"He was lost and now is found.”
When I was a young boy, one Christmas,
my mom took me out shopping in a department store
along with several of my other brothers.
I was playing among the clothes racks;
I was playing among the pants and the shirts racks,
running in and out of them.
I was hiding and playing among the pants’ racks.
I would jump in and out.
I’d see my mom’s legs and I would run around and hide again,
coming back again and see my mom’s legs and continue playing.
It felt like only a couple of minutes but obviously it was longer.
Eventually I got tired, and I came out of the racks
and upon seeing my mom’s legs I went to her
only to find out they were not her legs!
I let out a screech like a banshee “Mammmmmaaa.”
She knew that screech and she came running.
I think she could have heard that cry in Australia!
When she returned to me, I was so mad at her.
How could you lose me? I’m your precious son!
And I cried on, “How could you have left me,
abandoned me in the store?”
I was giving her a little lecture right there
but anyway she did nothing but just gave me a hug.
It was only later that I found out that I was gone about ½ hour
and she was looking everywhere for me and couldn’t find me.
That is often the way it is in life,
we are lost and we don’t even know it.
We go along in life playing and
having fun not realizing how lost we really are.
We get caught up in so many different other things
that take our attention away from the highest priorities;
the priority of God or Christ in our life;
and we go wandering around to all these things.
We don’t even know we are lost.
Then something happens and we get so mad at God,
“How could you have abandoned me, God?
Like in my moment of struggle, you were not there.”
God does not protest.
He just carries us up and assures us of his presence.
Then he just allows us to, if you would, wail
and slowly we understand that we are the ones who left God.
We are the ones who got lost in the play of life.
In today’s gospel, it is really about lostness.
There are three beautiful parables,
the lost sheep, the lost coin and then the lost son;
we call it the Prodigal Son but it is really about the lost son.
We have to break it open a little bit
because it tells us a whole lot about God
and when we are lost, what he does?
The first parable the lost sheep and second the lost coin.
This is typical Luke.
He gives one for the men and one for the women.
He asks a really important question at the very beginning.
He asked this question:
“Who among you would not leave the 99 in the desert
and go searching for the one?”
If you are a shepherd in that time, the answer would be “What?”
No one in their right mind,
no shepherd in his right mind would leave 99 good sheep
for one that would be lost.
And who among you, about the women,
would turn the house upside down for the one coin?
The answer would have been no one in their right mind.
The message is God’s craziness!
Because of God’s absolute love for us he will do what is crazy;
he will search for us no matter how far we wander.
No matter how far we stray,
he will always come actively searching for us.
That is the first message that he assures.
That is why he is talking to the Pharisees and the Scribes,
who are complaining about him,
because he is going to the unimportant ones.
He is going out to the lost.
And they are complaining about it.
The third parable is about his disposition when he finds the lost.
That is why we really should call this
"the Prodigal Father” not “the Prodigal Son”
because it is about the lost son and the father who acts crazy.
Not only is he seeking and watching for his son,
but when he sees him, he showers him with blessings and grace
and treats him like his son once more.
The important twist of this story
is that the older son now becomes lost.
He doesn’t even know he is lost;
he stays outside and does not come into the feast.
What we are meant to hear in this old set of parables
is how much God loves us;
how crazy God is about his love for us;
so unconditional
that he will always seek us out when we are lost
even when we do not know it;
and we do make our way back.
When we come to our senses like the lost son
and when we do make our way back,
he showers us with his mercy, grace, and blessings;
showering us like his only Son.
That is the message we are meant to hear over and over again.
Here is what is really important:
A lot of us who come to Church here all the time
and we are all regulars and it is wonderful
so we might have a tinge feeling like that older,
the older brother who is the faithful one,
wondering why he is giving so much to the younger son
who lived a life of dissipation,
spending all the money on prostitutes as he said.
But we are meant to celebrate.
This is about the feast.
God is going to search for you and me when we are lost
even if we do not know it.
And he is going to do it for every, single other person
no matter how far they have strayed.
That is why the doors need to be always open.
We need to recognize that we ought to be like God the Father
and be merciful and to welcome back all,
no matter how far they have strayed
and no matter how far they have gone away.
We always welcome them back.
What does that look like for us?
What does that welcome look like?
We not only have to physically open our door
and try to get people into Church
but we need to do what Jesus does.
We need to go out.
We need to go searching like the Father, the Good Shepherd.
And that does not mean we go and tell people
they have to go back to Church
but we need to love them exactly where they are right now
because they might come to their senses if they feel loved.
They might come to their senses if they feel loved.
And that the love that comes through us comes from God.
My friends, as we come to this feast
and we know that we are loved,
then our role is to go out and find those who are lost
and to love them wherever they are
so that they can come to their senses
and that they will know that they are loved by God and by us.
All are welcome especially the lost.
May we come to our senses and experience God’s love.
“Anyone of you who does not renounce
all your possessions cannot be my disciple.”
There once was a high school football coach,
who on the first gathering of the crew for the season,
gathered them all around in a huddle and says,
“Young men and boys, if you are not willing
to eat, drink and live football for the next 90 days,
you may as well go home.”
All these young freshmen looked at him with eyes bugged out
and of course there was a rah rah!
Obviously, the coach did not actually mean
they eat the football or drink the football.
We cannot eat a football.
We cannot drink a football nor can you live with a football
though I’m sure some have tried.
My point is we call this hyperbole.
And the intent of the coach is to get the boys to commit.
You’re all in!
You try to inspire people!
Get them all fired up!
Yeah! Let’s go! Rah! Rah! Rah!
Then they go out and the adrenalin takes over.
They commit to the season.
What we hear today is Semitic hyperbole or Jewish hyperbole,
which was common at the time of Jesus among rabbis
to inspire and to jolt or evoke a response of rah rah:
“Oh, yeah, we have to follow.”
