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Exploring the word

11 Sep 2016 - Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

How many of you binge-watch your favorite shows? A recent survey noted that the crowd-pleasing series Breaking Bad is usually viewed in no less than three-episode increments. As a Bryan Cranston fan, I admit: One episode was never enough! The crowds around Jesus are in binge mode today, listening to not one but three parables back-to-back. All three are about money—a hot topic in every generation. (Just ask the pastor who gives the money talk at Mass how passionate people are about the contents of their wallets.) First, Jesus tells a story about a lost sheep that involves an all-out manhunt—well, sheep-hunt—to recover it. Make no mistake, this effort isn’t because the shepherd has a special affection for Fluffy. There’s a dollar sign on the head of every item in his flock, and Fluffy’s recovery affects the bottom line. Next, Jesus recounts the tale of a woman sweeping out the house for a single coin. A favorite Lucan device is to follow a story about a man with an incident involving a woman. Luke’s Greek audience includes a lot of prominent (and wealthy) women: They want stories with female leads! Here the money theme is explicit. One-tenth of this woman’s assets are lost. She won’t rest until it’s found. The third story escalates the loss and the tension about its restoration. If the shepherd of 100 sheep loses one, that’s one one-hundredth of his resources. For the woman with ten coins, losing one creates an even greater emergency. In the third parable, it’s half of an estate that’s been squandered by the foolish son. The stakes are now at 50 percent. What’s more, they’re unrecoverable. In this third “episode” of the series Jesus is spinning, the audience is now enrapt. The money in jeopardy has been inflated with each installment, and the chance of its restoration is entirely squandered. No use sending out a search party; no point in sweeping the house clean. The prodigal son has blown the wad of his inheritance, which also happens to be half of his father’s net wealth. And it’s gone. What’s amazing is that this final episode too has a happy ending, one even more wonderful and revelatory than the first two. While wealth is a value in all three stories, the greatest value is the love of the father for his errant son. The father can’t get his money back, and he doesn’t seem to care. What he desires with all his heart is to redeem his child, that’s all. More crucial than the fidelity of the elder son is the recovery of the worthless son, the bad one, the lost boy. To God, this is reason to rejoice. Related scripture links Mercy and arrogance mutually exclusive: Luke 1:50-52 Aaron calls for a feast: Exod. 32:5 Father, forgive them: Luke 23:34 Lucan compassion: Luke 1:76-79; 6:36; 7:13; 10:29-37; 12:6-7 Catechism links Mercy: CCC 545; 589; 1423; 1439; 1443; 1829; 1846-1848; 2447; 2839

Authors Alice Camille

parable of the prodigal son parable of the lost sheep parable of the lost coin

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In other words

11 Sep 2016 - Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” Their grumbling triggered this story. “Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Celebrate with me! I’ve found my lost sheep!’ Count on it—there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue. “Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she’ll call her friends and neighbors: ‘Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!’ Count on it—that’s the kind of party God’s angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God.” Then he said, “There was once a man who had two sons. The younger said to his father, ‘Father, I want right now what’s coming to me.’ “So the father divided the property between them. It wasn’t long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had. After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt. He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs. He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any. “That brought him to his senses. He said, ‘All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death. I’m going back to my father. I’ll say to him, Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.’ He got right up and went home to his father. “When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. The son started his speech: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against God, I’ve sinned before you; I don’t deserve to be called your son ever again.’ “But the father wasn’t listening. He was calling to the servants, ‘Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We’re going to feast! We’re going to have a wonderful time! My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!’ And they began to have a wonderful time. “All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day’s work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing.Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on. He told him, ‘Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home safe and sound.’ “The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn’t listen. The son said, ‘Look how many years I’ve stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends? Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!’ “His father said, ‘Son, you don’t understand. You’re with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he’s alive! He was lost, and he’s found!’ ” (from Luke 15.) From A New Message 4 Next Week (actapublications.com) based on The Message: Catholic/Ecumenical Edition by Eugene Peterson (ACTA Publications, 2013).

parable of the prodigal son parable of the lost sheep parable of the lost coin

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Homily stories

22 Apr 2018 - Fourth Sunday of Easter; Good Shepherd Sunday, Cycle B

I remember how badly it stung. The kids in the neighborhood were choosing up sides for a pickup game of touch football, and I was odd man out. Rejected. Told to sit on the sidelines. I slunk on home and read comic books—taking solace in reading about the rejection that Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne experienced. Little did the world know whom they were rejecting in Clark and Bruce—and me. And I remember another time being out in the street gathering for a game when an older kid who was creative took charge. Again we had one too many players. Again someone was going to be left out. This time it was another of the younger kids—my buddy Jeffrey. But then the older kid said, “Hey, don’t leave. You can be the official hiker for both teams.” And so began a tradition on our block where no one was left out of the game. No one was rejected. Perhaps it was because he knew he would be the "stone the builders rejected” that made Jesus so passionate about inclusion—seeing himself as the good shepherd who would not rest until the lost sheep was brought back into the fold.

