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As we ponder our own sins, we might ask ourselves Two sons–seven deadly sins By Clyde A. Bonar The story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) frequently forms the basis of penance services. No matter what sin we might have committed, the homilist will stress, our loving God forgives our sins, and all sins. Using this parable is appropriate, for between them, the two sons commit all of the seven deadly (or capital) sins. First deadly sin: Pride Jesus begins his story of the two sons by detailing the younger son’s pride: “Then Jesus said, ‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided his property between them.’” The younger son had a right, by Hebrew custom, to request his share of the family estate. Palestine was poor, and younger sons could take their share, sell it, and set off to make their own fortune. However, traditional teaching called the person who gave his property to his children before he died a fool. The wisdom of the rabbis was that your children will frequently betray you. We can understand a son or daughter leaving home when job prospects are greater elsewhere. What’s not in this story points to the younger son’s sin of pride. Before the age of social security and company pensions, parents relied on their children to care for them in their old age. It was a son’s duty (Sirach 3:12). But the younger son gives no hint of promise to take care of his father when old, no statement that when the younger son makes good he will send money back home to pay for the needs of his elderly father. The import of the younger son’s request is: “Father, after you die, I will get my share of your property. So, be dead, and give me my inheritance now.” Is not that the sin of pride? Pride shows up as inordinate self-centeredness. It is arrogance combined with egotism, a clamor of self-will, and is characterized by the idea that others should do what we want, when we want it done, and the way we want it done. Prideful is exactly how the younger son acted. With hardness in his heart, the younger son said to his father: You can best help me by giving me your money now and getting out of my life! Without hesitation he would break the bonds of love between himself and his father. The son thinks first and primarily of himself. As we check our own list of sins, we might ponder this haughty dismissal of the need for others. Folk sayings joke about the sin of pride as they prompt us to say: “If you want something done right, better do it yourself”; or, “I made a mistake, once. And I wrote it down so I would not forget that I too can make a mistake.” The egotist takes pride a step further by dominating the conversation. His or her message is clear—since I am the only one with any good ideas, I might as well do all the talking. One pastor came straight back with pride when a visiting priest irritated him. The visiting priest did not like the pastor’s dog, and made it very clear. Then, to top that, the pastor recounted, the visiting priest never put his dirty dishes in the sink. And, the visiting priest would always top the pastor’s story. Come Sunday, the visiting priest concelebrated Mass. Very carefully the pastor picked out the albs and vestments: his looked tasteful and fitted well, the visiting priest was given ill-fitting and faded vestments. The proud pastor showed up the visiting priest in front of the whole congregation. Just look at the way the visiting priest vested for Mass! Pride had caught the pastor. His concern was his own self-esteem, not how to care for a guest. Avarice Having easily committed the greatest sin, pride, the younger son falls right into avarice: “A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.” Enjoy the good life, wine, women, and song! Wild, fast living and frittering away dad’s money go hand in hand. The younger son wastes what his father worked to accumulate. When caught in avarice, we love to have things, and we love to have them just for the sake of having. An anthropology examination question asked why anyone would collect stamps. The hoped for answer was that stamps can help us to remember and honor the great events and great people commemorated on stamps, and help us to appreciate the world we live in as we view the wonders of nature pictured on stamps. The other answer, reflecting avarice, identifies this particular stamp as one of only two still existing, printed two hundred years ago, and now valued in the thousands of dollars. The stamp gives the owner, in other words, the prestige of ownership. Wasting of possessions and hoarding of possessions are two evils of avarice. The avaricious stamp collector hoards. Like the miser, this collector takes his identity by how much he possesses. Wasting, almost by contrast, says look at what I can buy because I have so much. Sinful uses follow in step. King Solomon, known for his wisdom, was also an all time big spender. He bled the people white with taxes to build a palace so huge it included rooms for each of his seven hundred wives and three hundred other ladies in waiting. Solomon squandered the wealth of his people like the prodigal son wasted the money of his father. The