25th Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C 2013

 25^th. Sunday, Year (C)

(Amos 8: 4-7; 1 Timothy 2: 1-8; Luke 16:1-13)

If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth?  And if you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, who will give you what is yours?

Those are words more easily read than pondered; but surely, we are right to hope that, coming from the lips of our Blessed Lord, they will prove well-worth whatever care and attention we can manage to give them.

Dishonest wealth would seem to be best understood according to the words of a previous parable of Our Lord:

The land of a rich man produced abundantly.  And he thought to himself, ‘I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, and be merry.’  But God said to him, ‘You fool!  This very night your life is being demanded of you; and these things you have prepared, whose will they be?’  So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.  (Luke 12:16-21)

Wealth did indeed speak dishonestly to that rich man; but the parable also told us something about true wealth which, it said, makes a man rich towards God.

We find the same teaching in the book of Revelation (3:17-18):

You say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’  You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.  Buy from me gold that is refined by fire so that you may be rich.

The rich man’s wealth may also be considered as ‘dishonest’ in so far as one person accumulates a great amount and considers it as exclusively ‘his’, whereas, the world and all its resources were originally given, provided, by God for the good of all mankind.

And so we have gathered some light for an understanding of the first part of our original quote:

If you are not trustworthy with dishonest wealth, who will trust you with true wealth? 

Which means, Will God trust you with true wealth?  That is, will God trust you who give such credence to the blandishments of dishonest wealth -- relax, eat, drink, and be merry – and for which He has just declared you to be a Fool, will He trust you with true wealth?  Of course not. 

And now Our Lord’s words go on immediately to speak of that true wealth:

If you are not trustworthy with what belongs to another, will God give you what is yours? 

 Here the words speak of spiritual blessings and heavenly rewards, rewards that God alone ‘gives’ (note the new word, no longer ‘trusts’ -- for a time and on the way --  but ‘gives’ so that it becomes eternally ‘yours’);  and those words, what belongs to another, refer to blessings that lead to, bring about, win for us, God’s giving: blessings and graces that belong to Christ, being the fruit of His teaching, won by His suffering, Death and Resurrection, and bestowed upon us by His Spirit of Truth, Love, and Life. 

If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with (the) dishonest wealth (of worldly riches),  will (God) trust you with true wealth (that would make you rich towards Himself)?  And if you are not trustworthy with what belongs to Jesus, will (God) give you what (would indeed be yours eternally, in and as a member of, Jesus)?

But, finally, how can one be trustworthy with dishonest wealth?

Because wealth -- as such -- is not intrinsically and necessarily dishonest.   It is indeed, always dangerous:

I tell you, Jesus said, it is easier for a camel to pass the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God.  (Matthew 19:24)

Nevertheless, our Gospel passage today speaks of the possibility of such trustworthiness because the essential dishonesty of riches comes when, as we have mentioned, their possessor is possessed by such riches and allows them to most truly make a fool of him: treating them as the ultimate aim of his life, or himself as their exclusive owner.  Therefore, we can perhaps finally, for today’s purposes, understand our Gospel reading in the following way:

If, therefore, you are not trustworthy with (the dangerously) dishonest wealth (of worldly riches), will (God) trust you with true wealth (that would make you rich towards Himself)?  And if you are not trustworthy with (such true wealth that) belongs to Jesus, will (God) give you what (could be) yours (now and for ever, in Jesus)?

Let us now sum up what we have profitably learnt from our endeavours to understand, rightly appreciate, and profit from, Our Lord’s words to us this Sunday.

It is possible for a Christian to have riches and prove trustworthy in his use of them, but that can only be done by using such wealth for Christian purposes for the good of others (cf. St. Anthony the Great and his young sister); however, it would seem, that for one aspiring to become most close to God, as was the case with the rich young man who approached Jesus in the Gospel story, then such riches might have to be set aside all together for love of God Himself.

Next we should consider how the rich man in today’s Gospel reading delighted in his wealth:

The land of a rich man produced abundantly.  And he thought to himself, ‘I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, and be merry.’

So too, People of God, we should delight in the graces of God that enable us to work sincerely for the coming of His Kingdom and for the attainment of our own God-given share in it.   We should, most certainly, recognize and rejoice in God’s present goodness to us on our way, and unashamedly show our gratitude, not only by steady perseverance, but also by wholehearted thanksgiving.

And now, how awe-inspiring are those final words for our consideration:

            Who will give you what is yours? or better, God will give you what is yours.

