24th. 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 had He heard some whispered words?
– however it was, He had become aware 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 alongside
Jesus, were in fact:
All
drawing near to listen to Him.
Today, we have to be aware of the dangers of consorting or
discussing carelessly with unprincipled people, and Jesus Himself, so long ago,
chose not to directly rebuke these, not indeed unprincipled, but most certainly
self-appointed custodians of public morals and personally very self-assured and
sanctimonious Pharisees, for their antagonistic thoughts and overtly pugnacious
attitude:
This
man welcomes sinners and eats with them!
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 around Him, whilst neglecting they
themselves, a very important group of devout Pharisees and learned scribes;
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).
Jesus was not seeking to antagonize the Pharisees and
scribes, and so He turned to them and addressed them directly as probable
owners of a considerable flock, men, that is, with worldly understanding and
good judgement, not mere local, uneducated, shepherds generally lowly esteemed
for their religious infidelity:
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, 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. Addressing them in such a way Jesus could
have hoped to draw reluctant assent from even such critically disposed
listeners, and He might also have reasonably hoped further that they might --
tacitly at least -- 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, might 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 there being a saving shepherd in both cases: the earthly
shepherd who had gone in search of the lost sheep and, on finding it, carried
it on his shoulders back to the flock; and a heavenly Shepherd, Jesus Himself sent
by His heavenly Father as Messianic Shepherd of Israel. The sinners -- literally ‘flocking’ around
Him to hear His words -- public sinners in the Pharisees’ estimation, were men who,
at this very moment and possibly to their own embarrassment, were finding
themselves drawn by the Spirit to Jesus as a flock seeking guidance and,
perhaps, learning how to repent; the Parisees, on the other hand, remained
apart, highly critical of what they could not understand.
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.
Now the words of Jesus take on a deeper meaning, more
pertinent to the present situation, for the tax collectors – well known to the
Pharisees as sinners -- ‘flock’ around Jesus Who says:
There will be more joy in heaven
over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people – and the Pharisees
certainly thought of themselves as righteous – who have no need of repentance, an attitude publicly
portrayed by the Pharisees standing apart and critically observing what was
happening with the heavenly shepherd at work.
Notice now the difference between a lost sheep and a lost
human being, a human person 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 contrary to 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, republican
France -- are abandoning or have long abandoned their Christian heritage in
favour of self-proclaiming scepticism and rationalism, after having openly supported
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 the faith we treasure, it is not Catholic
dogma that needs to be quoted, even though it is the backbone of our life and
the substance of our hope; nor the superiority of Christian morality -- though that
is undoubtedly the case over the course of history and when sincerely studied
and objectively appreciated What is needed
above all for us to give today is an up-to-date and effective ‘account’ of our
Faith; our own, personal, living, witness to Jesus in Mother Church: witness,
that is, to the contentment and peace, hope and inspiration, each of us, as
individuals, finds in our awareness
and appreciation of the Person of Jesus Our Lord and Saviour, through our prayer and God’s Gift of
His most Holy Spirit; finding in His quite
simple human words truths of eternal
and sublime beauty enabling us to appreciate the wonder of creation all around us, to
discover the transforming experience of earthly sufferings acceptedfor love of
Him, and, above all, to embrace the previously unimagined mystery of human life
-- graced for all of good will -- leading to a heavenly home of eternal
fulfilment with Jesus in the Kingdom of His and our Father.
Toward that end, let us learn from today’s Gospel, and
endeavour -- with those tax-collectors and sinners -- to draw 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 given to us through His Church, 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 to 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 more fully appreciate and better respond to His unique expression of
divine love and eternal truth.