avaricious person needs to show his wealth. Designer labels and shopping malls piled high with things we just do not need play to avarice. The advertiser tempts us with thoughts of being in style, tells us we deserve the latest, state of the art gadget. Second mortgage companies point out how we can consolidate our credit payments and remodel our homes, and end up with a “low” monthly payment. The sin of avarice has a great fondness for debt! Avarice knows the motivation—love your possessions, accumulate more, replace what you have with new. In Proverbs (30:8-9) we read: give me neither poverty nor riches; grant me only my share of bread to eat, for fear that surrounded by plenty, I shall fall away and say, “Yahweh—who is Yahweh?” or else, in destitution, take to stealing and profane the name of my God. The younger son forgot both his father and Yahweh, and fell head long into the free spending self-centered love of avarice. Lust Later on, in verse 30, the elder son accuses his younger brother of ravaging their father’s property with prostitutes. Lust does go with avarice, paid-for sex is a companion of wasteful spending. To lust is to chase, not to attain. In lusting, we want to gratify a craving for sexual pleasure. Lust has no interest in the partner, and, the morning after the partner heads for the door. No commitment has been made, none even implied. Sex becomes the genital act, and the more frequent the better. Quantity, not quality, is the keynote of lust. I’ve had hundreds, thousands, of bed mates, says the lustful bragger. Unsought, unknown, remains the deep, fulfilling, enjoyable agape love which can only develop within marriage. The younger son certainly knew from his religious heritage that God chastises the lustful. He would have known that God wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah, where lived “great sinners” who “indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural lust” (Genesis 13:13; Jude 1:7). Likewise, the younger son surely knew the story of David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11:12). The lustful king called to his bed the naked woman he saw bathing as he peered out from the roof of his palace. Then, to cover his sin, he had her husband Uriah sent to certain death in battle. The Lord took the son of their illicit union. True love waits, we tell our teenagers. Let the first physical, erotic love develop into filial love, and as wedded partners watch as agape love fulfills your deepest hopes. This kind of love produces the baby that must be named nine months later, and gives the couple a child to cherish. Sloth The younger son went for the romp in bed, for the pleasure of the moment. The money from his father’s estate disappeared. “When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.” At this point Jesus puts a zinger in the parable. When the younger son finally looks for a job, the only work he can find is tending the pigs. Since pigs are ritually unclean (Leviticus 11:7), caring for pigs was the ultimate degradation for a Jew. Then, things get worse. He has only the dried up husks that were fed to pigs to eat. The younger son is in dire straits. He had not heeded the words of Sirach (10:13): the Lord brings upon the proud “unheard-of calamities and destroys them completely.” Of note, the son shows no remorse for his sins of pride, avarice, and lust. Rather, he wallows in self-pity, complaining that “no one gave him anything.” Why is he waiting around for someone to give him something? The younger son has slipped right into another deadly sin, sloth (or acedia). He evidences all the characteristics of sloth: dejection and inertia, sluggishness of mind and feeling and spirit. No, he will get by with a job he detests. He has no desire to make any fundamental change in the way he lives his life. Sloth is a popular sin. We hear it in our sayings: “Don’t get uptight,” “Play it cool,” “Hang loose.” When nothing is worth the effort, when we find no enjoyment or purpose in what we do, when we do not care enough to interfere with wrongs we see happening around us, we are being slothful. Sloth is an easy temptation. Myself, I always think of the lady whose house was full of fleas. When I first went to take Communion to her, on my First Friday call list, I sat on her couch and could see the fleas crawling all over that couch. After I got back to my car, I saw fleas crawling on my arm, and I began to scratch! Come Friday the following month, how I wished the lady would not be home. Her receiving Communion was not worth my getting fleas all over me, sloth told me! Gluttony Isaac of Nineveh taught that when the stomach is hungry, shameful thoughts cannot enter the soul. We should eat only when we are hungry, and it is better for the spiritual life to stop eating while still a little hungry. Gluttony indicates a much greater interest in food. Often thought of as eating too much, gluttony includes any large-scale concern for food. Both the calorie counter and the gourmet are gluttons! The former spend the day reading diet books, obsessed with what cannot be eaten; the latter tastes, discusses, and describes everything that is eaten. C. S. Lewis additionally describes the “gluttony