24th Sunday Year C - Homily 5

Homily 5 - 2019

I was impressed by the comment of the father of Eurydice Dixon after her murderer was recently convicted. He was quoted as saying: "What I wish [the murderer] and what I believe Eurydice would wish, is that he gets better, and … realises what he's done. I extend my sympathies, my sincere sympathy for those who love him. It's a terrible tragedy all round.” The comment came to my mind when I was reflecting on the Gospel passage for today.

Both stories in today's Gospel passage finish with almost the same conclusion, “Rejoice with me, I have found my sheep [or my drachma] that was lost”. And St Luke uses the comments to throw the spotlight onto the spiritual message, “There is rejoicing among the angels of God over one repentant sinner”. He invites us into wonder before the heart of the God who forgives.

The whole passage was Jesus’ way to answer the criticism made of him by the Pharisees and the scribes. [The more I encounter the phrase "Pharisees and scribes", the more I treat it as code  for "the prevailing culture".] If we had read on, we would have heard the story about what we commonly call the “Prodigal Son” – which is really a story about the “Extravagantly Forgiving Father”. It deepens further our reflection on the heart of our God.

I notice in today’s Parish Bulletin that parishioners have been asked to concentrate on one of the themes condensed from the thousands of responses made to the original question suggested by the planners of the coming Plenary Council. The theme in question sees the Church we desire for the future as a “Humble, Healing and Merciful” Church. It strikes me that the Church needs to be precisely that because that is what our God is, a humble, healing and merciful God. I would add, when we are talking of God, "forgiving" as well - as today’s Gospel stories were emphasising.

We don’t think often of God as humble. In fact, our language is usually the very opposite. In our formal prayers we habitually use words like Lord, and Majesty, and honour and glory and so on. They are words that come from another age – from the courts of the Middle Ages, the courts of the insecure, honour-obsessed kings of the time. It is only insecure persons who are touchy about issues of relative honour, etc.. Those who are free, liberated, who know they are loved, could not care less. God is totally free. There are no prickly complications in God. God simply is. [And, if we wish to explicitate it a little more, God is loving.] God is love. There is nothing more to say about God, really.

I find it fascinating to think about the titles we use of leaders in the Church, and how ridiculous they are, starting from the Pope downwards: Your Holiness, Your Eminence, Your Excellency, Your Grace, Your Lordship, Monsignor, even Father. What are we up to!

Certainly, the change facing us as a would-be humble Church is much more challenging than changing titles. We need to pin down what we really do want. That is part of our task for Sunday-week’s discussion and discernment.

We often think of God as Judge. But God judges in order to heal. God’s judging has nothing to do with punishing. God judges like the doctor judges when I go to the clinic. I tell him/her the symptoms; he/she judges what the cause might be, and prescribes the needed treatment accordingly. God already knows what the problem is with us that leads us into all sorts of hurtful, damaging behaviour – what we call sin. We are insecure. And we are insecure because we do not realise that we are loved. So much of what Jesus said and did was precisely to convince us that really God loves us, and cannot do otherwise. What our world needs is more loving, not more prisons.

Can we as Church mirror our healing God? What do you think? and how can it be done – in Penshurst? And if we succeed, will it take care of the invitation also to be merciful?