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Homily for Fourth Sunday of Lent (Cycle C)
Jos 5:9a, 10-12
Ps 34:2-3, 4-5, 6-7
2 Cor 5:17-21
Lk: 15:1-3, 11-32
Now that we are over half way through Lent we come to the most humbling set of readings. In the middle of the Second Reading which is taken from the Letter to the Corinthians, there is this line where Paul says: “we are ambassadors for Christ.” Paul cuts right across many modern ideas of being part of the Church. The Church has a mission and we are part of it. Now where does this mission come from? Paul explains that too: “And all this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.” The phrase “all this” refers to how God has started the New Creation. God is changing the world and the way that he is doing this is through reconciling the world to himself.
‘Reconciliation’ is the key word today. Simply speaking the word reconcile means ‘to make good again’. But look how God is making things good: Paul says that God is “not counting their trespasses against them and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” So there are two parts to this ‘making good’. God is not just taking on our evil but he is entrusting us with the truth and grace of salvation. Now keep this in mind as we look at the First Reading.
The First Reading comes from the Book of Joshua. Joshua is leading the People of God. They celebrate the Passover and then they enter the Promised Land. God has freed them from slavery (Passover) and led them safely through the desert to the land that he had promised them. He fed them during that time. He has made good their lives. As the book says: “that year [they] ate of the yield of the land of Canaan.” They came from being slaves to being freedmen in their own land. BUT this was not just a private deal between God and these people. They were to be a sign to the nations of the earth. The plan of salvation is even larger than Israel. They are the sign of what this salvation means. God is the one who makes good.
The psalmist who wrote Psalm 34 that we sing today is convinced of this wondrous truth about God: God is the one who makes good. It is not us—even though we occasionally get glimpses of what needs to be made good. Usually we don’t even know what needs to be made good—which is why we have the Church. As the embodiment of the Word of God, the Church knows what has to be made good. That is why Paul told us that the Church has been ‘given the ministry of reconciliation’. That word ‘ministry’ simply means ‘work’. So the Church has the work of reconciliation between God and man.
This is an extraordinary ‘work’. One could do a whole course just on this. The Second Vatican Council said that: “For the sick and the sinners among the faithful, they exercise the ministry of alleviation and reconciliation and they present the needs and the prayers of the faithful to God the Father. Exercising within the limits of their authority the function of Christ as Shepherd and Head, they gather together God's family as a brotherhood all of one mind, and lead them in the Spirit, through Christ, to God the Father. In the midst of the flock they adore Him in spirit and in truth.” (Lumen gentium 28) The whole of humanity is to be reconciled to God. This is the great plan for the fulfillment of all of humanity’s dreams. God is the one who makes good. The Church is simply the instrument of this reconciliation. This is a larger vision of the Church than just another club membership, just another institution that we belong to. We are called to reconcile our families, our societies, our governments to God. If you want to know how then you will need to read the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World. If we looked at it here it would take us way off track because the Gospel still has much for us.
Remembering that God is the one who makes good, we come to the Gospel for today. The Church offers us the Parable of the Generous Father from the Gospel of Luke. Rembrandt did a wonderful painting of one moment in this parable. You often see it near the confessionals in our Churches. There are many layers to the parable but let us just take the one that ties in with the First Reading. It is no accident that the names Jesus and Joshua have the same syllables in Hebrew. Jesus is the new Joshua-don’t forget that we are hearing something about the New Creation in this Gospel. Jesus is showing people how to live in the New Creation (the New Promised Land). The son who wastes his inheritance given to him by his father (God) comes back to his father and asks forgiveness. He ASKS to be reconciled. Just as the Israelites of old had to make their own way in the Promised Land WE have to make our way in the New Creation. We are big boys and girls and so we accept who we are and we accept that we absolutely need to be reconciled with God. The son who wastes his inheritance KNOWS in his heart that he needs to do this. If we search our hearts as grown-ups do we too will know! If Mother Theresa knew that she needed God’s forgiveness let us give up the pretence and get to Confession!
From this point of realization there is much that falls on our shoulders as people of reconciliation. We do not simply go to Confession and say a few prayers as a penance. If we are honest we know we need to do more, we need to help the world be reconciled. In some ways the Church has made our life of reconciliation appear to be too simple. So if we are honest we will know that we need to do more: more prayer—perhaps parts of the Breviary (the Prayer of the Church); more acts of charity—if we look for five seconds we will find someone who needs us to listen to them, to give them a helping hand with some food or money or a job; even tougher than this as the Second Vatican Council said: “it is clear that men are not deterred by the Christian message from building up the world, or impelled to neglect the welfare of their fellows, but that they are rather more stringently bound to do these very things.” (Gaudium et spes, 34) There are actual things to do.
The Vatican Council said that “The root reason for human dignity lies in man's call to communion with God.” (Gaudium et spes, 19) That is WHY there is a work of reconciliation in the Church and why we BY OUR BAPTISM become people of reconciliation. That is today’s message.
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