“I Miz-able, Mommy”

The 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Today’s Readings: [Click here]

One time when my little brother was very young, he was being quite obstreperous. Don’t you love that word? It means noisy and difficult to control. That summed him up to a T. He was running around, throwing things, screaming, grabbing my stuff, and just being a little monster. My poor mother was totally exhausted and exasperated. She finally grabbed him and said, “Why are you acting this way?” He looked up at her with pathetic, soulful eyes, stuck out his lower lip and said, “Because I miz-able, Mommy.” And the little twerp was instantly forgiven and covered with kisses.

Big brothers don’t usually like to see the younger ones getting away with this kind of con job. We much prefer our own concept of justice: “if you do the crime, you do the time.” No cheap grace.

Even when we grow up, I’m afraid that we don’t completely lose this sense of eye-for-an-eye justice… despite the fact that we know that this isn’t the value that God wants us to have. We’re supposed to love even our enemies. I guess that’s why one of the most difficult Christian teachings to get across is the idea of God’s extravagant and immeasurable forgiveness.

Listening to today’s gospel, it seems that Jesus was probably also having a hard time getting this idea across. Because we live in a “quid pro quo” world, we can’t understand how God constantly provides the quid without first having received our quo. That’s why Jesus hammers away at this mystery, first telling two short parables about a lost sheep and a lost coin, then ending with the famous story of the Prodigal Son.

Both the shepherd with the lost sheep and the woman with the lost coin resort to outrageous, totally impractical measures to find them. Once they do find them, they put on celebrations that seem excessive and illogical. That, Jesus claims, is how God responds to repentant sinners. The parables themselves don’t speak of sinners. The sheep and the coin are lost, but their owners are the ones who lost them. The sheep and the coin are unrepentant. The extravagance of God’s love is not contingent on our response. It remains limitless.

Then, in the Prodigal Son story, the older brother sums up the situation well: All these years I served you and not once did I disobey your orders; yet you never gave me even a young goat to feast on with my friends. But when your son returns, who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fattened calf. How does one show mercy without alienating those who don’t need mercy?

We all know people who seem to get away with murder: kids in school who cheat on tests and never get caught… people who fudge on their tax returns… folks who seem to be living a lifestyle that we find repulsive but can’t do much about… in short: all those people who are forever stealing, swearing, coveting, committing adultery and breaking every commandment in the book. Are all these to be shown mercy and forgiven? Is there no justice?

Consider for a moment the words of our psalm today: Have mercy on me, O God… my sin is always before me… The author speaks for every human being. None of us is perfect; we are all “fallen.” So to answer my question—how does one show mercy without alienating those who don’t need mercy?—actually, all of us need God’s mercy for one thing or another. And if we ever doubt that we sin on a daily basis, that’s when we really find ourselves in spiritual trouble.

The older brother in the parable was wrong when he thought that his brother hadn’t done anything to warrant forgiveness. You see, what the prodigal son did was to admit his mistake and express his sorrow for it—first in his heart, and then to his father. It was like going to confession.

One of the greatest theologians the Church has ever known is St. Thomas Aquinas. Probably his most famous work is the Summa Theologica, all written in question and answer format. One question asks, “At what point in the sacrament of reconciliation does God forgive our sins?” St. Thomas replied: “The instant we’re sorry for them.” In other words, we are forgiven before we even step into the church, make our confession, receive absolution or perform our penance! God is so extravagant with his mercy that it boggles the mind.

And that brings us to our first reading today about the golden calf. As Moses hurried down Mount Sinai, he must have thought for sure that God’s wrath was going to flare up like an air-to-ground missile and burn up those ungrateful people who made themselves this idol. After all, God’s very first commandment to the human race was that we mustn’t have any gods before him—and here they were, doing just that!

This commandment was probably first in the list because it’s the one that has such significant consequences when we break it. Why? Because living as though something else is more important than God disconnects us from God’s divine power, just the way unplugging an electric cord from an outlet makes it impossible to reach the electricity. When we say that God is not God, we are in effect refusing his mercy, his generosity, his healing, his blessing, and all the other gifts of grace that he constantly wants to offer us.

And yet, God forgave even these people! He didn’t wipe them out and start over with the human race. What extravagance and loving mercy.

And what a beautiful lesson of hope for all of us. No matter how much other people may have a problem with us for who we are or what we’ve done or how we live our lives… no matter how depressed we may feel because of our own bad choices in the past… no matter how much we may think we’re “trapped” in a cycle of sin… God is willing—make that: anxious—to forgive us, lift us up, and show us tender and merciful love… if only we’re the least bit sorry.

Now that’s real, divine mercy.