Do you always know where everything is? Yes, that’s my question for today. Do you always know where everything is? Are you able to keep track of all of your possessions? Looking at it another way: are you always in control of every aspect of your life? Or occasionally do you misplace something that’s important to you?
How about the car keys as you’re rushing out of the house in the morning? You’re already running late. You know you left them where you usually leave them. But they’re not there. Someone must have taken them. Your spouse, your teenage kid. Your brother-in-law! Or what about that receipt you need to take with you to exchange an item at the store. You thought you might be needing it in case of a return. So you put it in a place where you would be sure to find it. But it’s not there when you go looking for it. Could you have thrown it out when you were discarding all of that other junk you did not need anymore?
If you’re like me, you go into a frenzied search-mode. For the keys, you try to retrace your steps when you got home yesterday. You search on the floor and on every table – starting in the kitchen and working systematically towards your bedroom. For the missing receipt, you begin by going through each and every piece of paper in all of the piles around the house. And if you are like me, you get angrier by the minute. At myself … and at that stupid object which the gremlins have once again stolen.
And then you find it. Right where you now remember you left it. And no, unlike the shepherd or the widow we heard about a few minutes ago … we do not invite the neighbors in for a celebration. But I do celebrate inside my head. I celebrate that the Alzheimer’s hasn’t kicked in as I thought, for a moment, it might have.
And so, I’m thankful for finding the small things in my life that I thought I had lost. I’m not unlike the shepherd or the woman who had suffered big-time losses they were able to recover. They were thankful for big things. I’m thankful for little things.
I’m also thankful that I haven’t lost big things. Some of us have. A lost spouse. A lost child. A lost job. A lost opportunity. A lost self-respect. Jesus knew about all of these losses. And he told parables about them. But his focus was not on the loss, itself. Rather, he emphasized the joy of recovering it.
He also spoke about a loss that might not be recovered. He spoke about a son who deserted the family. A child who willfully left the home where a loving parent remained behind. A parent waiting for a return. Yes, sometimes we cannot go in search of what is lost. Sometimes, we must wait – wait for the healing which accompanies the loss.
This weekend we recall the loss of some 3000 people almost a decade ago. Some still hope for a physical return. Others have become reconciled to their personal loss. Some continue to hate and despise those on whom they blame their loss. Others have begun the process of healing these wounds of the heart.
Jesus also recognized that we, his brothers and sisters, deal with loss and recovery in various ways. We heard a story about his recognition. A story we’ve heard many times before. A story that is also about us. He told his story to the Pharisees and scribes who were complaining to him. They said: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” Sinners … those who are lost from God. Sinners … those who willfully left the presence of God. Sinners who have repented, who have changed their ways. Sinners who wish to return to the family of God. Sinners who request forgiveness, even when they recognize that their actions do not merit forgiveness. For you see, this is the real point of the three stories Jesus addressed to the complaining Pharisees and scribes.
Although he seems to speak of the joy of finding something that is lost … whether it is a single sheep or a single coin … he is really telling the Pharisees, the scribes and those who complain … he is telling them about the acceptance and forgiveness of God.
Jesus remembers the time of Moses and the Israelites who made a golden calf to worship when they turned away from the Lord God who had led them out of the bondage of Egypt. They had left Him just as the prodigal son had left his father to seek his own fortune. Yet, that same Lord God continues to forgive his people. That same Lord God sends his only Son to us to bring us the forgiveness of God. Yes, it is for this reason that God became man … to bring his forgiveness to each of us who had been lost.
Whether we acknowledge it or not … we are, indeed, sinners. Saint Paul certainly recognized this fact about himself in his letter to Timothy that we heard today, when he wrote: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Of these I am the foremost. But for that reason, I was mercifully treated, so that in me, as the foremost, Christ Jesus might display all his patience as an example for those who would come to believe in him for everlasting life.”
When we hear the story of the Prodigal Son – the story of the son who returns to the waiting father – we usually imagine ourselves in the role of the returning son and God as the expectant, overjoyed Father. And, indeed, this is the case. Jesus has repeatedly spoken of the joy of God and of the angels when a sinner repents and returns to the family of God. But for a moment, perhaps we might consider ourselves in the role of either the father who is joyful – or the angry brother who resents the joy of the father when the former sinner, who was lost, now returns home.
How willing am I to forgive the reason for a loss, when the one who was lost has now returned? Do I continue to bear a grudge? Am I resentful and believe I have been treated unfairly? Or can I be like the welcoming Father and rejoice in the return. When I find the car keys, do I gripe about the time I had to spend looking for them? When I locate the misplaced piece of paper, am I thankful that my patient search has been rewarded … or do I blame myself for not having found it sooner?
And for those who have caused me a hurt … a loss of a relationship in my life … do I blame them for the loss and the pain it caused me? Or do I rejoice that the relationship has been restored … or that I have begun to accept the healing … even when the loss continues?
Indeed, I may not … I cannot … control all of the events of my life. But I can control my responses to them. I can rage against the darkness of the loss … or I can light a candle and bring a bit of illumination into the world as, together, we celebrate the forgiveness and reconciliation given to us thorough Christ, the Light of the World.
24th Sunday in Ordinary Time; September 12, 2010
Ex 32:7-11; 1 Tim 1:12-17; Lk 15:1-32