of delicacy,” when everything must be just right, the right sized portion, cooked just right, seasoned just right. Gluttony shows up in a picky-ness about what we eat. Check for gluttony sometime. Does the refrigerator have three kinds of juice, because one family member likes fresh squeezed orange juice, another does not like the bulky taste of the fresh squeezed and wants juice from concentrate, and yet another family member will only drink grapefruit juice? Does the dining table look like each individual ordered from a restaurant menu, because each person demands an entree others will not eat? The prodigal son certainly was picky! All he had were those pods fed to pigs! He grumbled, like the starving Israelites whined as they grew weary of manna (Numbers 11:6). We would expect gluttony from the younger son, for gluttony and lust go together, both indicating a lack of self-control (4 Maccabees 1:3). Remorse and forgiveness Finally, tears of compunction flow down the younger son’s cheeks. Like the twelve step programs outline, his life had gone out of control. Admitting his powerlessness, he turns to his father, for he knows his father’s love will always be there: “But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’” The prodigal son had indeed sinned. To the deadly sins of pride, avarice, lust, gluttony, and sloth, we might add breaking of the Fourth Commandment, to honor his parents. It was no honor to his father to walk away from the family because he no longer needed their support. “So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.” What great love the father shows towards his son. Hebrew communities of the time would be centered around the marketplace, with homes nearby. Surrounding the built-up town area were the open fields. Each morning the father would have gone to the edge of the town, hoping his son would return. You can picture the townspeople jeering him, asking him why he kept a vigil for that no-good son of his. Now, he walks back into town with his son, arm in arm, and the townspeople would call out insults to the son for treating his father so badly: “Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.” He walked up the road with bare feet. But, only slaves went barefooted. So the father will put sandals on his son’s feet, a ring on his finger, and the finest robe. My son is home, the father chimes, and he is to be totally and joyfully welcomed back. Kill the fatted calf, the occasion is special. All is forgiven. Older son—sin of pride With one son forgiven, Christ now outlines the sins of the elder son. He too exhibits the sin of pride, and gives us examples of envy and anger. The elder son’s sins are more private, less visible, but no less deadly: 25 Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” The elder son refuses to join the merrymaking. With arrogance, like a spoiled brat! His father has invited friends and neighbors to celebrate the return of his wasteful son, and his older son will not sit at table with them, will not lift a glass of cheer. To the shame of his father, the elder son publicly and openly disobeys his father. Arrogance is one symptom of the capital sin of pride. Another is self-righteousness. Look at me, the elder son shouts, what a good son I have been. I stayed home and tilled the fields, I sweated in the heat of the summer to get the crops harvested. But, the older brother forgets to mention what his duties as the elder son would have been! As the oldest, he was responsible for this younger brother. He should have looked after the younger, gone after him when he got in trouble, kept him from falling into the dire predicament the younger son brought upon himself by his dissolute living. And, he should not humiliate his father by making a scene when his father wants to welcome home a wayward brother. Arrogance and self-righteousness are two signs of pride to watch for in our own spiritual life. I am reminded of the man who seldom goes to church. He relates the story of being on a weekend retreat and listening to witness talks by laypersons. Our fallen-away Catholic told me: “I know the man who gave this witness talk. I do his income tax. Now, he is telling me how he lives a good Christian life. I know what kind of scoundrel he is!” Is not the man telling me this story guilty of arrogance and self-righteousness? Why should he go to church, he asks as he affirms living a good moral life now. After all, he argues, who wants to go to church and be with all those cheats and liars and various other types of sinners? Pointing out that these are forgiven sinners struggling to be more God-centered falls on the deaf ears of the self-righteous. Anger How full of anger and spite, the elder son’s words “this son of yours.” He throws his wrath into his father’s face, with self- centered pouting. He would have revenge, not a party. C. S. Lewis wrote that anger comes from misfortune conceived as injury, when some claim we feel legitimate has been denied. The description fits the older son: all the rewards going to the younger son should be his, he thinks; he should be receiving accolades and praises for his devoted caring of the family farm all those years; and instead the father is making