Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time (C), Conversations with Consequences Podcast, September 10, 2022

Fr. Roger J. Landry
Conversations with Consequences Podcast
Homily for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time, C, Vigil
September 10, 2022

To listen to an audio recording of this short Sunday homily, please click below: 

The following text guided the homily: 

• This is Fr. Roger Landry and it’s a joy for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation the Risen Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday, which will bring us into the heart of Jesus’ mission, the core of our faith, the way we’re supposed to receive God’s action in our life and what he wants us to do as a result. It involves three parables of the Lord, including, perhaps, the most famous short story of all time.
• Luke gives the setting: “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.’” The Pharisees were literally, in Hebrew, the “Separated Ones,” those who distanced themselves from sin and sinners. They were scandalized that Jesus would have any contact with sinners at all, not to mention welcome them, treat them with kindness and even share meals and fraternity with them. They failed to recognize that they were sinners. It was to them and their attitude about sin and sinners that Jesus addressed the three Parables of the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin and the Lost Sons.
• The attitude of the Scribes and Pharisees didn’t expire at a time long ago in a land far away. Many Christians today, for example, do not rejoice on Christmas, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday and Easter when people who do not regularly practice the faith come to back to Church, crowd the parking lot and occupy the pews they normally sit in. Many do not rejoice to see the person who bullied them in school, local criminals, the person who destroyed their best friend’s marriage, or family members who gossiped about them come to Church converted. Jesus’ stories this Sunday are still so relevant because many of us are more like the Pharisees in the Gospel than we might want to admit.
• In the Parable of the Lost Sheep, we see how God loves us individually. Jesus the Good Shepherd calls each one of us by name, and none of us is a number to him. It might seem strange that a shepherd would leave 99 sheep and go out in search of one lost stray, because most of us don’t have that type of love for animals in general, especially if we have 100 of them or more. But Jesus was saying, “If you had ten young kids, and one of the didn’t come home, wouldn’t you leave the other nine to go out in search of your child?” Jesus loves each of us more than the greatest earthly moms and dads loves each of their children. He will come to find us. And he will rejoice when he finds us and leads us home.
• The Parable of the Lost Coin, at first glance, makes even less sense than that of the lost sheep. What woman who lost a quarter would spend all types of time sweeping the house looking for it, and then throw a big party upon finding it? But we need to know what the coin was. When a woman was married, she had a wedding veil, normally with ten precious coins strung like a crown that constituted her dowry. Not only were the coins precious but their symbolic value was priceless. The present-day analogy would be if a woman had lost her wedding ring. She indeed would pick up the sofa cushions, look under the couch, sweep everywhere frantically looking for it, and, if she found it, would certainly rejoice.
• Both parables led to a similar application by Jesus: “In just the same way,” he said, “there will be more joy in heaven,” or “among the angels of God,” “over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.” God rejoices more in reconciling one of his sons or daughters than a shepherd rejoices finding his sheep, a woman rejoices finding her precious wedding coin, or a mom or dad rejoices finding a lost infant in the mall. In fact, Jesus says the joy is “more” or greater over one sinner’s return than heaven rejoices over the fidelity of 99 holy ones. No wonder why Pope Francis loves to say, “God’s greatest joy is forgiving!”
• Those stories are the warm-up acts that introduce the Parable of the Prodigal Son, or better the Parable of the Lost Sons, because each son has something important to teach us.
