Ordinary 24

The Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14; Psalm 51; 1 Timothy 1:12-17; Luke 15:1-32

How do you conceive of sin? What images come to mind? I was given as a child the image of black stains on my white soul. Though the early years of childhood are very impressionable, how many of us have never spiritually grown beyond the images we were given as a child? How many of us have held on or revert to the images of God, sin, ways of praying, or our relationship with God that we were given as youth and never have sought out deeper, more mature understandings?  

We are given today a collage of images for sin that collide and form multiple paradoxes.

When the people of Israel commit idolatry making the golden calf, God calls the act depraved; corrupt. The phrase “They have turned aside from the way I pointed out for them” is used; suggesting a conscious change in course. The great penitential Psalm 51 speaks of offenses, wrong doings that can be wiped or washed away…like the stains on my soul? When Paul reflects on his past relationship with Christ Jesus as a persecutor he realizes “I have been mercifully treated because I acted out of ignorance in my unbelief”. And then there is the three great parables of Luke in which a sinner is described as being lost. And all of these are bound together by the ultimate understanding of sin that Jesus offers in Luke’s Gospel as he is being crucified: “Father, they don’t know what they are doing”.

What an array of images! Going in the wrong direction, not knowing what you are doing, being corrupt, acting out of ignorance, being lost, and breaking the law.

Depraved seems to me the most damning of understandings suggesting absolute consent. It is difficult to find excuses for the Israelites since they just experienced the plagues on Egypt and the crossing of the Red Sea. Why would they turn their backs on God? With the goodness that is present in each of our lives, why do we?

To be lost is to wander. Often accompanied by that sense of fear we all experienced as a child when we suddenly couldn’t find our parents who had moved on to the next aisle in the grocery store. Do you remember that experience? Terrifying wasn’t it? Do you remember the absolute relief that flooded you when you realized you had not been abandoned? Have you been lost on a hike in the forest? In an unfamiliar city? How did you act?

I don’t know how we got anywhere before GPS. Oh, maps, right. Have you ever decided to go in a different direction from the GPS? Why did we make that decision? Because we thought we knew a better way, a short cut? Have you gotten caught like I have by turning aside from the way pointed out and had to back track?

Which image of sin speaks to you and why?

My favourite is that we don’t know what we are doing. It is Paul’s ignorance.

Though all the images are valid and we act out of a mixture of each of them at different times, I think it is especially important to answer why a particular image speaks to us. My reason is that whatever image speaks most directly to us also offers us our image of God. Note, our image of God. Not necessarily the image God offers us through the Scriptures or in his son, Jesus Christ.

Many people like the vengeful and wrathful image of God. An image which seems to be making a comeback. The world of this God is black and white. You don’t need to reflect on complex human situations. An act is either right or wrong with God. You receive punishment or reward. This is an image of God that instills fear as the foundation of our relationship. How many of us are afraid of God? How many of us fear punishment from God?

How many of us go to the other extreme and just presume God forgives everything and we absolve ourselves from any deep commitment to Jesus Christ that entails the responsibility to live out Christian values? It is a double-edged sword, is it not?

What does God reveal in the sacred scriptures? Have we ever really paid attention?

Have we taken into account that in all three Lukan parables the shepherd, the woman and the father all go out looking for what was lost? Absent is any anger, judgement or punishment. The overall tone is one of rejoicing and calling others to rejoice. In the psalm it is God who wipes away our offenses, washes and cleanses us; it is God who creates a clean heart, who renews the spirit within us. Twice Paul writes that he was mercifully treated by Christ Jesus who displayed patience with him. Do you believe God is patient with you?

Do we realize that the movement in all these passages is God coming toward us and seeking us out? We’ve reversed who the main actor is, haven’t we? We are the ones who do the seeking. We’ve forgotten, it is God in Jesus Christ who saves.

If taken to heart, what implications might these images and reflections have on how we celebrate a true renewal of the Sacrament of Reconciliation? Is it still not wrapped in shame, darkness and anonymity rather than public rejoicing? Called ‘a second Baptism’ by the Church Fathers, what happen to the connection with Baptism? Why doesn’t the Sacrament of Reconciliation have the same atmosphere of hope and joy that the Sacrament of Baptism does within families and parish communities?

The most wonderful image of the Sacrament of Reconciliation I’ve experienced was watching an Orthodox priest stand with a person in front of an icon of the Christ. The priest had his arm around the shoulders of the person. Similar to a shepherd who threw a lost sheep over his shoulders.