Such is the wonder of God’s goodness to all who strive to walk with Christ -- according to His words, in the power and under the inspiration of His Spirit, for the ultimate love of His Father – that all those spiritual blessings and gifts we have been using throughout our years of Christian endeavour actually form us in Christ so that we – in heaven – are no longer our fragile and faulty selves as on earth but, as God originally planned, our sublime and glorious selves in Jesus, ‘other Christs’ indeed, as the Good News puts it:

God will give us what is (become) OURS in Jesus,

with the result that our whole being will thrill before, and respond to, the majestic beauty, goodness, and truth, of God with absolute and total, filial and divine, spontaneity and fulness.

24th Sunday of Year C 2013

24^th. Sunday of Year (3)

(Exodus 32: 7-11, 13-14; 1Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10)

In today’s Gospel reading we are told that Our Blessed Lord was aware – did He just know their hearts or hear some whispered words? – of certain Pharisees and scribes criticising His attitude toward a number of tax-collectors and other publicly known sinners who, as distinct from last Sunday’s ‘great crowds’ just traveling with Jesus, were in fact:

            All drawing near to listen to Him.

 

We are all aware of the dangers of consorting carelessly with unprincipled people, and so Jesus did not rebuke them for their thoughts directly; instead, He spoke to them as to men with understanding and good judgement:

What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?

Now Jesus was, at that very moment -- according to the criticisms of the Pharisees and scribes -- giving too much, and too close, attention to those tax-collectors and sinners, whilst leaving the very important flock of devout Pharisees and learned scribes out of consideration; leaving them, as it were, to continue finding their own pasture on the heights of Israel (the desert in our story) under the watchful eyes of friendly shepherds (the Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets).

However, Jesus was not seeking to antagonize the Pharisees and scribes and so He addressed them directly as possible owners of a considerable flock, not as mere shepherds who were lowly esteemed for their religious fidelity.  Now, for prudent owners -- even though one sheep out of a flock of one hundred is numerically little enough -- nevertheless, one hundred is a perfect number and ninety-nine is not, and so, one sheep, perhaps not so very important of itself, could still be missed as part of the flock.

In such a way Jesus’ opening words could have drawn muted assent from even such critically disposed listeners, and He could reasonably have hoped further that they might be able, tacitly at least, to continue to identify with Him when He went on to say:

And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home ... says, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep!

Yes, the Pharisees and scribes could appreciate such a little parable and agree with the sentiments thus far expressed; but there was perhaps one thought that might trouble them somewhat: ‘Who is this fellow comparing us – devout and learned as we are – with mere sheep; not perfect, as a flock, without this one lost  sheep?’  And now, Jesus, the Master, showing His divine wisdom, suddenly changed His earthly ‘pastorale’ into a heavenly apostrophe:

I tell you, in just the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.

It was a passing dart that Jesus hoped, indeed, would sting, but again it was not a face-to-face confrontation, for He went on immediately to address another parable to them telling of the deep but simple joy of a woman on finding again  her loved-and-lost coin, with no mention whatsoever, this time, of any righteous people having no need of repentance.

Let us, now, look a little more closely at the wording of Jesus’ parable of the lost sheep:

I tell you, in just the same way, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.

He says, in just the same way because of the saving Shepherd in both cases: the earthly shepherd had gone in search of the lost sheep and, on finding it, carried it on his shoulders back to the flock; and corresponding to that, we have the picture of another Shepherd, this time a heavenly one, Jesus, and the sinners gathering round Him to hear His words; sinners who -- despite appearances -- were not, of themselves, initiating a search for Jesus, but were, even to their own possible embarrassment, actually being drawn by the Spirit to Jesus.

In just the same way, and in each case, the lost sheep grazes until the shepherd  finds what was lost

There however the parallel stops, for Jesus goes on to speak in His last four words of a ‘lost sheep’ which actually participates in its own rescue and return:

there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents.

That is the difference between a lost sheep and a lost human being, a human being can repent on being ‘found’ by Jesus, which means, of course, that repentance is the result of an encounter with Jesus, an appreciation of and response to the divine beauty, goodness, and truth shining on the  human face of Jesus.  For only the experience of holiness can convict someone of their own sinfulness, only beauty can enable another to appreciate and acknowledge their own ugliness, and only innocence and simplicity can lead a liar to hate their own duplicity.

Now, the greatest charge against the Pharisees and scribes complaining against Jesus was precisely the fact that, by constant and carping criticism, they were their closing their hearts and minds to His patent beauty and truth, goodness and humility; ‘patent’ I say, because recognized and sought out -- against themselves and their own immediate interests -- by tax-collectors and public sinners.