over his younger brother, that no-good waif. How quickly we do anger. A wife complains that when her husband puts away the dishes from the dishwasher, he puts them in the wrong places, on the top shelves, out of reach. His placement of the dishes must be, she angrily concludes, just to spite her. A little probing would, undoubtedly, find her peevishness just the tip of ongoing frustrations within the marriage. The agape love a good marriage arrives at would be thankful someone else did empty the dishwasher, thankful for a helping hand. A newly assigned associate chafed when his pastor insisted on consecrating all the hosts needed for the weekend Masses at the first vigil Mass on Saturday. Why his irritation? Because, he quickly narrates, the number of hosts consecrated should approximate the number needed for each Mass, and anyone at all familiar with liturgical norms would know this, and for him to have to celebrate Mass with the several ciboriums holding all the hosts needed for an entire weekend would reflect badly on him. An altar so cluttered with ciboriums sends the wrong signal about the meaning of the bread and wine. The new associate wanted no part of such questionable actions by a celebrant, and was irked that he had to look at all those ciboriums. The associate, the wife, and the older son would do well to review the warnings about anger contained in Holy Scripture. Anger begets fierce cruelty, we read in Genesis (49:6); and leads to evil, the psalmist said (Psalm 37:8). Only fools show their anger (Proverbs 12:16). Christ advised reconciling any differences with your brother or sister before going to the altar for prayer (Matthew 5:23-25). Envy While reading Israelite Scripture, the elder son might also have taken note of Sirach (30:24), which tells us that jealousy and anger shorten life! Envy has a peculiar idea that someone’s good diminishes our own good, and even reflects some disgrace on ourselves. Or, as Frederick Buechner puts it, envy wants the other person to be as unsuccessful as I am! Which is nonsense. Each of us is made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27). God wants each of us to reflect some of his love into this world, and of the infinite God there are more ways to reflect God than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the world. Each way is good, each way is as God planned. None is better, each is unique. We are called to enjoy the gifts and talents and interests of each other, not to envy them. Not so the elder son. But was his jealousy because his father was fussing over his younger brother, or because he wished he had been the one who had the fun of squandering the money and cavorting with prostitutes? Did he think his own hard labor wasted because the younger son got the fatted calf, or did the elder brother pity himself for never having enjoyed the fires of illicit sex? Was the elder son jealous of the excitement the self-centered life had brought to the younger brother, even if only for a while? God calls us to rejoice over others’ good fortunes. A young priest recalled a wedding. At the reception, he noted that everyone was congratulating the bride and groom. Such a nice couple, friends and relatives repeated over and over. He began to fret, because no one was telling him what a wonderful wedding he did. Envy of the adulation being given to the newlyweds was growing by leaps and bounds, until his conscience caught up with him, and he told himself: “This is their day. I am here to celebrate their happiness, to rejoice because they are happy.” Thomas a Kempis says in eternity the envier will howl in fury like
mad dogs. That sounds like an apt punishment, for jealousy is the howling of a selfish,
ego-centered, “mad dog.” The good of others is not to be torn into, attacked as
by a mad dog, but celebrated as a reflection of our loving God. “Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’” The parable ends giving the elder son a choice: he can stay in the family, or leave; he can end his sinning, or continue to sin; he can love, or refuse to love. The younger son committed five of the seven deadly sins, and the father said: “I still love you”; the elder son rounded out the seven by doing three of the deadly sins, and the father said: “I still love you.” All his love went to each son. Each of us is called to ponder our own sins. As we do, we might ask ourselves whether we are more like the younger son or the older son. Then, better identifying our sins, we need to remember that God offers us forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation. It is up to us to accept the grace God offers us. Each son was called to accept the love and forgiveness of his father. The younger did, but we are left wondering if the older son followed the lead of his younger brother. Reverend Clyde A. Bonar, Ph.D., is pastor of St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church in Apopka, Fla. in the Diocese of Orlando. He has published many articles, and recorded three cassette series of eight talks each available from Alba Communications. Previously he was director of the Institute of Formative Spirituality at Duquesne University. This is his first article in HPR. |