20160227 WELCOMING SINNERS
Readings at Mass
Liturgical
Colour: Violet.
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First reading
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Micah
7:14-15,18-20 ©
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With shepherd’s
crook, O Lord, lead your people to pasture,
the flock that is
your heritage,
living confined in a
forest
with meadow land all
around.
Let them pasture in
Bashan and Gilead
as in the days of
old.
As in the days when
you came out of Egypt
grant us to see
wonders.
What god can compare
with you: taking fault away,
pardoning crime,
not cherishing anger
for ever
but delighting in
showing mercy?
Once more have pity
on us,
tread down our
faults,
to the bottom of the
sea
throw all our sins.
Grant Jacob your
faithfulness,
and Abraham your
mercy,
as you swore to our
fathers
from the days of long
ago.
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Responsorial
Psalm
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Psalm
102:1-4,9-12 ©
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The Lord is
compassion and love.
My soul, give thanks
to the Lord
all my
being, bless his holy name.
My soul, give thanks
to the Lord
and never
forget all his blessings.
The Lord is
compassion and love.
It is he who forgives
all your guilt,
who heals
every one of your ills,
who redeems your life
from the grave,
who
crowns you with love and compassion.
The Lord is
compassion and love.
His wrath will come
to an end;
he will
not be angry for ever.
He does not treat us
according to our sins
nor repay
us according to our faults.
The Lord is
compassion and love.
For as the heavens
are high above the earth
so strong
is his love for those who fear him.
As far as the east is
from the west
so far
does he remove our sins.
The Lord is
compassion and love.
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Gospel
Acclamation
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Lk15:18
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Glory and praise to
you, O Christ!
I will leave this
place and go to my father and say:
‘Father, I have
sinned against heaven and against you.’
Glory and praise to
you, O Christ!
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Gospel
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Luke
15:1-3,11-32 ©
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The tax collectors
and the sinners were all seeking the company of Jesus to hear what he had to
say, and the Pharisees and the scribes complained. ‘This man’ they said
‘welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ So he spoke this parable to them:
‘A man
had two sons. The younger said to his father, “Father, let me have the share of
the estate that would come to me.” So the father divided the property between
them. A few days later, the younger son got together everything he had and left
for a distant country where he squandered his money on a life of debauchery.
‘When he
had spent it all, that country experienced a severe famine, and now he began to
feel the pinch, so he hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants who put
him on his farm to feed the pigs. And he would willingly have filled his belly
with the husks the pigs were eating but no one offered him anything. Then he
came to his senses and said, “How many of my father’s paid servants have more
food than they want, and here am I dying of hunger! I will leave this place and
go to my father and say: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you;
I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of your paid
servants.” So he left the place and went back to his father.
‘While he
was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with pity. He ran to
the boy, clasped him in his arms and kissed him tenderly. Then his son said,
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I no longer deserve to
be called your son.” But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring out the
best robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
Bring the calf we have been fattening, and kill it; we are going to have a
feast, a celebration, because this son of mine was dead and has come back to
life; he was lost and is found.” And they began to celebrate.
‘Now the
elder son was out in the fields, and on his way back, as he drew near the
house, he could hear music and dancing. Calling one of the servants he asked
what it was all about. “Your brother has come” replied the servant “and your
father has killed the calf we had fattened because he has got him back safe and
sound.” He was angry then and refused to go in, and his father came out to
plead with him; but he answered his father, “Look, all these years I have
slaved for you and never once disobeyed your orders, yet you never offered me
so much as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends. But, for this son of
yours, when he comes back after swallowing up your property – he and his
women – you kill the calf we had been fattening.”
‘The
father said, “My son, you are with me always and all I have is yours. But it
was only right we should celebrate and rejoice, because your brother here was
dead and has come to life; he was lost and is found.”’