This is a most important lesson for us Catholic Christians to learn today; for we are now being called to account for our faith in times when our governments -- the United Kingdom, the United States, and, of course, France -- are abandoning or have long abandoned their Christian heritage in favour of self-proclaiming scepticism and rationalism, and are even openly advocating the arming of rebels in Syria regardless of their sectarian fanaticism and known enmity towards Christians living where Christians have always lived and first proclaimed Jesus as Lord.  

In our account for our faith it is not Christian dogma that needs to be quoted, even though that is the backbone of our life and the substance of our hope; it is not the superiority of basic Christian morality as taught by the Church  -- though that is undoubtedly the case over the course of history and when sincerely studied and objectively appreciated  What is needed above all for an up-to-date and effective ‘account’ of our Faith is living, personal, witness: witness, that is, to the joy and peace, strength and inspiration, each of us, as individual Catholics, finds in our experience of Jesus Himself, and in the beauty and strength of His truth in our appreciation of life and the experience our sufferings.

Toward that end, let us learn from today’s Gospel, and endeavour -- with those tax-collectors and sinners -- to draw daily ever closer to Jesus in our appreciation of the fact that the Good News we proclaim is His Good News: Good News embodied in His Person and in the salvation He brings and offers us; Good News to be lived in the power of His Spirit for the Father Who sent Him and Who calls us in Him.  

Dear People of God, draw ever closer to Jesus by reading the Scriptures with Him in view, above all read the Gospels which proclaim His words and recount His deeds; draw close, however, not so much by remembering words that can be used in arguments but by a whole-hearted appeal to His Spirit, in the Church and within you personally, for enlightenment and power that you might fully appreciate and respond to His unique expression of divine love and eternal truth.

24th Sunday of Year C 2013

24^th. Sunday Year (C)

(Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14; 1Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-10)

People of God, you may have felt today's Gospel parable to be somewhat unfair and consequently rather difficult to appreciate:

I tell you there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.

However, the second word-picture Jesus went on to paint for us was much easier to understand.  In it we learned of a woman who had lost one silver coin, a notable part of what little wealth she had, and we were told that:

When she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbours together, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I lost!'  In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.’

As I said, I think we can easily understand that example of joy in heaven over one sinner repenting.  Why therefore did Jesus deliberately choose, in His first little parable, to speak in such a way as to make His point more difficult and appear somewhat unfair?  Was He trying to shock, and if so, why?  Let us recall the beginning of our Gospel passage:

Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, ‘This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.’

So we can see who Jesus was seeking to shock: those Pharisees and scribes who were watching Him at some little distance and who, in their critical thoughts, were comparing themselves most favourably with the ‘rabble’ crowding around Jesus to see Him and hear His words:

I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.

What is the joy of heaven?   Catholic theology tells us that heaven is where God is all in all; and where the Holy Spirit of love -- proceeding from the Father to embrace the Son, and, flowing back from the Son in acknowledgment of His Father -- is the bond of unity whereby the three Divine Persons are one God.  The Father's love for the Son in the Spirit is the source of all joy in heaven and life on earth.

Behold!   My Servant (My Son) in whom My soul delights!   I have put My Spirit upon Him; He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles. (Isaiah 42:1)

The Father willed to make manifest His love for His Son when, at Jesus' baptism in the Jordan, He declared in the hearing of John the Baptist: 

This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased (Matthew 3:7),

and then – this time on the Mount of Transfiguration – the Father’s voice rang out once more from the overshadowing cloud and said to Peter, James, and John:

This is My beloved Son, listen to Him! (Mark 9:7)

For His part, Jesus -- speaking not openly but to the intimate circle of His Apostles -- several times mentioned the bond of love uniting Himself to the Father:

The Father loves the Son and has given all things into His hand.

The Father and I are one.  (John 3:35; 10:30)

So, People of God, there is only one Holy Spirit of love, one joy, one rejoicing, in Heaven, it is the love of the Father, rejoicing, delighting, in His Son, it is the love of the Son responding wholeheartedly to His Father, by the Spirit.  Therefore, when we hear Jesus say:  There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who have no need of repentance,

He is speaking of the Father's rejoicing because one sinner has come to repentance through Jesus; that is, because one sinner, by acknowledging and repenting of his own sin and turning to Jesus, has rejected any self-righteousness of his own and become – by the Spirit -- clothed in the righteousness of Jesus.  The Father rejoices in heaven over one sinner who has thus been transformed and reformed into the likeness of Christ and has become, thereby, a son in the beloved Son.  St. Paul puts is very clearly for us (Philippians 3:8-9):

I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.  For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the Law, but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith. 