• The younger brother’s essential sin was not that he blew his inheritance on a dissolute life. It was to treat his Father as if he were dead. To ask for the inheritance while the Father was still alive was tantamount to saying, “You’re dead to me, Old Man. I don’t want to wait until you croak. Give me now what you’re planning to give me when finally you breathe your last.” And the Father, doubtless more concerned over the direction of his son’s life than nursing any wounds at his son’s ingratitude and presumption, gave him the inheritance, probably figuring that it might be the last chance for the son to learn who the Father really was. After the son had squandered the money and his dignity in an immoral life, he had fallen lower than the swine, even longing, somewhat subhumanly, for what the pigs ate. That’s when his conversion began. “Coming to his senses,” St. Luke wrote, he realized that his Father’s hired hands were always well-fed. The fact that the Father gave “hired hands” or day laborers — who were not entitled to food — “more than enough food to eat,” awakened the son to his Father’s goodness. He decided to return to his Father’s house, to apologize for his sins, and to beg to be treated like a hired hand. But he still didn’t get his Father. The Father could never stop loving him as a son. Seeing his son approaching, the Father ran out to embrace him. He called for the finest garment to be put around him to cover up all of the swine excrement. He put a signet ring on his finger, to show that he still had “power of attorney” over the Father’s goods. He placed sandals on his feet to symbolize that he was free to go about as he pleased. And he commanded that the fattened calf, normally reserved for weddings and the biggest celebrations, be killed for a feast. Whereas the son had asked to be treated like a hired hand lower than slaves, the Father restored him to his full dignity and threw a celebration like he had never had even before he had wandered.
• The older son is a figure like the Pharisees and Scribes. He never grasped the Father’s goodness or love either. When he got angry and refused to enter the party the Father was throwing for his brother’s return, he passive-aggressively waited outside until the Father came out to beg him to enter. He replied with anger that betrayed that he had never related to his Father as a son but only as a slave. “Look,” he said, “all these years I servedyou and not once did I ever disobey your orders.” And it got worse. “Yet when this son of yours returns,” he quipped. He couldn’t even refer to his own flesh-and-blood as his brother. He enviously protested that he had never even been allowed to kill a young goat for a party with his friends and yet the other brother got a fattened calf. While the younger brother now at least understood the love of the Father and was rejoicing in it, the older brother was still in a judgmental, bitter pigsty of his own. We don’t know whether the older brother eventually entered the party. It was still an open question for the scribes and the Pharisees who were listening to Jesus, whether they would share Jesus’ joy and come to welcome and eat with the same sinners, the same prodigal sons and daughters with whom Jesus was dining.
• Jesus’ powerful parables this Sunday lead us to make two fundamental applications.
• First, do we recognize that we are sinners called by God to be reconciled, that at times we have wandered from the Father through sin and treated him as good as dead to us? Do we come to our senses, recognize his goodness and come home? The parables are meant to communicate what God seeks to do for each of us through the Sacrament of Penance, to restore us to our dignity and divine filiation, to fill us with his life and joy. The Father says, “My son was dead and has come back to life again. He was lost and has been found.” That’s what happens in every good Confession. Every reconciliation is a resurrection, when we’re raised from the dead by the Father’s mercy (which is why Jesus founded the Sacrament on Easter Sunday evening). The Sacrament is God’s great lost-and-found department for his beloved children. So when was the last time you made a good confession? When was the last time you gave God joy by coming to receive his mercy? This weekend, in preparation for Mass, would be a great time to go.
• Second, unlike the Scribes and Pharisees, we need to be praying for others to receive God’s mercy, helping them to be reconciled to God, and rejoicing when they convert and return to God. Especially on this 9/11 anniversary weekend, we need to be praying for the conversion of terrorists, that they might come to experience the Lord’s mercy and a new life. Since heaven rejoices more over one repentant sinner, the way we can please God most is by praying and helping to bring many people, one at a time, to receive his divine mercy. When was the last time we encouraged family members and friends to come with us to the Sacrament of Mercy? Whom can we invite to come this weekend?
• This Sunday at Mass, God will prepare for us not a fattened calf, but his Son, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world. Through a good confession in preparation for the feast, he wants to renew us in the finest robe of our baptismal garment, restore us to our dignity as his children and heirs, and send us forth with sandals, free, to glorify him by our life, through running out to greet others in his name with the same joy and mercy with which he never ceases to run to embrace us. God bless you!

The Gospel on which the homily was based was: 

Podcast: Play in new window | Download