Today's Message: 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time C

Exodus 32: 7-11, 13-14; 1 Timothy 1: 12-17; Luke 15:  1-31

It is good for us as we progress in the spiritual life:  To Remember.  To remember where we have been and how we have gotten where we are today.  When we analyze these past times we realize that we certainly were not perfect.  We learned by the uncomfortable ‘road of hard knocks’.  If we are making an honest evaluation of our lives, we ‘remember’ that we were not angels…sometimes…more like devils.  And we see that we have changed…and changed we hopefully say, for the better.  

It is good to even look deeper and see how this happened.  I believe that a very true statement in almost all of the cases is that God has placed someone in our lives to touch us…who reached out to us with care, kindness, compassion, a helping loving hand and so much more.  These ‘God touches’ showed us that we were loved.  That’s the most perfect way to express it because we were in need of so much love and had wandered too far away to even listen to anyone who was trying to help.  This ‘moment’  was a God moment.  Sometimes we were thinking too highly of ourselves…other times we just had an atrocious self-image.  The bottom line is that we were in bad shape.  The good news is that we’ve made it through our ‘living hell.’  In the process we might have come to realize that it was a hell and hopefully, decided we don’t want to be in that ‘place’.  Today’s readings give case studies of people who have gone through tearing people apart and received a positive direction to realize that God is in our lives all the time.  God is always loving caring and forgiving.  Do I allow God to be God to me?

In today’s reading from the Book of Exodus we continue to see the love-hate relationship between the Israelites and God.  God had heard their persistent ‘cries for help’ during their period in Egypt most especially at this time which was a virtual slavery.  God chooses Moses and shows that His plan was not just a ‘poof’ happening, but God had choreographed a history around it to capture His total forgiving, merciful love.  As soon as they had reached safety they complained.  They didn’t have enough food…God provided.  They didn’t have enough water…God provided.  Today Moses had been up on Mt. Sinai for a long time receiving all the details planning for the furnishing of the Ark of the Covenant, how to offer sacrifices, and given the two tablets of commandments.  The people were antsy.  They figured that God didn’t care about them so they fashioned a calf of molten metal as their new divinity.’ God angrily told Moses that He would remove the people completely and make Moses the Father of a new and more loyal generation.  Moses pleaded with God remembering and looking at all God done and the promises He had made. Sunday Homily Helps states:   “This is exactly the kind of response God needed to hear from His servant Moses.  Moses refuses to allow personal gain to break his commitment to the people as God’s representative among them.”    Moses was the guide to help them eventually turn back to God.  

Paul had a horrendous background as far as the new Church was concerned.  He had been not only a persecutor but involved in murderous treatment of them.  BUT he had been rescued by God…chosen by God and been treated mercifully by the Lord. “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and arrogant, but I have been mercifully treated because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief. “  God had delivered him from his sinful pride, arrogance and ignorance.   Jesus came to save sinners is the foundational belief of the Gospels and Paul’s letters.  It was a total gift from God…God’s grace to Paul has made him an example of God’s total forgiveness that is available to every person all the time.  We hear, or have said ourselves, ‘No one can forgive me…I’ve been so horrible’…this is over and over NOT THE CASE WITH GOD.  God cares, loves and forgives.  My Jesuit Spiritual Director from years past would say:  ‘What is God best at?…It’s His mercy.’  

The major theme in both Luke’s Gospel and in the Acts of the Apostles is forgiveness.  We have an extremely long Gospel today containing three tremendous parables of God’s mercy starting off with Jesus’ response to the Pharisees and scribes about Jesus associating with sinners.   Each of these parables deals with something being lost and then found. The first,  Jesus tells of the Lost Sheep.  “…there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.”  Now what shepherd would take this risk.  Jesus doesn’t focus on the problems it entails but that there is no repentance needed for the shepherd.  Jesus presents a much more forgiving God than Luke explains. The next parable talks of the lost coins where the woman goes through extreme measures to locate a seemingly insignificant coin. Why…it doesn’t make sense?  And when finding it spends such an enormous amount to throw a party.  A coin cannot repent.  It’s not the items (sheep, coin) but the extravagance of the one doing the finding.  Jesus is showing God’s total, unconditional love.

The third parable is known as the Prodigal Son.  Here both the younger and the older son are lost.  The young one returns home desperate and defeated.  The Father accepts him back.  Why?  And no repentance is needed…the father even interrupts the son’s I’m sorry speech.  Coming home was enough. Now the older son wants the Father’s love on his terms…refusing to see all the Father has done and continues to do.  He just won’t come into the party and respond to the father’s open arms.  

God is faithful and loves.  The Hebrew people expected God to act as they did…God doesn’t do this.  The contained parables gave the early Christian community an image of God who welcomes back all, even those who have strayed.  This creates a definite tension to the rulers of Israel because they were comfortable with getting even, revenge even, and feeling they knew exactly what God was like.  Am I open to Jesus’ description of a God who loves as Jesus taught?  Why do I object to updating this image?

So I reflect on:

•   Who or what do I put in the place of God when I feel threatened or afraid?
• With which character in today’s parables do I identify?  Why?
• Can I ever identify God’s attributes accurately?  Do I want God to be the God that I want Him to be?  Or the God Jesus taught and lived?
• When I sin do I lay a ‘heavy’ on myself…beat myself up?  Or do I feel that God is there welcoming me back?  If I don’t do this latter one, why not?
• Have I ever felt like the Prodigal Son with Jesus?  What was it like?  Could I feel God’s embrace…His hug?

Sacred Space 2019 states:  

   “The parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin illustrate the constant, faithful, unrelenting love of God for each of us, but especially for sinners.  God never gives up on anyone.  God never gives up on me.

   This is not the sort of doctrine you learn in business schools.  It sounds outlandish, to abandon the well-behaved and spend your energies on the outside chance of rescuing the delinquent 1 percent.  Yet over the centuries these words have inspired good Christians to plug the gaps in social systems and reach out to those who have drifted into isolation and despair.  Common sense urges us to spend ourselves on those who reward our efforts.  Jesus worked in another direction:  ‘The healthy have no need of a doctor.’  Lord, remind me of this attitude as I go about my day.”