“HE SEES YOU AND HAS COMPASSION”
Saint Luke 15: 1-32
3rd Sunday after Trinity: 7 July Anno Domini 2019
Father Jay Watson SSP
Jesus is a Shepherd. A shepherd takes care of the flock. A shepherd can be learned in languages, history, theology, and graced with all the “people” skills imaginable, but that is not what makes a shepherd. A shepherd protects the flock yes, but a shepherd is willing to give his very life for the flock.
Jesus is The Good Shepherd because He laid down His life for the sheep. Bloodied, wounded, suffering, and dying in incredible pain, He fought for every single one of the flock.
While always searching for the one lost lamb He never stops caring for and protecting the rest of the flock. He has a sheepfold, a place of green pastures for His sheep: The Church—Her many parishes and congregations. If one is a sheep of Jesus one will be in The Church.
Unless…one wanders off and gets lost.
The lost sheep does nothing to get rescued. The lost coin on the ground does nothing to cooperate in being found. All the work is done by The Lord. He is the Shepherd, yes, but He is also the woman sweeping the house with the lighted candle.
The Shepherd metaphor is not really a metaphor. You are sheep in your inability to fend for yourselves in the spiritual realm—the battle against the powers of darkness. The coin simile is apt because until you were picked up by Christ—through the “Woman” of His Church at the Sacrament of Holy Baptism—you were as inert as a lifeless drachma, mite, denarius, or bent penny.
The first two parables lead to the ultimate parable—The very heart of Luke’s Gospel before the Passion Account near the end. The parable of the “prodigal son” gives you Christ, gives you total forgiveness.
Though the central character appears to be the selfish and ungrateful younger son, that is not the focus. That second son is you, me, and all Christians at one time or another. This is not about pagans or heathens. The son was a member of the family, he belonged to his mother, his elder brother, all the siblings, and most of all to his father. The flock is family, the coins are living coins and they are family. The younger son demanding his inheritance and going his own way…away from home is rejecting that family, his roots. When a plant rejects its roots, it loses nutrition and dies. When a sheep wanders from the flock it is attacked by the wolf and dies. A coin never found is useless and dead.
It is implicit in Christ’s story that the Father grieves over his son’s foolish and deadly course of action. The Father does not want the son to leave but permits his actions and rejections. One cannot imagine the pain in the heart of The Father…almost…but not quite, because this is God mourning over all His lost creatures, this is Jesus weeping over Jerusalem “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not.” [Mt. 23.37] The heartbreak some of have experienced when children leave the faith, when a spouse is not united with The Shepherd, when a parent or sibling becomes prodigal are all represented here in this younger son. The “heart” of our Blessed Trinity, Our Father Who art in heaven, and The One Who has come to seek and to save the lost both weeps and takes action! There was not a day, an hour, a minute, or a moment, that the loving Father in the parable did not stop caring for, contemplating about, and yes, looking for his son who had journeyed into a far country. The incidents revolving around the son—the “riotous living,” the wasting of his substance (his money), the shame of feeding unclean swine, the hunger, and the loneliness, are all important. The Law was working death. One needs to die before being reborn. But also, even a member of the family, who has erred, strayed, and rejected, needs also to be slain by the law: REPENTANCE, before the forgiveness of the Gospel rescue is received with its sweetness and peace. The Father waits. The Father knows. The Father loves. The Father is unconditional in all. He brought the young son to life and will return him to life in the fullness of family.
This is your story. Your story at the + Font; your story in receiving Absolution; your story this morning in Eating and Drinking Life and Light.
“And when he came to himself,” means simply that God The Holy Ghost through the Law convicted him of his sin and betrayal; reminded him who he was and Who is Father was. And even though his self-concocted plan of what to say, of how to bargain, was still tinged with sin (all of your good works are as filthy rags) he does not even have the time to perfect his conditional self-justifying offer, “make me as one of thy hired servants.” Because even when “he was yet a great way off, his Father saw Him!” No matter where you are or where you’ve been, or what you’ve done…your Father sees you; Jesus sees you…and “had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck and kissed him.”
The Lord’s compassion for you, to bring you back, to restore you, has Him running, running the way of obedient Commandment keeping. Jesus’ love for you has him falling in pain on the way to Calvary, bearing His own neck to scourging, beating, and holding up His sacred head now wounded. Jesus kisses you with His peace and forgiveness even before the words of asking for it are formed on your lips.
Though not worthy to be God’s son you are called by Him Son. In The Son, Christ Jesus, you have full sonship. You are restored to the family. This is your status and Baptismal birth right. The Father gives you the best robe to cover you—The Robe which is Jesus and His atoning blood. Jesus’ eternal ring of Righteousness placed on your hand and His own sandals of Salvation to keep the serpent from striking your heal placed on your feet. Not a fatted calf killed to feed and nourish you, but The Lamb of God Himself—The Paschal Feast is now your Eucharist. The Father always loves by giving. The Spirit eternally loves by giving. The Son always loves by sacrificially giving and being given.
“Make merry, and be glad; for you were dead, but are now alive again; you were lost, but now are found.”
In the Name of the Father and + of the Son and of The Holy Ghost
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