If they had said it once, they had said it a hundred times. Mom and dad had said it time and time again: no playing ball in the house! Certainly, this seems like a very rule to follow, doesn’t it! And yet, in my childhood sense of ambition, I had all but forgotten about that very simple rule. So when it came to a late evening one day, imagine my horror at discovering why mom and dad had always instructed me so, as I stared at the blown-out frame where a once solid pane of glass had been only seconds prior. My regret was instantaneous, but there was one much more serious consequence that I had to contend with, and that was perhaps where a majority of the regret came from: I had to go and tell dad what had happened.
To be certain, dad was upset, especially since this was so late in the evening, and yet, in that moment, I didn’t get what I expected. I felt that dad would have had every right to come down like a ton of bricks on me. And yet, there was only a gentle reprimand… what happened at that moment that changed my dad from giving me what I expected to giving me a stern reminder?
As a people of faith, each of us have a particular perception of what God looks like, or even how He deals with each of us. Sometimes, we are able to see a God who seems absent. At other times, we tend to feel that God must have it out for each of us, much in the same way I was certain my dad was going to be with me that evening. How many of us can truly say, however, that we have a view of God that encompasses every aspect of what it is to be a merciful and compassionate God? How many of us struggle in seeing a God who is so loving that He calls us to repentance from sinfulness, and calls us to a loving return to Him? Do we see Him for the loving God that He is or do we see something altogether different?
Perhaps it is good for us to consider what not only makes God our Father- but also a Father who forgives…
The book of Exodus gives us a very difficult perspective to consider on God and who He is, and if we only give it an initial glance, it seems to fly in the face of a forgiving God, and rather seems to point away from that very idea. So, we are presented with a very vivid image. If we recall, in this scene the Israelites have been drawn out of the land of slavery and have come back from the land of Egypt. So, God has worked something tremendous in their midst. As if that wasn’t enough, He continued to help them along, and even begun to speak to Moses on a mountain, relaying to Him some early elements of faith, and instructing Moses on how to speak and interact with the people. What happens in gratitude for this, however, is astounding: the Israelites turn and rebel. They move their allegiance from God their Father to a god that they formed out of gold.
As that happens, the Lord is speaking to Moses, and we are allowed to see God’s thought. First, He starts by telling Moses to go down to the people, but as it seems that God’s anger is mounting, He moves to something different: He tells Moses to leave Him alone so that His anger may blaze up and consume the Israelites, and then Moses will become a great nation Himself!
Moses, however, responds in an unexpected way. He pleads with God and asks Him to spare the Israelites. It is a rather startling response, because Moses wouldn’t have been affected, and would even himself have been drawn up into a prestigious position that rivaled Abraham! However, here he asks God to forgive the people- and notice: the Lord responds!
Moving into the letter from Saint Paul to Timothy for just a moment, we can simply see this reading as a moment of gratitude. Paul is reflecting back on his entire life story. He speaks about his ignorance, his unbelief, and the ways that he was not following the Lord- and yet the Lord called him back anyways. From this particular walk through his life, and how God has interacted with Him, Paul comes to one solitary conclusion: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. This by itself should be threaded into almost everything we hear, we speak, and we preach in regards to our faith, and yet, it is elegant in being so simply put! Paul begins to embellish upon this, and the one thing that he really seems to emphasize in this letter: God has given this moment to show just how patient and how understanding God is.
Finally, we move to the Gospel of Luke. While the Gospel itself is very long in length, I daresay that the length is due to the importance of what is going on here. We actually can consider this entire Gospel as three separate images: the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son. While they are similar, they can actually give us a very keen insight on what Jesus wanted His audience to understand that day: just how much their Father seeks after them. So, we hear about the hundred sheep- and how the shepherd goes out looking for just that one. In their time, that would have likely seemed foolish at best, and yet, it is a powerful image, even though it seems imprudent. Or there is the woman that loses a coin- she searches for it, and eventually, she finds that coin! What does she do? She has a party, and we can guess that this might have been a party that would have all but sacrificed the value of that very same coin!
Yet, as valuable and insightful as those two images are, they can still remain at a distance. What happens when God actually invites us into an image that really drives home this point? That is where we arrive at the Prodigal Son. Now, we all know essentially the main stream of the entire story- how there is a son who takes his inheritance from his father, he goes and wastes the entire amount, and then finds himself in a foreign land, and in severe need. What happens when he finds himself in severe need? He goes back to his Father, expecting full well to have his position as son stripped from him! Yet, what happens? The Father, who is watching at a distance runs to his son, embraces him, and restores him to the former position! This is such a radical decision, that even the oldest son is shocked at what occurs. That does not change what happened, but is still a radical consideration: the father wants to restore the son!
We understand that as something that happened to a fictional character, even though it is a very heartwarming and touching story. However, do you and I understand that this isn’t just something that happens way out there, in a nice fictional story, but is rather the story for each one of us? One of the things that is beautiful about the way that this Gospel stacks together the three lost things is that it gives us an understanding of just how valued we are by our God! We aren’t just a coin- even though it has value. We aren’t a sheep, though a sheep is a part of His creation. We are the prodigal son! So, we should consider God as father- because we should understand that our God wants to remain in relationship with us at all times!
This leads to another consideration, though. Notice, in the story of the prodigal son, the Father doesn’t simply go after the son immediately when he choses to go away. He doesn’t even force the son to stay. What this means is that the son has free choice- he can stay or he can leave, for better or worse. The son is given the ability to choose where he can dwell- and we are given the same idea. It isn’t that God forces us to live in the goodness he has designed us for, but does honor our wishes, for better or worse. The opportunity afforded here is the ability to actually seek God out and to seek His forgiveness. This instructs us that He does not wish to deny us His forgiveness! Each time we begin walking towards the confessional, as intimidating as it might seem, we can think of it as that same return journey of the son- each step brings us closer to the loving response of the Father!
Finally, we should consider where we need to return to God. Saint Paul spoke beautifully to the effect of what he had to repent of, and it is much the same invitation for us! It isn’t just that we are given this abstract idea of forgiveness from God, but rather, we are to seek that out in very intentional and specific ways, every time we pick up an examination of conscience!
That, my brothers and sisters, is the challenge to adopt. We should see God our Father as that loving God, much like I found my dad to be that peaceful father that day. Yet, we cannot take this for granted, but must rather look towards the reality of what God invites us into- a realization that He wishes to forgive each one of us. That gives us some homework- to consider going to the sacrament of reconciliation soon, so that we can encounter our Lord in a new and profound way, especially in the weaknesses we recognize- much like those that Saint Paul recounted so long ago.
Truly, may we find God to be our loving and forgiving Father, and approach Him boldly to receive that gift of forgiveness that we so desire and so desperately need.
