24th Sunday OT
Fr. Philip Neri Powell, OP
OLR, NOLA
Here's
the upshot of our three parables – the lost sheep, the lost coin,
and the lost son: if you're lost, you can found. As long as
someone is looking and you want to be found, you will be found. Jesus
isn't talking about being physically lost here like lost in a strange
city w/o a working GPS. He's talking about being lost along The Way,
lost off the path to holiness and salvation. This kind of being lost
is the worse kind b/c it can end in being eternally lost. So, Jesus
wants us to know that God the Father never stops looking. He never
ceases searching for us. God the Father is always prepared to welcome
us back, to take us in, and give us everything we need to become part
of His family again. But we have want to be found. We have to will to
come back. The wandering sheep is lost but doesn't know its lost.
Same goes for the missing coin. The lost sheep doesn't understand the
dangers of falling off a cliff or getting eaten by wolves. The coin
doesn't know that it's basically worthless while wedged between
floorboards. But the son, the lost son, he knows that being lost,
being away from his father has caused him no end of grief. He comes
back. He comes back to forgiveness, mercy, and a loving home. And so
can we.
It's
one thing to wander away from the Church out of neglect or just plain
old ignorance. It's quite another to be thrown away from the Church,
to be run out of the Church by an angry pastor or haughty
parishioners. But to simply walk away, to get lost on purpose is in a
whole other realm of Getting Lost. Over my years as a priest I've
heard dozens of reasons people give for abandoning the Church. I
don't get anything out it. Too much emphasis on boring ritual. Too
many hypocrites in the parish. The Church won't celebrate my favorite
sin. Always talking about money. All the tradition is gone. Father
was mean to me. Too much politics. All religions are basically the
same anyway. I could go on for another hour. But each of these is
like the lost son taking his abundant inheritance and blowing it on
wine, women, and song. Blowing all that he inherited from his father
on living it up in the world. And for what? To end up working for a
pig farmer and eating what the pigs leave behind. Nearly starving to
death on the garbage the world feeds him. Desperate and alone he does
the only thing left for him to do. He swallows his excuses and goes
home. He expects to find his father in a rage. Instead, he finds
forgiveness b/c his father was waiting in love.
You
and I are the lost son. Every time we sin, we walk away from the
Father. Sometimes it takes nearly starving to death to bring us home.
Sometimes it takes being humiliated or nearly ruined to bring us
back. Whatever it is that turns us again toward the Father, the
Father is always waiting to give us his best cloak and roast up his
fattest calf. He wants us to know all this so that no matter how far
we run away from Him, He is always right where He has always been.
The shepherd leaves 99 sheep to search for the lost one. And he
rejoices when he returns home with that sheep across his shoulders.
The woman sweeps her whole house looking for one lost coin. And she
rejoices with her neighbors when she finds it. The father of the
prodigal son rejoices when his boy comes home. Why? Because the son
wanted to come home. He willed to return to his family. When you and
I want to be found, we will be found b/c God the Father is always
right where He has always been.
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