TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME CYCLE C 09/11/2022

 HOMILY     TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME   CYCLE C   09/11/22

            In the Gospel today we hear the parable of the Prodigal Son.  Of the four Gospel writers, Luke is the only one that tells us this parable.  Why is that?  Why didn’t Mathew, Mark and John bother to tell us this story?  Did they not know it?  It is a pretty good story that you think would have made the rounds.

            Maybe the other Gospel writers left it out on purpose.  Maybe they didn’t like this parable.  That’s possible, because even though we call this the Parable of the Prodigal Son, I don’t think this story is really about him.   And the older son, while important to the story, is also not the real focus.  It is the father who is, I believe, the center of the story.  And it is a depiction of God that is highly unusual and rather unsettling.

            How are we to understand the story?  Remember the context.  In Jesus’ day society was very patriarchal.  One’s social, economic and even religious standing depended on your relation to the head of the household.  Respect for the father of the family was very great.  So it would have been shocking for the audience of Jesus to hear that the younger son should brazenly demand his share of the estate.  First of all he had no share coming to him.  Inheritance at that time followed the law of primogeniture, meaning that the eldest son got everything, and daughters and younger sons got zip.  This was kind of harsh, but it prevented small plots of land being divided into useless, tiny parcels.  So the younger son had no claim whatsoever.  And secondly, the younger son was effectively saying he wished his Father was dead, since that is when the inheritance would come into effect. 

            The only thing more shocking than the younger son’s atrocious behavior is the Father’s.  Instead of smacking the kid up the side of the head as he so richly deserved, the Father indulgently and foolishly gives the younger son half of his estate.  What!?!  Are you kidding?  That is totally irresponsible!      [NOTE:  This is not a parable about good parenting.]

            The younger son, egotistical twit that he is, is soon parted from his money and finds himself in dire straits.  Driven by hunger, if not by remorse, the younger son returns home in the hopes of finding a meal. 

            Meanwhile, the doting Father is yearning for the younger son, scanning the horizon for his hoped for return.  While the younger son is 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.”   In that culture, where the appearance of dignity counted for a great deal, to see the old man running down the road would be most exceptional.   That sort of thing was just not done.  It would have been undignified in the extreme.     

            Not letting the prodigal son finish his apology, the Father commands his servants to get a ring for his finger, sandals for his feet, a robe for him to wear, and to kill the fatted calf for a home-coming feast. 

            That is the last we see of the younger son.  Has he really matured, or just been driven by hunger?  Probably the latter.  In any case the Father is a hopelessly irresponsible parent.   As one commentator writes, “Indeed, we might well wonder if the reason the son is impossible is that the father is so inept.” 

            Now the story shifts to the older brother.  He was supposed to inherit everything, but now half of the estate has been squandered away by his wastrel brother.  He got jipped!  In his anger he refuses to go into the feast.  Ever indulgent, the Father comes out to plead with him.  The older son states his case, that he has been dutiful and diligent but has not been rewarded, while this younger son blows off half the estate in parties and loose living and then he is given a hero’s welcome on his return.  It is unjust, unfair, and wrong to say the least.

            The Father never answers the just claims of the elder son.  Rather he states a deeper need, a deeper reason than strict justice.   “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 Father operates by a different logic than what is fair, what is just.  And the Father is, of course, a stand in for God.  This is not a parable about repentance, certainly not about justice and getting what you deserve, but rather a parable about the incomprehensibility of love and the mystery of God.  God’s love just doesn’t make sense.  It is not fair. 

            God just doesn’t see as we see.  God doesn’t think like we think.  God doesn’t feel like we feel.    God loves.  Period.   That is what God does. 

            God loves in crazy, prodigal, even unfair and irresponsible ways.  But God loves.    It is unnerving, upsetting, unfair and even unjust.  But God loves.  That is what God does. 

He makes his rain come down on the bad and the good, shines his sun on the good and the bad.  That is the God Jesus knows, and that is the God Jesus teaches us about:  a crazy Father who loves first, foremost and always, even in the face of the claims of justice. 

