Homily for the Week of September 15, 2013

HOMILY: Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, 2013
Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14
Psalm 51:3-4, 12-13, 17, 19
1 Timothy 1:12-17
Luke 15:1-32 or 15:1-10

When you’re lost, it’s good to be missed; it’s even better to be found. People are not inanimate objects like coins, things that can fall into corners, nor are they like sheep, animals with limited understanding of the repercussions of their wandering away. When people stray spiritually, they act with free will, although it can be restricted by previous experience or ignorance. Still, people walk away from God, generally because we are convinced we know better than God does what is best for us.. Each of us at one time or other have lost something that means a lot to us. The loss becomes an obsession. Everything else is put aside. Jesus today tells us the story of a lost sheep, some lost coins, and a lost teenage boy.

Jesus tells a story of two lost sons, the younger one, who has wandered far from home and “squandered his inheritance,” and the older one, who has stayed near his father on his estate. The youngest son winds up wasting his inheritance and living with pigs, eating the husks of pig food. At some point the wandering son realizes it is time to go home and beg for mercy from his father. He has not lost only his money; he has lost himself. The father spies him from a long way off, runs to his son, embraces him and kisses him.
But it was when the younger son recognized that he was lost, that he had made choices that reduced him to physical and spiritual poverty, that he could repent, ask for forgiveness and be found. It was only then that he could come home to be showered not with anger but with mercy.
The older son is another matter. He has remained near to his father, but it seems he is not close to him. He resents his younger brother coming home to a feast and he criticizes his father for throwing the feast. He is angry that forgiveness has been shown, and when his father comes to plead with him to celebrate, he spews out the grievances he has been nursing for many years: Look, all these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders he says to his father.
The older brother cannot celebrate his brother’s return because he has no joy in the father’s presence. Life with his father has been a burden, an unwelcome task, a plodding life in which he has struggled
not to “disobey your orders.” The older son is also lost. But can the older son see that he is lost? You can only be found when you know you are lost and it is time to come home.
Many times the story of the Prodigal son is associated with our need to be forgiven as in Confession. One of the most-often-asked questions about Catholicism concerns going to Confession. “Why,” many Catholics ask, “do I have to confess my sins to a priest? Can’t I just ask God for forgiveness?” Many Catholics get hung up in the same question and often use the question as an excuse for why they do not go to Sacrament.
The simple answer is that, yes, we can just ask God for forgiveness; however, the more correct answer is that “just” asking God for forgiveness is not enough. Today’s parable of the Prodigal Son gives ample evidence as to why Jesus offers the sacrament of Confession: sin involves not just God and me. Sin, by its very nature, hurts others as well. The question, then, is how do we gain the forgiveness of others? The young son had to admit he was lost and had done something wrong before he could decide to come back to his father.
What if Jesus gave us a ticket every time we did something wrong? I would hate to pay all those fines. Jesus is not interested in catching us doing something wrong but in saving us. St. Paul tells us today: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. When we receive the sacrament of Confession we are forgiven for what we did and also we are united with those whom we may have hurt, knowingly or unknowingly. This statement reflects upon the story of the Prodigal Son.
Sometimes we get lost because we wander off in the wrong direction. Sometimes we chose to get lost like in the young son. He could chose to run away or to stay home. He chose to leave to sow his wild oats. God is not going to find us if we do not want to be found. The Prodigal Son had to come to his senses and turn back to his father before he could discover his father’s love, and that his father was waiting for him all along.. It was in that dark moment that he realized he was still the son of a caring father. How can hitting bottom be the best thing that can happen to someone who is deeply into a sinful, destructive lifestyle? Does someone have to hit bottom to know where things are heading? “Hitting bottom” is often used in recovery groups to denote a point when someone realizes, “I can’t go on like this.” The teenager had reached this point. God always gives us the freedom to walk away from him, and it is in freedom that we must choose to return. Once we decide to do that God is waiting for us ready to forgive.
We might ask if that is the case why does God give us so much freedom? Would it be better if he controlled our every decision and action? We probably could never do anything wrong. If God forced us to love him that would be a contradiction. We would be like robots. We could never make the choice to love and to be good, or to hate and to be bad.
Many of us may fall into the category of the older son, but it does not matter where we are as long as we make it home, for either “you are here with me always; everything I have is yours” or “we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.” Party at God’s house. Everyone’s invited.