God the Father does not delight in any way over people who, considering themselves ‘to have a righteousness of their own coming from their observance of whatever law’, consequently think they have no need to put on the wedding garment of the righteousness of Christ in order to enter the great feast in God’s heavenly Kingdom; and yet, as I have just said, the Father's love for the Son in the Spirit is the originating source, the total fullness and fulfilment of all joy in heaven.

Jesus said to the Pharisees, You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of others; but God knows your hearts; for what is prized by human beings is an abomination in the sight of God.  (Luke 16:15)

John the Baptist, prepared the way for Jesus by preaching in the wilderness of Judea:

Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.  (Matthew 3:1-2)

And Jesus Himself began His public ministry in a like manner:

From that time Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’   (Matthew 4:17)

And this call to repentance by Jesus was so urgent and so essential that He once declared in Jerusalem:

Unless you repent, you will all perish. (Luke 13:5)

Now that was not meant just for the inhabitants of Jerusalem of those days; no, it is meant for all mankind as St. Peter, at the very beginning of Mother Church's proclamation of Jesus, made totally clear:

Let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole.  This is the 'stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.'   Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. (Acts 4:10-12)

Repentance means, however, much more than just sorrow for the past; it requires a change for the future, as John the Baptist had told those who came to him:

Bear fruits worthy of repentance. (Luke 3:8)

Sincere repentance for the past, John warned, must also involve something he described vaguely as "bearing fruits” for the future.  Since John was only preparing the way for Jesus, having reached this point he could proceed no further, it only remained for him to seal his witness by his death. 

Jesus took up John’ legacy and advanced to where John could not go.  Focusing His mission on calling ‘sinners to repentance’ (Luke 5:32), He showed clearly what John's vague words ‘fruits for repentance’ really meant, for the theme of Jesus' public ministry was to be:

Repent and believe the Good News. (Mark 1:15)

There can be no Gospel repentance without fruits arising from faith in Jesus, for God gives us the grace of repentance for our past, sin-scarred, lives in order to bestow on us the supreme gift of faith, whereby we aspire to live our future in loving witness and obedience to the Person and teaching of Jesus Christ, Our Lord and Saviour, that is, as sons in the Son, by the Spirit, for the Father. For what is faith but a total self-abandonment, and -- in the power of the Spirit – commitment, to the overwhelming goodness of God revealed to us in beauty on the face and truth on the lips of Christ Jesus our Lord?

People of God, all this is implied by, and contained in, those "shocking" words of Jesus:

There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need repentance. 

How wonderfully wise is God!  How full of meaning and life are the Scriptures!  One apparently shocking passage containing so much heavenly beauty and saving truth!

We have rightly gathered here today to praise and glorify God for His wondrous goodness to us in Jesus.   And, having begun to appreciate the beauty of His wisdom, we must also seek to learn from His truth; for the fact is that Jesus came, as He Himself said, to call not those self-styled, so-called, virtuous ones, approved and accepted according to worldly standards, but those who were -- in their own eyes and before God -- sinful and desperately sick.

People of God, we are not holy, none of us; let us therefore learn from divine wisdom and accept that God rejoices not in any ‘home-spun’ holiness of ours, but exclusively in our grace-enabled rejection of self and love for Jesus.  The only holiness that rejoices the Father is likeness to His Son, Jesus; a holiness which originally comes to us as an undeserved gift, but one in which we can share and gradually appropriate to ourselves in some measure by means of a life of true faith and loving obedience.

Our first Catholic and Christian duty, therefore, is to come before God in a spirit of repentance and offer Him the only acceptable worship, the worship Jesus first offered on our behalf and for our salvation on Calvary, the worship He continues to offer Personally in heaven and sacramentally at every Mass here on earth, the worship of His own sacrifice-of-Self-for-Love.   Therefore we should always come to Mass to offer: Jesus, in the first place, for the glory of God and the salvation of mankind, and then ourselves -- in and with Jesus -- to the Father; then, indeed, can we fittingly make our requests of His mercy and compassion, and draw near to receive Holy Communion that we might have grace to fulfil in our lives the offering we have just made and give thanks for His great goodness.

People of God, if the wisdom and truth of God lead us to repentance and faith, then, through the sacraments -- above all through our participation at Holy Mass -- and our daily prayers, God’s power and majesty can be effective in and through our lives.

Therefore, let us praise our God today, let us admire and acknowledge the wisdom and the beauty of His truth as contained in the Good News of Jesus proclaimed by Mother Church, and let us put all our hope and trust in the power of His Spirit unfailingly sustaining and guiding her, and ever at work in our lives.   Such worship is the wedding garment that will give us the right to take our seat at the heavenly banquet; it is the token of all those who belong to that flock of which Jesus is the true and supreme shepherd.