Let the Feast Begin!

TWENTY-FOURTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Bruder Klaus – 15 September 2019

Ex 32:7-11, 13-14

1 Tm 1:12-17

Lk 15:1-32

Praised be Jesus Christ!

Thinking about today’s First Reading from the Book of Exodus, which tells about Israel in the desert falling away from the worship of the one true God, to worship instead the golden calf that the people themselves had made, I remember as a child thinking just how stupid can you be. These people, with all God had done for them, and there they are worshiping a baby cow!

I suppose if you feed a calf well and scrub it up good then calves can be cute, but they hardly seem worthy of worship or of homage even of a minimal sort. Unfortunately, the matter is not that easily explained and people do even dumber or worse things. My 69 years have taught me the sad reality of how low we human beings can fall. You might say that what shocked me as a child, well, I guess the old man seems to have to take it in stride. It no longer surprises me that people would be willing to put a farm animal up on a pedestal above fellow human beings. Not only in the Old Testament but also in today’s world, people seem capable of putting an animal in God’s place in their lives.

By rights, I should go no farther; I should spend the rest of my homily talking to you about the centrality of Jesus Christ in our lives for our sake and for the sake of the salvation of the world. That would presume, I guess, a different Gospel than Luke 15, however. A preacher just cannot ignore the parable of the prodigal son, his forgiving father and the older brother who takes offense at the father’s rejoicing to have his son home, not only safe and sound but also repentant, truly and humbly sorry for what he had done.

        I am not saying that the people in the desert did not deserve condemnation, death and destruction, for having worshiped the golden calf over and above the living and loving God, Who had freed them from the slavery of Egypt. All I am saying is that looking at Luke 15 and the issues of right and wrong, justice or injustice, truth or falsehood, there is more to the problem at hand than firmly condemning idolatry. The attitude of the older son and brother in the Gospel, the point of view generally of any critic or negative observer of human behavior demands our scrutiny. The older son’s impatience with his father and condemnation of his brother especially demands our scrutiny; because more often than not that is the role in life, we ourselves play. You do not necessarily have to be young and inexperienced to fall into being critical of others with all their faults, failings and sins. Many people who are old enough to know better are forever criticizing others. As we learn from the Gospel parable for today, anger over another’s wrongdoing, rage over injustice and seeming double standards for judging the acts of others are nothing new in the world. The older brother is thoroughly upset with his father’s decision to celebrate his brother’s homecoming. He has no time for the loving, generous forgiveness that his father extends to the younger brother, to the prodigal son who comes home deeply sorry for having so foolishly squandered his inheritance. This type of self-righteousness seems to be typical of our world and often considered acceptable behavior.

I would rather make an appeal for the more positive approach to facing another’s crimes and sins, namely, “Let the person without sin cast the first stone!”  The fashion today sadly seems to be to get angry or upset with the wrongdoer. Justice, justice they cry! Justice, fine, but being a Catholic Christian demands much more of us. St. Paul’s watchword to Timothy in the Second Reading has to be ours as well.

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost. But for that reason I was mercifully treated, so that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life.”

Jesus saved us in and through His perfect sacrifice on the Cross. What marks the forgiving father in the parable is not patience in the face of his younger son’s selfish sin, but rather his radical and unqualified love for the young man. He loves his older son no less, but we see the depths of his love for both boys as he watches and waits for the return home of the one who had gone astray in a very hurtful way. There is no restraint on the father’s part, no tactic of wanting to make out of his return a teachable moment. The father sees into the depths of his son’s heart and recognizes that the young man has come to his senses… and he rejoices and calls everyone in the house to rejoice with him.

St. Paul would have us live focused on the bright burning lamp of the father’s loving forgiveness. Most of us rarely have the opportunity, like the servants of the household to be caught up in the father’s joy:

“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.”

        Saint Paul reminds Timothy and us that life can be otherwise if we cross the line from the crabby older brother’s side to that of the man pardoned:

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost. But for that reason I was mercifully treated, so that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life.”

        Just like for the prodigal son so in your life and in mine, the path to joy, the path to freedom, the path to the father’s house, the way back to the one true God goes by way of repentance. Do you live consciously, examining your own conscience each day to see how you may have failed to observe the commandments, the precepts of the Church and the duties of your state in life, making a sincere act of contrition before you go to bed? Is the sacrament of confession, Penance, a regular part of your life? If you are making a daily examination of conscience and act of contrition, without considering cases of mortal sin where you should get to Confession as soon as possible, even with just venial sins you will discover that once a month is not very often to go to Confession.

        Dancing around the golden calf, Israel in the desert was completely estranged from its God. The tendency in our world to ignore God, to deny Final Judgment to Him alone to Whom it belongs to pronounce judgment, burdens people and makes them bitter toward all they see around them as unfair. Turning the world over to Jesus, recognizing ourselves as sons and daughters of our heavenly Father, redeemed in Christ’s Blood and eagerly awaiting and awaited at the feast in His Kingdom, that and nothing else should be our goal in life.

        The Gospel begins with a call to repentance. That is where it started for the prodigal son and that is where it can begin for us as well. Turn away from sin and be faithful to the Gospel! Come share the Lord’s joy! Let the feast begin!

Praised be Jesus Christ!

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI