Twenty Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time I am sure that most of us are familiar with the experience of loss. The most painful experience of loss is undoubtedly when someone close to us dies. Who among us has not shed bitter tears at the death of a mother, father, spouse, brother, sister, son, daughter, or very dear friend. Then there are the many other losses that life inevitably brings. Because of illness or the aging process we lose some of our dynamism and energy, and we experience the frustration of not being able to do what we once did. Even in our younger years, we will often have to deal with loss. A friendship we had great hopes for dies away; a goal we had set ourselves is never reached. We are left with a sense of what might have been. The three stories that Jesus tells in the gospel reading have the experience of loss at their centre. A shepherd looses one of his sheep; a woman losses one of her coins; a father looses one of his sons, indeed both of his sons. The experience of loss generated great energy in each of these three people. The shepherd went out into the hills after his lost sheep, leaving the ninety nine in the wilderness; the woman swept her little house thoroughly for her lost coin; the father scanned the horizon daily for his lost son. Many people could identify with that energetic response to the experience of loss. If something or someone precious is lost belonging to us we cannot rest until we find it; we keep searching in the hope of finding. Jesus spoke all three parables in response to the criticism of his eating habits by the religious leaders of the time, the Pharisees, ‘this man welcomes sinners and eats with them’. When we share table with people, we enter into communion with them. Jesus wanted to enter into communion with people who were regarded as sinners by the standards of the Jesus law, in contrast to the Pharisees who would never have shared table or entered into communion with people whom they judged to be breaking God’s law. In all three parables a celebratory meal seems to be presupposed. The shepherd calls on his friends and neighbours to rejoice with him when he found his lost sheep. The woman calls on her friends and neighbours to rejoice with her when she found her lost coin. The father celebrates the return of his lost son with a great feast, a celebration. The shepherd, the woman, the father are all images of Jesus, and, ultimately, they are all images of God, whom Jesus reveals. Jesus is saying to his critics, ‘if you want to know who God is, look at the shepherd, the woman, the father’. He is also saying, ‘because this is who God is like, I must keep sharing table with the lost’. We all carry within us some kind of image of God. We know that God is beyond all images. Yet, we need to imagine God in some way, and Jesus encourages us to do so. The three parables in this morning’s gospel reading give us Jesus’ image of God. We believe Jesus to be the Son of God, and, so, he alone is in a unique position to give us an image that does justice to who God is. Of the three images of God that Jesus gives in the gospel reading this morning, probably the third image, the image of the father stands out for us more, because that third parable has more human drama in it than the first two. Many women might find themselves drawn more to the image of God as a woman in the second parable. Indeed, it has been said that there is a very strong maternal element to the portrayal of the father in the third parable. In terms of the culture of the time, he behaves more like a mother would. The father is certainly not slow to express his emotions in public towards his two sons. He runs towards his lost, younger son, as soon as he sees him on the horizon. Then, full of compassion he clasps him in his arms, kissing him tenderly. He then leaves the feast, which required his presence, to plead with his older, angry son, addressing him tenderly as ‘my son’, assuring him that he is loved just as much as his rebellious younger brother, calling him in from the cold to join the feast. If the younger son reminds us of those judged to be sinners with whom Jesus shared table, the older son reminds us of the Pharisees who stood in judgement of Jesus and of those with whom he shared table. Jesus is saying that God loves both groups equally, with the same passion and desire that they may have life and have it to the full. God’s love does not discriminate. Yet, the parable suggests that we can find ourselves standing outside the embrace of God’s love, like the elder son. That third parable has an open ending; we are not told if the older son went in and joined the feast. There is a sense in which we have to write the conclusion of the parable with our own lives, by allowing ourselves to the found by the God who never gives up searching for us in love.
Posted on: Sun, 15 Sep 2013 08:19:58 +0000
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