September
11th
2016.Twenty Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time
GOSPEL:
Luke
15:1-32
Translated
from a homily by Don Fabio Rosini, broadcast on Vatican Radio
Don
Fabio’s reflection follows the Gospel reading ...
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Gospel Reflection)
GOSPEL:
Luke
15:1-32
Tax
collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus,
but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying,
“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So to them he addressed this parable.
“What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them
would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert
and go after the lost one until he finds it?
And when he does find it,
he sets it on his shoulders with great joy
and, upon his arrival home,
he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them,
‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’
I tell you, in just the same way
there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents
than over ninety-nine righteous people
who have no need of repentance.
“Or what woman having ten coins and losing one
would not light a lamp and sweep the house,
searching carefully until she finds it?
And when she does find it,
she calls together her friends and neighbours
and says to them,
‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.’
In just the same way, I tell you,
there will be rejoicing among the angels of God
over one sinner who repents.”
Then he said,
“A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father,
‘Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’
So the father divided the property between them.
After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings
and set off to a distant country
where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.
When he had freely spent everything,
a severe famine struck that country,
and he found himself in dire need.
So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens
who sent him to his farm to tend the swine.
And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed,
but nobody gave him any.
Coming to his senses he thought,
‘How many of my father’s hired workers
have more than enough food to eat,
but here am I, dying from hunger.
I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him,
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I no longer deserve to be called your son;
treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”’
So he got up and went back to his father.
While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him,
and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.
His son said to him,
‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
I no longer deserve to be called your son.’
But his father ordered his servants,
‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him;
put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Take the fattened calf and slaughter it.
Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found.’
Then the celebration began.
Now the older son had been out in the field
and, on his way back, as he neared the house,
he heard the sound of music and dancing.
He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean.
The servant said to him,
‘Your brother has returned
and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf
because he has him back safe and sound.’
He became angry,
and when he refused to enter the house,
his father came out and pleaded with him.
He said to his father in reply,
‘Look, all these years I served you
and not once did I disobey your orders;
yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns,
who swallowed up your property with prostitutes,
for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’
He said to him,
‘My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again;
he was lost and has been found.’”
but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying,
“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So to them he addressed this parable.
“What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them
would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert
and go after the lost one until he finds it?
And when he does find it,
he sets it on his shoulders with great joy
and, upon his arrival home,
he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them,
‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’
I tell you, in just the same way
there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents
than over ninety-nine righteous people
who have no need of repentance.
“Or what woman having ten coins and losing one
would not light a lamp and sweep the house,
searching carefully until she finds it?
And when she does find it,
she calls together her friends and neighbours
and says to them,
‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.’
In just the same way, I tell you,
there will be rejoicing among the angels of God
over one sinner who repents.”
Then he said,
“A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father,
‘Father give me the share of your estate that should come to me.’
So the father divided the property between them.
After a few days, the younger son collected all his belongings
and set off to a distant country
where he squandered his inheritance on a life of dissipation.
When he had freely spent everything,
a severe famine struck that country,
and he found himself in dire need.
So he hired himself out to one of the local citizens
who sent him to his farm to tend the swine.
And he longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed,
but nobody gave him any.
Coming to his senses he thought,
‘How many of my father’s hired workers
have more than enough food to eat,
but here am I, dying from hunger.
I shall get up and go to my father and I shall say to him,
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I no longer deserve to be called your son;
treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.”’
So he got up and went back to his father.
While he was still a long way off,
his father caught sight of him,
and was filled with compassion.
He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.
His son said to him,
‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
I no longer deserve to be called your son.’
But his father ordered his servants,
‘Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him;
put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Take the fattened calf and slaughter it.
Then let us celebrate with a feast,
because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again;
he was lost, and has been found.’
Then the celebration began.
Now the older son had been out in the field
and, on his way back, as he neared the house,
he heard the sound of music and dancing.
He called one of the servants and asked what this might mean.
The servant said to him,
‘Your brother has returned
and your father has slaughtered the fattened calf
because he has him back safe and sound.’
He became angry,
and when he refused to enter the house,
his father came out and pleaded with him.
He said to his father in reply,
‘Look, all these years I served you
and not once did I disobey your orders;
yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns,
who swallowed up your property with prostitutes,
for him you slaughter the fattened calf.’
He said to him,
‘My son, you are here with me always;
everything I have is yours.
But now we must celebrate and rejoice,
because your brother was dead and has come to life again;
he was lost and has been found.’”
The
Gospel of the Lord:
Praise
to you Lord Jesus Christ
Kieran’s
summary . . . In
the first reading, God wants to punish his people for their terrible
infidelity, but Moses reminds him of his promises and the Lord
“changes his mind”. What can this mean? Does God really become
merciful in response to our intercession? The Gospel throws light on
this enigma. Here we are told the story of the merciful father whose
only concern is to be a father.
