim his inheritance (15:12) despite the father’s still very abled condition. Yet, in due time, just like most beautiful love stories, it ends perfectly with a “falling back in love”. The son realized his mistakes and decided to return to his father (vv. 18-19), who more than willingly accepted him back (vv. 20-24).

The innovative thing with the storytelling of Luke is that he situates the fateful encounter in the open space, probably in the middle of a field as portrayed normally in iconography. Instead of setting it in the paternal house where the father is master with several servants at his command (vv. 17, 19, 22), or in a public inn/tavern where the son had presumably mustered a solid following after having squandered all his inheritance there (vv. 13, 30), Luke puts the meeting in a betwixt position where both parties would have no clear advantages.

This “in-between” physical location and social condition become then the sacred space for an authentic reconciliation—the same kind of open space where God forgave and protected Cain after his murder of Abel (Gen 4:8-15), where the Israelites bitten by poisonous serpents were allowed to survive (Num 21:4-9), where David and Saul reconciled after the latter’s long pursuit (1 Sam 24: 8- 22), and where Christ redeemed mankind for its sins (Jn 19:17).

However, an interstitial place does not always guarantee an automatic reconciliation. The same open field became, too, the locus for the elder son’s own display of disappointment (Lk 15:28). He refused to enter into their house after having harbored grudges against his father for his disparate treatment of his two sons (vv. 29-30). The episode just ends with the father’s soliloquy on his overjoy at the return of his lost son, but nothing is said if the elder son went inside the house to celebrate with his younger brother or not. Nonetheless, the father continues to be always in the betwixt position of a mediator, even allowing himself to be in a liminal geographical space of neutrality… all for the sake of attaining a better communal harmony.

We are likewise called to be mediators of peace as St. Paul reminds us in the second reading: “So we are ambassadors for Christ; it is as though God were appealing through us, and the appeal that we make in Christ’s name is: be reconciled to God” (2 Cor 5:20). In our present context of constant disputes, quarrels and misunderstandings, let us challenge ourselves to be always willing to humble ourselves by entering in the varied betwixt sacred spaces of our daily lives. And we do this not only for our greater sanctity, but because it is the fitting location to end happily our communal love story with one another.

- Rex Fortes, CM