The Father's Welcome
Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time Year C (11/09/2022)
(Exodus 32:7-11.13-14; Psalm 51:3-4.12-13.17.19; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-32)
By Fr. Samuel Odeh
Today's Gospel reading from the fifteenth chapter of Luke's Gospel presents three stories Jesus told to illustrate God's mercy towards sinners. Tax collectors and sinners were drawing near to Jesus to listen to him, but the scribes and Pharisees complained saying, "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." The three stories that follow are directed at the scribes and Pharisees. The first story is the parable of The Lost Sheep. A shepherd leaves ninety-nine sheep and goes I search of one that is lost. Upon finding it he places it on his shoulders with great joy and upon his arrival at home calls his neighbours and friends and says, "Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep." In the same way, God rejoices over one sheep, over one sinner who repents, like the outcasts in today's Gospel, more than he rejoices over those ninety-nine sheep, namely the Pharisees and scribes, who have no need of repentance.
The second story is the parable of The Lost Coin. It is the story of a woman who loses one out of ten coins but does not stop searching until she has found it. When she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbours together and says, "Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost." In the same way, Jesus tells us, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents. Why are the scribes and Pharisees complaining? They should be rejoicing when the lost are found.
Finally, we come to the story we all know as the parable of The Prodigal Son. This story, found only in the Gospel of Luke, is really about the love of God the Father who seeks out sinners. Even though the son in this story runs off with his inheritance and squanders the money, the father waits for him, hoping for his return. Upon his son's return, the father, "full of compassion," runs out to embrace and forgive him before the son can say a word of repentance. Then the rejoicing begins. The older son discovers this and is not happy. The older brother, like the scribes and Pharisees, has obeyed his father and has never left him. The father says to him, "My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found." The father's response teaches us that God's care and compassion extend to the righteous and sinner alike. When we are lost, God does not wait for our return. He actively seeks us out. And when the lost are found, how could we not celebrate and rejoice?
Hymn: "When a sinner comes as a sinner may, there is joy, there is joy. When they come to Christ in the Gospel way, there is joy, there is joy. There is joy among the angels, and their harps with music ring, when a sinner comes repenting, bowing low before our king."
