Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14            1^st Timothy 1:12-17             Luke 15:1-32

Today’s scripture texts provide a challenge and warning against any and all who claim a kind of self-righteous “common sense” and who, therefore, harshly judge, condemn and exclude those who are different from themselves. A warning: what follows is not for the feint of heart. Prepare to be challenged to think critically and constructively, to believe and to forgive even those most obnoxious to you. Let us hope that those who find us obnoxious might in turn forgive us!

The Torah (aka the Pentateuch) was attributed directly to Moses by the ancient Jews. They believed that he dictated those five books word for word. Therefore they embodied a sanctity like those most sacred of items lost forever in the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 587 or 586 BC, i.e., the Ark of the Covenant itself, the Staff of Aaron, the last of the Desert Manna, and the replacement copy of the Ten Commandments. Because of Moses, the written text of God’s message or “Word” replaced those sacred artifacts. A crucial quality of the written word was and is that copies could be made, and thus, the message could be quite enduring. So, in today’s Exodus narrative, trusting in the veracity of the story, we find that God was rightly disappointed in and enraged at the recently saved Israelites’ ungrateful behavior. Evidently, in their ignorance and superstition, they were too impatient to wait for God and Moses to finish their discussions on how to proceed with their recently constituted religious faith. The story found fault both with their human impatience and with their sin of ingratitude which leads to idolatry. Remember that the Torah and the Ten Commandments were delivered to Moses and the Israelites precisely to provide a safe and holy way of life to those only recently freed from abject servitude. Abject servitude in those days meant sociologically that they were extraordinarily unsophisticated, that they did not know not how to behave in what we might term a civilized manner. The Decalogue (the technical term for the Ten Commandments) tried to focus them a) upon their Savior God, b) upon familial care, respect and stability, and c) upon community trust, safety and social stability. The Commandments embody and concretize a strong sense of social responsibility for the sake of mutual care and respect. Basically, God and Moses tried to keep the Israelites from fighting among themselves and from destroying each other. We modern people often read back much of our own perspectives into the Moses stories (the technical term is that we “anachronize”). That is, we wrongly presume that they had the attitudes, ideas and sensibilities of our own modern day, places and cultures, and thus, we actually change the meanings of the stories. The back story of this narrative is that God’s Chosen People were remarkably unintelligent, unreasonable, ungrateful and consequently impatient and disrespectful towards the God who had saved them only months before. This is a principal quality of those ancestral Israelites which their descendants handed on in their sacred Tradition! Even their first High Priest, Aaron the brother of Moses, succumbed to the temptations of fear, social pressure, unreasonableness, ingratitude and disrespect. In subsequent verses he groveled before God and Moses and, in terms as silly as any modern scandal-tagged public person, he tried to wiggle away from his guilt and out of his responsibility. But, the greater point of this story was this: God “relented in the punishment he had threatened to inflict on his people,” and literally “repented of” (literally “changed his mind about”) such punishment. Yes, God repented or re-considered. (Although Moses in his own anger, not God, would inflict a harsh punishment. See Exodus 32:25-29 ). God had reconsidered before in Genesis 9, after the second account of the great flood. God placed the rainbow in the sky as a sign of a new covenant with the entire human race. The rainbow would be on Earth a public and constant reminder of the Divine Promise to never again destroy the human race by water. Now, if God repented, ought not his own Chosen People, the people who claim to be God’s own, imitate their (our) God and reconsider, relent, repent and forgive? Also, might we confer upon God a new title or two? Besides The Almighty and The All Merciful, perhaps God ought to be called The Great Mind-Changer and The Great Repenter!

The lengthy parable in Luke 15, popularly known as The Parable of the Prodigal Son, is likewise a nuanced story of profound compassion and forgiveness against the context of firmly held cultural (and unhealthy) self-righteousness. The parable’s lesson contradicts the accepted cultural expectations about righteousness and justice. The scandalous behavior of the younger (adult) son began with his request that the family pretend that the father had died and that the estate should be divided up. His own profligate living was next described. Only the consequent pain of profound deprivation moved the young fool towards genuine thoughtfulness and repentance (an example of what it takes to change a very small, narrow and selfish mind). The father, at first glance hardly a wise man, cooperated with the younger son’s remarkably insulting and unwise request. But, that same father loved that selfish, foolish and rude son more deeply than anyone in Jesus’ audience imagined or believed appropriate. Forgiveness and reconciliation were readied by the loving and hope-filled father even before the younger son asked for it. The elder son, correct in every way except in his failure to be loving and merciful towards his brother and his father, took issue and chose to be uncooperative even at the cost of perpetuating family fracture by impeding reconciliation. He resented not so much his brother’s sinfulness and foolishness, as his father’s joyfully-bestowed and counter-cultural loving-kindness. How easy it was then – and is now – to resent mercy shown to others! We (self-) righteous persons must take great care! Just because we’ve succeeded in conforming to the larger expectations of culture and religious faith does not mean that we have finally arrived at holiness, goodness, justice or wisdom! Mercy triumphs over judgment!