            He loves.  That is what God does.  And we are to be like Him. 

            The younger son doesn’t deserve anything.  But God loves him.  The older son is uptight and focused on his rights, on what is due to him.  God loves him. 

            God loves.  God loves.  God loves.  That is what God does. 

Are the sons open to receiving God’s love?          Are we? 

­Homily for the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary time Cycle C Sept 4, 2022

 ­Homily for the 23rd Sunday of Ordinary time   Cycle C   Sept 4, 2022

 We have some tough readings today.   “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”  Well, that does not leave a lot of room for discussion.  Even tougher perhaps is this declaration: “anyone of you who does not renounce all his possessions cannot be my disciple.”  How does that grab you?

          Our second reading today, from St. Paul, is not any better in terms of making a big demand.  You see, Paul’s big request to Philemon is asking him to accept back his runaway slave, Onesimus, as a fellow Christian and brother. 

          Did you like the readings today?  I find these readings hard to get my head around.  The demands are pretty straightforward and clear, yet what they ask – no, demand - is so counter to our usual way of thinking that it boggles my mind. 

          Our first reading was well chosen therefore when it asks, “Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the LORD intends?”   It is mysterious, counter-intuitive, almost repulsive. …

          But what God conceives, and the Lord intends, is the fullness of life and love.  Life and love.   However, we are so constrained and restricted by fear, and by greed, and by possiveness, and the urge to cling to what we have, that we find it extremely hard to let go of what we concretely now have in order to open ourselves to receive something far better, richer, more beautiful, much more satisfying, and certainly more lasting. 

          In the second reading today St Paul, in prison, came across a runaway slave, named Onesimus, that lo and behold belonged to someone St Paul had converted to Christianity, a man named Philemon.   In the reading St Paul sends Onesimus back to his owner, Philemon, and asks Philemon to accept Onesimus back as a brother and believer in Christ.   Wow.        

          Could Philemon be that open, that daring, that trusting in faith, to let go of all the social conventions and rules about slavery to welcome back Onesimus, his run-away slave, as a brother in the Lord?  What would his family think?  What would his neighbors do?  He would be upsetting the whole social and economic order.  If Philemon welcomed back his slave Onesimus as Paul asked, how long would it be before all his slaves got religion????   The whole society would fall apart and change. 

          Paul is bold enough to ask, indeed demand this, because Jesus Himself made even bolder demands previously.  “If anyone comes to me without hating his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. 

Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.”

          What do you think of that?   Sisters and brothers, we cannot just chalk this up to Jesus having a bad day and did not really mean what He said.  We cannot explain this away as simply Semitic hyperbole, a way of speaking exaggeratedly that does not mean to be taken literally.  Because it still means to be taken seriously.  Very seriously.

          It is a challenge.

          The challenge is beyond us.  I don’t think that any of us, or only very few of us, are up to it.  But it is doable because Jesus went there first before us.  The Son of God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, emptied himself and took the form of a slave, and accepted death, death on a cross.   WHY?   Out of love for you and for me. 

          And that power of love is great.  Very great.   So great that when it is shared with us we too have the power to let go of everything and anything that holds us back from loving and living as the children of God, as brothers and sisters of Jesus, even to giving up our prized possessions to live more freely in the love of God.

          Philemon was asked to give up his relationship as Master to Onesimus his slave and accept him as a brother.   What is Jesus calling you to let go of?  to empty yourself of?  Not so that you will be empty, but rather that you will be open and free enough to accept the much, much better and truly wonderful gift God longs to give you, which is God’s own love, God’s own life. 

          To our ordinary and usual way of thinking, to our human ears, this forceful Gospel today does not sound like good news, but rather bad news: news of loss and deprivation.  Only the Holy Spirit can remove the veil of fear and greed from our souls so that we can see the beauty and freedom of living as the Children of God.  And that insight is a wonderful gift.  Be free. 

          God Bless!