He is not interested in the past wrongs committed by the younger son;
he is not even interested in the past righteous actions of the older
son; what he wants is that both of them have an intimate relationship
of love and trust with him. This is the message of the Year of Mercy.
The real issue in life is not conformity or non-conformity with
ethical systems; what counts is that we have
life.
And this requires being in right relationship with God. Wrong actions
break our intimacy with the Lord. The priority is to foster this
relationship of closeness to God. Returning to the first reading, it
is not that Moses really changes the intentions of God. The dialogue
between him and the Lord is a way of expressing the reality that God
does not operate according to an
internal weighing scales in
which right actions are rewarded and wrong actions punished. It is we
who are changed by this dialogue as we come to realize that God is a
Father whose priority is not a simplistic application of justice,
human-style, but an exercise of divine paternal love.
In
the first reading Moses intercedes with God on behalf of the people.
As a result God “repents” and does not act as justice demands.
Instead he is merciful. How are we to understand this notion of a God
who changes his mind in response to human intercession?
The
first reading this Sunday helps us to approach the parable of the
merciful Father contained in the Gospel. In the Book of Exodus, Moses
is receiving the tables of the Law when God informs him that the
people have made an idol out of metal and have prostrated themselves
before it. They have betrayed the covenant even while it is still
being made. The Lord foretells a great
punishment and the destruction of the people. Moses intercedes for
Israel saying, “Why,
O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people, whom you
brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with so
strong a hand? Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and
how you swore to them by your own self, saying, ‘I
will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky; and
all this land that I promised’”. And then, enigmatically, we are
told that the Lord repented of the evil he had threatened on his
people. The notion of a God who repents is an anthropomorphic one and
a source of frustration for those who criticize the bible. But the
word of God is something that seeks to foster growth, transformation,
change in the human being. Thus we are presented with a dialogue
between God and his collaborator that results in God changing his
position. The lesson here for us is that we all have a duty to
intercede for each other, to assist each other with prayer. This
story of God “repenting” of his intentions is an effort by our
poor minds to grapple with the greatness and mystery of God and to
understand how God’s justice works.
The
Gospel presents the picture of a father who is not fixated by the
interior weighing scales of the rights and wrongs committed by his
sons. Instead his priority is to be a father to his sons.
In
the Gospel this week, we hear how the Pharisees are irritated by the
fact that Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them, whilst justice
requires that they be rejected. In God there is something that goes
beyond the little interior weighing scales that each one of us
possesses, a scales that says that things are either right or wrong,
black or white. In God there is something greater and more noble. The
parable tells us of a father who has this divine concept of justice;
it is his paternal
relation
to his son that is the central issue. When his son returns, what is
important is not that he has erred but that he has come back. And now
that he is back, it is not essential whether he works as a servant or
not (the issue that the older son is fixated by) but that he live
this relation of sonship, a relationship of trust with his father.
The
dialogue with Moses in the first reading is really a journey of
discovery for Moses and for us. It is not that God changes his mind.
It is we who change as we come to realize that God’s love is
greater than simple acts of reward and punishment. God wants us to
have life, to have an intimate relationship with him. Good and
righteous actions mean that we are on the path of life.
Returning
to the first reading, God ought to destroy these idolaters, we
feel, but
he does not. They have only just been led out of the land of Egypt
and they have already deviated from the path the Lord indicated to
them. But God does not destroy them. He listens to Moses who reminds
him of his promise. In reality, this dialogue is an expression of the
love of God which is broader than simple reward and punishment. God
does not ignore the requirements of justice, but neither does he
ignore the bounty of the promises he has made to us. And he cannot
neglect the enormous care he has for his people. We must continuously
open ourselves to recognizing that God is always greater and deeper
than we can imagine. The change of position of God described in the
first reading is not very surprising when we consider that we are
talking about the Lord of life. It is really we
who change position as we come to gradually understand better his
love. The point of this Gospel and of the whole Year of Mercy is to
help us understand that justice only
makes sense within the context of
authentic relationship. In the first reading, Moses’ intercession
consists in reminding the Lord that this is his people,
the people that he has interacted with and to whom he has made
promises. In the Gospel parable, the father is exactly that, a
father.
All of this prompts us to ask: What are our sins before God? What are
our good actions before God? It is not that we make God content by
our good actions! We are simply on the way of death or on the way of
life. Our good actions bring us into intimacy with the Lord and our
sins break our intimacy with him – this is what counts, not the
ethics and morals of who is better or who is worse! The older son
judges his brother using this mentality. And the younger brother has
the exact same mentality, thinking that, when he returns, his past
actions entail that he will now have to live as a slave. Reality is
completely different. God is the unmoving point of reference of what
is real. His love is the parameter that never changes. He never
refrains from being our God, from being faithful to his promises. He
is faithful to that which Jesus has reveals; namely, that he is
willing to do anything for us.
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