St. Paul never forgot the great mercy bestowed on him in spite of his own most serious sinfulness. He had been forgiven murder! Numerous other great biblical heroes had killed people, too: Abraham, Moses, King David, King Solomon, the Prophet Elijah to name only some! Paul’s advice to Timothy as a Church leader (what we might call a bishop) was founded on the greatest of all virtues, gratitude. Paul was thankful because (even though) “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and arrogant, but I have been mercifully treated.” He probably included “murderer” under the title “blasphemer” for he had participated in the stoning death of St. Stephen (See Acts 7-8). And, indeed, the early Christians had difficulty with Paul because of his reputation as a persecutor of the Church. He refers to his former hate-filled behavior a few times in his letters. He referred to himself as one of the greatest of sinners on whom God had bestowed forgiveness and Grace. His enthusiastic gratitude to God for Divine Forgiveness was constantly on Paul’s mind. That’s why he can so boldly write letters of exhortation and encouragement as it did to Timothy. This mindfulness or remembrance was crucial to our embrace of the Gospel Faith. To we forget God’s previous goodness and blessing means we become ungrateful. Ingratitude is the foundation of much that is sinful in behavior and destructive in attitude. Gospel disciples must be self-critical and regularly ask, How sturdy is the foundation of thanksgiving on which I stand? Do I regularly remember that I have been loved first by others?! Do pain, hurt and injury distract me from tremendous prior blessing? Do I consciously embrace and proclaim gratitude because God has forgiven me? These are not light weight questions. They are Gospel questions!

Today, society is angry and polarized; many Church members are angry and polarized; our families are often polarized. Polarization evolves from hurt, anger and ignorance. It breeds further hurt, anger and ignorance in turn. Sadly, some believers among us fan the flames of such anger and fear by reminding us repeatedly of past sins, while effectively impeding any possible and desirable reconciliation, and profound change of mind and heart. Too easily do we allow ourselves to be fooled into believing that revenge will make things better. In fact, revenge is merely a destructive, emotional drunken binge. When we sober up, the emotional hang-over is painful, the painful truth of reality is still there, and this time we have been the destroyer, without any improvement. But after revenge it is too late. We are no better; we have merely embraced the lies and imitated the violence and hatefulness of ignorant, angry, self-righteous people. The Gospel Message of reconciliation both implores and commands that we be different from such hate-filled, selfish, self-righteous, ignorant, reactionary and foolish ways of life. The Gospel is thus liberal and liberating. It is generous in mercy and it seeks to free us from hatred and sin. We pray to be liberated whenever we pray the Lord’s Prayer:” ...Forgive us ... as we forgive.” Only genuine gratitude can free us from the pain. Eucharist means gratitude. Eucharist leads us to conscientiously and deliberately work at such forgiveness and reconciliation. God’s Grace is not magical fairy dust. St. Thomas Aquinas taught, “Grace builds upon nature.” In other words, we must make the Gospel of forgiveness and reconciliation deliberately operative in our daily lives, in ways both small and great, precisely because we are already filled with thanks. It is we who must change. Jesus taught his disciples in the hours after the Last Supper, “This is how others will know you as my disciples, by your love for one another” (John 13:35). He knew he would be betrayed, abandoned, slandered, tortured and crucified within a short while. In spite of all that, he loved (his own), and forgave (his killers), and prayed (for us) anyway! This is what Jesus DID. We must do likewise!

Do you fully engage life even though it is messy and challenging? Do you love? Are you always thankful? Do you forgive? Have you accepted forgiveness? Is there anything you are unable to forgive? Is there any one whom you are unwilling or unable to forgive? Is there any thing about you for which you are unwilling to receive forgiveness? Have you reconciled practically and effectively ... with whom? Have you been lost? Can you associate even with those who are lost at the moment? Have you been found?