Authors Tom McGrath

inclusion rejection lost sheep

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Exploring the word

18 Jul 2021 - Sixteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B

Distinguishing between leaders and followers is a little harder than might be expected. At first glance, we are tempted to point out that the leader is the person out in front. Fair enough. But who or what is he or she following? What motivates the leader to take that particular direction in the first place? Not all followers are leaders, that’s for certain. But all leaders are followers of something, if only self-interest. Some who lead have role models or heroes that have inspired the course they are taking. Some pursue an ideal (prosperity), a cause (world peace), or a dream (racial harmony). Some leaders may be running from a perceived danger—even then, fear or the urge for self-preservation guides them. Others are led purely by their ego, which compels them to pipe a song that lures others forward. Anyone who wasn’t born yesterday knows that not all leaders are good or trustworthy. Even well-meaning folks will lead us blithely down the path paved with good intentions, a road we know all too well leads straight to ruin. Follow the leader The Bible is full of examples of leaders who dragged the nation down behind them as they pursued unwise and self-destructive directions. Consider the kings: Saul, who stubbornly refused to take counsel from God’s prophet and waged wars that were ill-advised. Or David, who romanced his way into great sin—adultery and murder—while his own sons sowed the seed of division in his kingdom. Solomon over-taxed, over-built, and over-married, effectively presiding over the end of the united nation. Sad to say, the kings who followed these three were mostly worse. The religious leaders were not uniformly reliable either. Under Aaron’s leadership, the Golden Calf incident took place, the first serious act of idolatry in the nation. Eli, the priest at Shiloh, was merely weak and allowed his sons Hophni and Phinehas to steal from the sacrifices offered to God, as well as to take sexual liberties with women at the shrine. Later court prophets were in the pay of the king rather that at the service of God. No wonder God starting “hiring” prophets from among farmers like Amos or drafting reluctant fellows like Jonah! We might be persuaded toward cynicism about leadership altogether, if it weren’t for the rare ruler like Hezekiah, who led the people back from idolatry, or prophets like Elijah and Jeremiah, who could not be bought off, no matter how bad things got. What the Bible teaches us, then, are more the lessons of follower-ship: how to discern who the true leaders are and what the criteria is for casting our lot behind them. None shall be missing One of the criteria for a good shepherd has got to be a concern for the entire flock, with an acute interest in the fate of the lamb most likely to wander. The world may be at the beck and call of the rich, but the Lord hears the cry of the poor. The good shepherd leaves the 99 well-organized sheep and goes off in search of the scatterbrained one who’s alone and in danger. Any leader willing to sacrifice some of his or her constituency for the sake of others is not the one to follow. And leaders eager to leave behind their slowest, most needy followers are to be avoided at all costs. “I will appoint leaders who will shepherd the remnant of my flock, and none shall be missing,” says the Lord. Jesus was quick to affirm that none who were given to him would be lost. The famed exception is the “son of perdition,” generally identified as Judas. One could argue he wasn’t lost—he deliberately fled the scene. When political leaders speak of cutting the safety net underneath our “underachieving” fellow citizens, permitting them to sink or swim under their own power, what they are really saying is that it is acceptable for some of us to drown so that the rest of us are not burdened by their weakness. “Survival of the fittest” may make great science, but it’s not a Christian principle. When our leaders are likewise willing to support policies to abort the unwanted pregnancy, to execute the undeserving (hopefully guilty) criminal, or to accept the “collateral damage” to non-combatants during a war, they are once again playing a roulette game with human lives. All of these policies, though quite different in kind, advance the general atmosphere that some people are expendable. When they go missing, will we notice? Applying the word Even Jesus got tired Social activists are the first to say that fighting the battle for justice on all fronts is exhausting. How can we be for peace and the environment; against abortion and capital punishment; advocates for the rights of the poor, the elderly, the sick; while promoting civil rights, women’s rights, and the cause of the disabled, to name a few? The thing is, we aren’t confronted with a multiple-choice question when it comes to the value of human life. Either life is sacred—that is, within the unique providence of God—all along the spectrum of age, condition, and possibility, or it isn’t. We devalue humanity and challenge our Creator the moment we equivocate and nuance, assigning relative criteria to what constitutes a worthy human life. Exhausting, yes; impossible, no—that is, for God, and that’s all we need to hear. Even Jesus, we might remember, took his disciples aside at the end of a long day of being all things for all people and advised them to rest a while. That R-and-R was short-lived, of course. The cares of the world caught up with them directly. What was Jesus to do, looking out at all that human need with nowhere else to turn? His compassion was relentless, as God’s compassion is for our world now. We do what we can. God does the rest. Related scripture links Good King Hezekiah: 2 Kings 18:5 The cry of the poor: Ps. 34:16-18; Job 34:28; Prov. 21:13 The parable of the Lost Sheep: Luke 15:1-7 Jesus as the good shepherd: John 10:11-16 Jesus will lose none given to him: John 6:37-39

