Here's my Homily for the 14th of September on the parable of the Prodigal Son.
You must heard the story. Probably for the twentieth time.
The youngest son of the two boys, comes to his father demanding his half of the inheritance. In other words, he doesn’t want to wait until the old man dies: he wants the cold hard cash now!
I know what I’d do if I were that Father...but what happens in Jesus’ story? He gives him a check, no, he gives him cash, and off the kid goes to spend the father’s hard earned money on desperate living.
And when the prodigal son returns, having wasted half of everything the Father ever earned, what does the Father do. He runs out to meet him, throws his arms around him, kisses him and throws a party.
Or recall, if you will, the shepherd who lost a sheep. What does he do? He leaves the ninety-nine and goes off in search of the one. If you did that, you wouldn’t be a shepherd for very long, because when you came back what’s to say the ninety-nine would not have wandered off, as well? But what does the Good Shepherd do in Jesus’ story. He leaves the ninety-nine and goes off in search of even the single sheep who got himself lost.
Or what of the farmer in the Gospel of the wheat and the weeds? He sows good seed in his field, but then an enemy comes at night and sows weeds. The weeds grow up, but what does he do? Does he pull up the weeds like we would? No. For love of the wheat, he leaves the weeds alone, and lets them grow until harvest, when he will finally separate the weeds from the wheat.
Such is the mercy of God. Unbounded. Unreasonable. And far beyond our tiny little hearts. The kind of mercy that forgives not seven times, but seventy times seven times. The kind of mercy that looks at the prostitute forced into confession and tells her, just don’t do it again. The kind of mercy that desires not the death of the sinner, but that he repent and live!
That incredible mercy is our consolation and our hope. But it is also our life’s work. Remember what Jesus taught us to pray? “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Wow! Really?
What about the one that really hurt me? The one that lied behind my back? That one that stole from me? That one that turned her back on me?
God is merciful. Infinitely merciful. And its all he asks us to be, in turn.
