Twenty-fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 132

But Moses implored the LORD, his God, saying, "Why, O LORD, should your wrath blaze up against your own people, whom you brought out of the land of Egypt with such great power and with so strong a hand? Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, and how you swore to them by your own self...
...so the LORD relented in the punishment

he had threatened to inflict on his people.

The conversations of the LORD and Moses found in the Books of Exodus and Deuteronomy describe an endless, persistent balancing. God demands justice. God shows mercy. God demands justice again. And shows mercy again. God's people, on the other side of this relational teeter-totter, repent, sin, repent, and sin again. This imbalancing will continue throughout the History of Salvation.

We never seem to get whatever it is that God demands of us. It has to do with freedom. I'm sure of that. The Lord set us free when he delivered us from Egypt. He sets us free again and again through the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. But what is this freedom?

In discussion group I often ask the Veterans in the substance abuse program, "Freedom for...?" and "Freedom to...?" Most want freedom from addiction. They are less willing or able to say what they want.

Many of us were told as children what we wanted. We weren't asked. If we actually asked for what we wanted, we were often told, "You don't want that!" Sometimes, if we were asked, "What do you want?" the question was obviously contrived, "Do you want Lima beans or Brussels sprouts?" Or, "Who wants to help their mama do the dishes?"

Growing up without a clear sense of what we actually want, without knowing how to discover what we want, and without the inner freedom to say what we want, leads to trouble. We often take that which we are unwilling to admit we want. Perhaps we think we should not have this, or others will think less of us for wanting it. It may be a "guilty pleasure," which pleases despite the costs.

In today's gospel we meet three conflicted men. Without a wife/mother, the father and his two sons have formed a seriously dysfunctional family. The younger son cannot ask; he simply demands. The older son cannot ask; he just complains. And the father, avoiding conflicts with both, gives the second son what he wants. Has he never learned to say, "No?"

When the prodigal comes home penniless -- to no one's surprise -- the old man again lavishes gifts on him. And then waits until the older son comes in to discover a party to which he was not invited! The father could have at least gone to talk to the sole heir (who owns everything!) before he came in.

All three have successfully avoided engaging with each other and an honest discussion of their resources. What we've here, as the captain said, is failure to communicate.

(Full disclosure: As the oldest son of a large family, I sympathize with the older son.)

However, I do agree with what the old fellow says, "We have to celebrate! Your brother has come home. The lost has been found and the dead is alive!"

Yes, absolutely! We celebrate our faith, hope, and love. We celebrate our families and churches, and should celebrate our reconciliations. We can't wait till everything is just right before we celebrate our common life.

Hopefully, through these occasional celebrations, we learn to ask for what we want. We learn how to say please and thank you, and how to say no.

The Lord offers grace (Latin gratia, meaning freedom) and that's all about our relations with one another. Freedom is not doing what you want to do when you want to do it. It's more like sharing your resources freely with others, like the Hebrews in the Sinai Desert when they daily collected and shared manna. Freedom is giving and receiving without the interference of the self. We share the fact that we're hungry, angry, lonely or tired (HALT!) just as readily as we share our food, sympathy, companionship and leisure. We readily engage in difficult conversations when they come up; and through them, strive for a deeper peace with one another.

Moses stood up to the Lord during a particularly difficult moment. If he did not see his face, he faced him when he reminded God of his eternal covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

We don't know how the conflict in Jesus' parable ended. We can imagine the angry oldest son brought his complaint to the others and the three of them agreed to begin again, more honestly this time, and more courageously.