Authors Alice Camille

followers leaders Good Shepherd parable of the lost sheep

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11 Sep 2022 - Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle C

People are usually surprised when I tell them that I love political canvassing. They ask, don’t you get doors slammed in your face? It hasn’t happened even once. After many years of doing this, I continue to be surprised by how well I’m received—by people of all political stripes. Sure, there have been a few times when the person I was calling on unloaded quite a rant. But not many. And even then, those encounters are worthwhile—because I’m not combative back. I don’t change their mind, but I leave them less angry. The vast majority of people love to be asked by me what they think about the problems of our city, state, and country. Once given the opportunity to share their opinions with me, they’re a little more open to hearing mine. Sometimes I spend as much as half an hour on somebody’s front porch—because they don’t want me to leave. I’ve come to the conclusion that one of the biggest reasons people are so furious these days is because they feel unheard. Ignored, unimportant, pushed aside, wronged. From my vantage point, the 99 sheep all feel like the one left behind—or like the Prodigal Son’s brother, saying, what about me? What we’ve lost is the precious coin of connection with each other, and it’s up to us to look hard and reclaim it—maybe one doorbell at a time.

Authors Jennifer Tomshack

Connection lost sheep prodigal son

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Homily stories

21 Apr 2024 - Fourth Sunday of Easter; Good Shepherd Sunday, Cycle B

Today—the Fourth Sunday of Easter—is called “Good Shepherd Sunday.” It’s a good day to recount a modern parable of the Lost Sheep: the story of Fiona, the sheep who was spotted by a kayaker last October, stranded for two years at the bottom of a treacherous cliff in the Scottish Highlands. As news spread, various organizations contemplated a rescue before dismissing the idea as too complicated, too dangerous. Ultimately a group of five local farmers took matters into their own hands. They did it not only for Fiona, but for her owner, who was increasingly harassed and threatened. He and his workers had risked a rescue and didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. Three of these farmers descended more than 800 feet over the cliff while two operated a winch above. Fiona was coaxed into a feed bag, which was tied to the end of a long rope, and then slowly—while calming Fiona so completely that she kept sticking her head out to nibble grass—the farmers inched her up the steep cliff. Said rescuer Cameron Wilson, “Well, being terrified of heights and of dying I was very, very relieved I must admit, but even more relieved that we got her up there without her having any issues.” He added, “The only difference between us being heroes and idiots is a slip of the foot.” Such is the love of Jesus for you, whether you wander from the fold or accidentally fall into something you can’t get out of.

Authors Mary Lynn Hendrickson

parable of the lost sheep Good Shepherd good shepherd sunday

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21 Apr 2024 - Fourth Sunday of Easter; Good Shepherd Sunday, Cycle B

I remember how badly it stung. The kids in the neighborhood were choosing up sides for a pickup game of touch football, and I was odd man out. Rejected. Told to sit on the sidelines. I slunk on home and read comic books—taking solace in reading about the rejection that Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne experienced. Little did the world know whom they were rejecting in Clark and Bruce—and me. And I remember another time being out in the street gathering for a game when an older kid who was creative took charge. Again we had one too many players. Again someone was going to be left out. This time it was another of the younger kids—my buddy Jeffrey. But then the older kid said, “Hey, don’t leave. You can be the official hiker for both teams.” And so began a tradition on our block where no one was left out of the game. No one was rejected. Perhaps it was because he knew he would be the "stone the builders rejected” that made Jesus so passionate about inclusion—seeing himself as the good shepherd who would not rest until the lost sheep was brought back into the fold.

Authors Tom McGrath

rejection inclusion lost sheep

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