WELCOMING
SINNERS
SCRIPTURE
READINGS: Micah 7:14-15,
18-20; Ps 102:1-4,9-12; Lk 15:1-3; 11-32
“The
tax collectors and the sinners were all seeking the company of Jesus to hear
what he had to say, and the Pharisees and the scribes complained. ‘This man’
they said ‘welcomes sinners and eats with them.’” How would you like
to be labelled as the religious leaders did of Jesus? Would you be
proud to be identified as one who mixed with wrong company and people with
dubious characters? Would you be embarrassed to let your reputable
relatives, friends and colleagues know that you hang out with such
people? And would you even dare to be anywhere near the pubs and
brothels? But that was what Jesus actually did. He welcomed
sinners, tax-collectors, adulterers and prostitutes. No wonder the
religious leaders were scandalized as His reputation as a Rabbi did not go well
with the company He was with.
That
is the way and heart of God. God is always forgiving. He does not wish to see us fall or hurt
ourselves. He is not out to take revenge or see us suffer. On the
contrary, He wants us to repent and be reconciled, not so much for His sake but
for ours. This is because He loves us deeply and unconditionally.
This is the experience of the Israelites when the Prophet Micah said, “What God
can compare with you: taking fault away, pardoning crime, not cherishing anger
forever but delighting in showing mercy? Once more have pity on us, tread down
our faults to the bottom of the sea throw all our sins.”
In the
gospel, we have Jesus manifesting the mercy and compassion of God for
sinners when He ate and drank with sinners. The story of the
forgiving father in the gospel captures succinctly in a dramatic way how much
God loves us and forgives us every time when we sin. He does not take
account of our past. When the prodigal son returned, the father did
not demand an explanation or lambasted him for being so irresponsible or
condemned him as deserving of such a tragedy. On the contrary, the
father, in spite of the humiliation and insult he suffered from the younger son
who demanded a share of the property even before his death, did not take the
past hurts into account. All he thought of each day was when his son
would return. We can be sure that the father was on the lookout for him
each day because we read, ‘While he was still a long way off, his father saw
him and was moved with pity. He ran to the boy, clasped him in his arms and
kissed him tenderly.”
Secondly,
all that God desires is that we be restored to fullness of life and love.
Thus before the son
could even act out his rehearsed speech, “Father, I have sinned against heaven
and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son; treat me as one of
your paid servants”, the father interjected before he could complete the last
part of the sentence. He said to his servants. “Quick! Bring out the best
robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring
the calf we have been fattening, and kill it; we are going to have a feast, a
celebration because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life; he was
lost and is found.” By giving back his robe, he gave the son back his
honour; by giving him a ring, the son received back his authority; and by
giving a pair of sandals, it was an indication that he was not a servant or
slave but a member of the family.
Such
a God of mercy and compassion is too hard to believe. Deep in our hearts, many
of us cannot believe that God would really forgive us. That is why
many penitents in spite of going for confession still do not feel forgiven
because they doubt that God could ever forgive them their horrendous and unspeakable
sins against Him and their fellowmen, especially their loved
ones. Most cannot forgive themselves or believe that they
could be forgiven by those whom they have hurt. Hence, some of them never
come back to God.
Why
is it so difficult for us to accept the mercy and forgiveness of God?
This is because we are like the elder son and the religious leaders in the
gospel. Firstly, we believe in merits only. We do not believe in grace. What
we sow is what we reap. Therefore the only way to gain acceptance and
appreciation is through sheer hard work and slavery. This was the
attitude of the elder son. He said, “Look, all these years I have slaved
for you and never once disobeyed your orders, yet you never offered me so much
as a kid for me to celebrate with my friends.” Although the younger
son was a slave to sin of the flesh, he was, as he admitted, a slave of pride
and self-righteousness. Pride has made us intolerant of others who cannot
do what we do.
Secondly,
we are revengeful.
The elder son felt unjustified because he was the one who put in all the hard
work in the fields. As far as he was concerned, his younger brother did
not deserve anything since he had taken his share of the property and
left. So he was not entitled to anything from the family. We
can imagine how hurt and indignant he was when the father restored his sonship
and all the rights as well. In the same vein, we cannot forgive fellow
sinners because we feel they deserve the punishments for all the pains they
have caused us and all the sufferings we have gone through because of their
selfishness, greed, lust, anger and irresponsibility. Can you forgive
someone who has caused you to lose your life’s savings? Can you forgive
someone who has broken up your family? Can you forgive someone who has
betrayed you whether in business or in friendship or at work?