It should be obvious that we are not called
to hate our mother and our father;
or our spouse and our children
but I suspect that we have to say that just to make sure
people don’t use it to hate others and say:
“Oh, well that is the reason why I hate you
because the gospel told me so!”
That is obviously taking the whole thing out of context.
It is very important to have context.
Jesus has this large crowd following him.
He can just sense the crowd. And they are saying
“Ahh! Oh, ahh, look! What is he doing next? Ooooh.”
But Jesus is not interested in fans.
He is interested in followers.
You can almost sense he is growing tired of this large crowd
that is just interested in seeing what he is doing
not really interested in following what he is saying or doing.
He turns to them radically, “Are you ready?
Are you all in or not? C’mon.
You’ve got to be all in.
You’ve got to take everything else away.”
And of course, you know, many of them were like
“Ahh, no. No. Not me. No. No.”
And they walk away.
It is this “all in” or not at all.
The challenge I have with this gospel is that it is so abused.
It is so taken out of context.
We need to careful with it as with all scripture.
The challenge for me in this passage is immediately after it,
he gives two examples such as constructing a tower
and going to fight an enemy with an army.
Jesus sounds so calculating.
Like, this is what you need to do!
But the life of a disciple is not so simple.
A better example here would be of married life.
On the day you got married, for those who are married,
you made this commitment for life
but did you have any idea of what the commitment would be?
Did you calculate the cost ahead of time and say
“Oh, shall I win this or not because. . .?”
I think you may have lost a couple along the way.
Right? Let’s face it.
There is no way you could calculate the cost of love.
What is it that Jesus is asking us to be all in on?
What is the one thing?
It is obviously not hate.
That doesn’t make any sense.
What is it? What is the one thing?
Love. Love.
This needs to come off our tongues right away;
it shouldn’t be a second thought.
It is love. Love.
Love your God with all your heart;
with all your soul;
with all your mind;
and love your neighbor as yourself.
It should come off your tongue right away.
The answer to every question that Jesus asks
will always be love and mercy. Always.
That is what he is having us all in on.
And that is why I go back to marriage as an example.
When you go all in, when you get married,
you cannot know the cost to calculate it, but you are all in.
There is a sort of a bit of paradox there.
You have no idea what the calculation is ahead
yet you commit nonetheless
and that is what Jesus is looking for in discipleship.
It is not just a single-day thing, the wedding day,
but it is a marriage for the entirety of your life.
And that is what discipleship is;
it is not just the day of our Baptism thing.
It is for the entirety of our life.
Now here is the challenge,
I do not know if we get that,
when we come here to remember.
Remember we come here for one hour on Sunday and
we are called to live what we do here for 167 hours of the week.
The challenge is if those two do not connect,
we have a bring problem.
Then we are more like fans of Jesus
than we are followers of Jesus.
We have to be committed, all in on following Jesus.
Now look, it is not always that easy. I get it.
We do not know what the calculation is
but that is the whole idea of it.
We do not know what is ahead
but we need to be ready for it and commit.
Let me illustrate by an example:
A couple of years ago, I was out of town with a friend
and we went to this restaurant.
We had just sat down and noticed the couple next to us,
an elderly couple, were just berating the waitress.
They were just dressing her down and it was personal.
I was so discombobulated by the experience.
Then she comes over to us and gives us our menus in tears.
Then the couple got up to leave and I immediately said,
I could not help myself,
“Was that really necessary?”
He turns around and then just does the same thing to me.
Just lets out a spew of awful stuff!
Basically, telling me to mind my own business
except in not in so-nice of words.
I am rarely speechless but let me tell you but I was speechless.
Here is the irony of the situation.
The next morning, we are at Mass and
I was in the pew like you because I was visiting
and I didn’t want anyone to know so I was dressed in regular clothes.
I sat down and then who walks in and sits right in front of me?
That couple. Right there. Right in front of me.
For the entirety of the Mass I could not concentrate.
All I was thinking was,
“What am I going to say when he turns around?
What will I do?
How will I say the sign of peace?”
He is going to turn around and offer me the sign of peace.
What am I going to say?
I was consumed with this for the entirety of the Mass
but somewhere around the consecration of the Mass,
I thought, “Okay, peace, peace is the word.”
And then I started to feel sorry.
That like he’s going to have,
okay,something is going to happen here
when he sees me.
He turns around and I smile brightly, “Peace be with you!”
And his eyes popped out of his head.
And he just quietly said peace.
And he quickly turned around.
He went and received Communion and never came back to his seat.
I don’t think I would either.
My point is being a follower of Christ is not a Sunday-only thing.
We have to get this. Seriously.
Everything we do or say that is out there
is being watched and being measured against what we do here.
Every interaction which we think may not be witnessed
is being witnessed by somebody.
Nobody wants our worst moment of the week
standing right behind us. I get that.
Nor would I want that for anyone.
None of us, myself included would want that.
We all have our moments of weakness
but what we must do is to commit, to be all in.
Each time we ask, “Is this the best I can do? Right at this moment?”
Just like in your married life
you do not know what is going to be ahead of you.
In this week ahead you have no idea what moment
is going to press your buttons and challenge you.
And you are going to ask yourself at some moment in this week
is this the moment that Fr. Brendan was talking about?
Is this it? This is my moment.
This is my moment to be good.
This is my moment to be kind.
This is my moment to be gentle.
This is my moment to shine and to love.
Discipleship is not a Sunday thing.
It is an every-day thing.
We are not called to be fans of Jesus.
We are called to be followers of Jesus
and that is an all-in commitment.
The singular command:
Love God. Love your neighbor.
Let’s commit to be all-in. Let’s eat, drink and live Jesus.
That is our commitment.
