Second-Chance, Not Self-Justification
Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-32
More often than not, we only see and notice the sins of others and not our own! This is the kind of blindness that obstructs God’s multiple graces for conversion from achieving their purposes; we ruin our second chances because we fail to look inwards in order to see and confess our sins. “But when your son returns, who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf.” What an accusation, was he there to be so sure of the nature of the sins committed? Honestly, if sin is reduced to sexual sin, many will go to heaven unscathed because, contrary to what the social media propagates, there are so many good people unstained by adultery and fornication! Today, the emphasis is on relationships and their preconditions or bases; if we get that right, every wrong doing will take a toll on us!
“When your son returns,” establishes a filial and consanguineous relationship between Father and Son. We are not dealing with a stranger, an outsider. To be a son is to enjoy rights and responsibilities. The father killed “the fattened calf” for his son who returns from wherever he went to. A father fulfills his duties towards his son without asking questions; he is just happy to have his son back. Wherever his son went to, the safety of the son is the preoccupation of the father, and by celebrating his son, all is well, no questions asked, bygone is allowed to be bygone. Here, Jesus teaches us the pain of separation; for sin separates us from God, it distances us from God, and makes God go in search of and chase after the sinner for reconciliation.
Jesus teaches again this relationship between a father and his son through the care we show to possessions. Every good shepherd and good business person takes accountability seriously because profit-making not losses is the soul of business. The ability to account for the hundred sheep in one’s custody, as the parable of the hundred sheep indicates, shows both dutifulness and the care/love of one’s responsibilities. The lady who takes the pains to give up sleep in order to sweep clean her house in search of a missing coin shows accountability for what she owns and takes pride in conserving it. A sheep and a coin may may be material possessions, mundane things, yet people put their heart and best to care for them; what about a human being – the prodigal son/child?
If the prodigal father, the good shepherd and the lady with-the-missing-coin show due diligence in the preservation of their possessions, what about the prodigal son, and the missing sheep and coin – why did they stray at all? Well, real life shows that things do go wrong; or as the Catholics will put it, there is Original Sin! The joy of Original Sin is its future not the past: the ability “to return home to the father,” no matter how long it takes to achieve that, is what matters. Our three parables do not concern themselves with duration and deployment of sacrifices, but the end result and the joy that goes with that is their primary concern – “until he finds it,” “until she finds it”.
God meets us half way. “Coming to his senses,” in the parable for the prodigal son, talks about God’s grace, the grace towards repentance. In his ignorance, the prodigal son strays from his father’s care, travels the path of autonomy and freedom. The protection and guarantee of protection from his father turns cumbersome, so he tries an alternative – freedom. He realizes his self-worth in the challenges life throws on his way. He loses his dignity by abandoning his father, by breaking his relationship with his father his nakedness and vulnerability become evident. His struggle for self-preservation falls short of the guarantees his father provides, so “coming to his senses,” he returns home!
The courage to rise from one’s sins and return to God requires the grace of God – our second chances, and our cooperation with that grace. We become beneficiaries of God’s many graces because, like the first reading indicates, we have people like Moses interceding for us. The blood of Jesus, which cries more insistently than Abel’s (Hebrews 12:24), keeps appealing to God the Father for mercy and more second-chances. The more sins we experience, the more intercessions do we need. We learn from Paul, in our second reading, about how grace works “he considered me trustworthy in appointing me to the ministry” (1 Timothy 1:12). God looks at the positive and good side of life and each one of us. Despite sin, and human sinfulness, God succeeds in overriding sins to qualify the human person for relationship with him. Like Paul, we need to be grateful to God for his mercies: “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” (1 Timothy 1:15-16).
When sin stares a Christian in the face, be it our sins or those of others, a Christian goes down on his knees to pray for forgive and grace to do better; this is the example we see in the first reading, Moses becomes an intercessor for his fellow Israelites. The attitude of the older brother in the gospel only worsens the situation of sin, because their father now has to worry about sin lurking in the door of yet another child, the older son, when a party is going on to celebrate the return of the younger brother. The desire for absolute freedom from the control of the father occasions the prodigal son’s sin, the older brother’s sin stems from the liberality and forgiveness of their father. Most of us find ourselves in either camp – either angry with God for not exterminating sinners, or we consider God’s Commandments too demanding, so we mold our own golden calf to worship it, like the people of Israel in the first reading.
What sins are you “to return from” today, this week, forever? God requires a lot of “coming to our senses” of us, if the world must be a better place. We must be our own accusers, in order to begin our “return” journey from sin to grace and mercy. The older son and the Pharisees are not our models, but the prodigal son and St. Paul. The admission of self-guilt and wrong-doing prepare the way for conversion and forgiveness. Indeed, God is ready to party whenever you and I are willing to return home to God’s care and protection, instead of trusting in our powers and abilities. Second-chance, not self-justification, is what we need. We should not consider condemning ourselves either, because God’s grace abounds even the more, where their is sin (Romans 5:20).
Assignment for the Week:
Go for confession, and pray for the conversion of sinners.