Thirdly,
we cannot welcome sinners because of the need to protect our reputation. We do not welcome sinners
because we do not wish to tarnish our reputation or be misunderstood by
righteous people. We want to be thought of well by others and have a good
reputation in society. So by getting involved with sinners, we might be
ostracized as Jesus was by the religious leaders. This was the same
reason why the religious leaders stayed away from sinners because they might
contaminate them ritually or discredit their office. It was much safer
that they had nothing to do with them, least of all to be their guests or even
have them as guests. Staying away from them was the safest thing to
do.
So
if we were to welcome sinners today, what must we do? We need first and
foremost to recognize that we are all sinners in our own ways. We also have our fair share of mistakes
in life. As fallen creatures, we grow and purify ourselves over
time. We are called not to be saints but saints in the making. So
if we were to forgive and be compassionate with fellow sinners, we need to
forgive ourselves. I always feel that those who are harsh and lacking
compassion are that way because they cannot see themselves as sinners and if
they do, they cannot forgive themselves and are ashamed of their past.
They have not yet come to integrate their mistakes and sins with the grace of
God at work in their lives. So if we were to welcome sinners like Jesus,
we must be aware of our own sinfulness and the mercy of God in our
lives. This is a pre-requisite.
Secondly,
we must realize that there are different degrees and types of sinners. In Luke chapter 15, the
evangelist first told the story of the lost sheep followed by the lost coin and
lastly by the prodigal son. Although all these stories speak about
being lost and found, yet the way they were lost were different. The
lost sheep lost its way by ignorance, just like many of us. Because
of ignorance, we fall into sin, often deceived by the half-truths and illusions
of the world, power, glory, food and possessions. This explains why
on the cross, Jesus could pray for His enemies, saying, “Father, forgive them,
for they know not what they were doing.” Jesus knew that our
ignorance, often the result of pride, arrogance and fear lead us to be blind to
what we are pursuing for ourselves.
Thirdly,
the lost coin got lost through no fault of its own but it was lost accidentally
because of the carelessness of others. Some sinners are such simply because of their upbringing
and the wrong company they fell into. Often, irresponsible parents,
because of family squabbles, adultery, gambling and violence, destroy the peace
and unity at home. They drive their children to seek consolation and love
outside the family. So for such people who have fallen into wrong
company because they are so desperate for love and happiness, they should be
pitied, not blamed.
Finally,
we have sinners like the prodigal son who deliberately choose to go that way. Even for such people, the Lord
said something so beautiful about them. “When he had spent it all, that
country experienced a severe famine, and now he began to feel the pinch, so he
hired himself out to one of the local inhabitants who put him on his farm to
feed the pigs. And he would willingly have filled his belly with the husks the
pigs were eating but no one offered him anything. Then he came to his senses.”
For many of us, we are not ourselves. To come to our senses means that we
come to realize who we are. The son forgot that he was called to be a
child of God, not a servant, not a slave and much less a pig, an animal held
with contempt by the Jews, the most degrading kind of animal one could
become. So the Lord also forgives such people because they have lost
their senses! They have forgotten their real identity. They wanted
to live without God, but left to themselves, they are led to self-destruction
and slavery.
Today,
let us turn to the Lord of mercy and compassion. With the psalmist we pray, “My
soul, give thanks to the Lord all my being, bless his holy name. It is he who
forgives all your guilt, who heals every one of your ills, who redeems your
life from the grave, who crowns you with love and compassion. His wrath will
come to an end; he will not be angry forever: He does not treat us according to
our sins nor repay us according to our faults. For as the heavens are high
above the earth so strong is his love for those who fear him. As far as the
east is from the west so far does he remove our sins?” This is our
God and following Jesus, not only must we be bold to turn to Him and ask for
forgiveness, we must lead others back to Him so that they too can experience
joy and peace again.
Written
by The Most Rev William Goh Roman Catholic Archbishop of Singapore © All Rights Reserved
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