It’s never too late to come home

 

Welcome to my blog. Peace be with you.

Today is Sunday. For all  those who believe in Jesus, it is a day of great rejoicing, a day of  rest from the week’s labours, a day when we can hear God speaking to us and we can speak to him. It is a festival day for body and soul.

Sunday 27 September 2020

It’s never too late to come home

GOD'S WORD

First reading

Ezekiel 18:25-28 ·

When the sinner renounces sin, he shall certainly live

The word of the Lord was addressed to me as follows: ‘You object, “What the Lord does is unjust.” Listen, you House of Israel: is what I do unjust? Is it not what you do that is unjust? When the upright man renounces his integrity to commit sin and dies because of this, he dies because of the evil that he himself has committed. When the sinner renounces sin to become law-abiding and honest, he deserves to live. He has chosen to renounce all his previous sins; he shall certainly live; he shall not die.’

 

Responsorial Psalm

Psalm 24(25):4-9

Remember your mercy, Lord.

Lord, make me know your ways.

Lord, teach me your paths.

Make me walk in your truth, and teach me:

for you are God my saviour.

Remember your mercy, Lord.

Remember your mercy, Lord,

and the love you have shown from of old.

Do not remember the sins of my youth.

In your love remember me,

because of your goodness, O Lord.

Remember your mercy, Lord.

The Lord is good and upright.

He shows the path to those who stray,

He guides the humble in the right path,

He teaches his way to the poor.

Remember your mercy, Lord.

 

Second reading

Philippians 2:1-11 ·

Be united in your love

If our life in Christ means anything to you, if love can persuade at all, or the Spirit that we have in common, or any tenderness and sympathy, then be united in your convictions and united in your love, with a common purpose and a common mind. That is the one thing which would make me completely happy. There must be no competition among you, no conceit; but everybody is to be self-effacing. Always consider the other person to be better than yourself, so that nobody thinks of his own interests first but everybody thinks of other people’s interests instead. In your minds you must be the same as Christ Jesus:

His state was divine,

yet he did not cling

to his equality with God

but emptied himself

to assume the condition of a slave,

and became as men are;

and being as all men are,

he was humbler yet,

even to accepting death,

death on a cross.

But God raised him high

and gave him the name

which is above all other names

so that all beings in the heavens,

on earth and in the underworld,

should bend the knee at the name of Jesus

and that every tongue should acclaim

Jesus Christ as Lord,

to the glory of God the Father.

 

Gospel

Matthew 21:28-32

Tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God before you

Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people, ‘What is your opinion? A man had two sons. He went and said to the first, “My boy, you go and work in the vineyard today.” He answered, “I will not go,” but afterwards thought better of it and went. The man then went and said the same thing to the second who answered, “Certainly, sir,” but did not go. Which of the two did the father’s will?’ ‘The first’ they said. Jesus said to them, ‘I tell you solemnly, tax collectors and prostitutes are making their way into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you, a pattern of true righteousness, but you did not believe him, and yet the tax collectors and prostitutes did. Even after seeing that, you refused to think better of it and believe in him.’

 

A homily

Imagine a young couple, deeply in love with one another. They marry and live together in great joy and happiness. There are no clouds of darkness in the sky, nothing yet to trouble their hearts. They have been married now for a year or so. So far, they have lacked nothing, let us imagine. But then a longing emerges in the hearts. ‘We need a child to be the image of our love and to share our love.’ Let us imagine, the wife conceives and has a son. They are overjoyed. Time goes on and another yearning begins to grow. ‘Wouldn’t it be so good if we had a baby girl to love and care for.’

And so, it is with God, not of course that God needs anything. God, the three Persons of the Trinity, lacked nothing. They lived in infinite happiness. But they wanted to share their happiness. So, they decided to create a world. As nothing existed except God in three distinct Persons, they created from nothing. The universe and the earth came into being. There was, however, no life in it. So, God took some soil from a field and made it into the image of a human being. It was beautiful, but it had no life in it. So, God breathed the breath of life into it and it became a living being. From this living being he made another. They were now a man and a woman. The three divine persons made them like themselves, little human gods, you might say.

If these little creatures were wise, then they would recognise the God who made them. They would thank him and love him. The three Person who are God would be overjoyed with them and bless them at every moment. They were their beloved children.

Let us imagine, however, that these children of God developed some strange idea that they didn’t need the God who created them. Not only that they didn’t need him, but they didn’t want him. He was an obstacle, they thought, to their enjoying life. And so,  they left their Creator God and began to do their own thing. Now their Creator God loved them still, and would not destroy them as a mistake and start again with a new creation. But what would now happen to those creatures who in themselves were only a lump of mud, given life by God. Naturally when their life in this world was over, they would become mud again.

This is what happens to every sinner, God says in the first reading. It is a tragic ending to what could have been a beautiful family life with God. It’s like as if the boy conceived in great love by his parents, becomes a rebellious child as he grows up. Even as a child, he will not listen to his parents and when be becomes eighteen, he leaves home to make his own way in the world. He goes to the capital city but falls in with bad company. He begins to drink and take drugs and his life sinks into chaos. He cannot work with his hands and he has no employable skill. He ends up a beggar on the street, till through his addiction to drink and drugs, he dies in misery. Such is the fate, the Word of God tells us today, of those who abandon the loving God who created them for a wondrous future. They will ultimately sink eternal misery, of their own choosing.

But there is hope! The drug addict who returns home will still be addicted. But if the sinner returns to God, then God will recreate him and make him even better than before. He is still the loving all powerful God who created him in the first place. This is the future for the sinner who returns to God.

There is even more for those who have the wisdom to abandon sin and return to the God who loves them. The second Person, of the one true God, emptied himself of all his divine power and glory and became a human being and lives among us. He didn’t just become a human being but a human slave. Risen from the dead, he is with us and invites everyone and particularly those who lost everything by their ignorant sinfulness to become his friend. He will help them as one human being to another. But since he is in fact God, he can help in a way no one else can. He can be our companion in life and cure us from the results of our folly. If we become his friend, we will share in his glory. His name is Jesus. He was humiliated on a cross, but God raised him to glory as the forerunner of all those who return from the degradation of sin.

Today’s readings tell us that it is never too late to return to the splendour of God from the slum of sin. All we must do is accept with all our hearts the offer of friendship made by Jesus, God in human flesh.

Each of us must make our response. What is yours?