Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?

Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner?
Homily for March 6, 2016    Fourth Sunday of Lent - C
by Dcn. Bob Bonomi

I have some Good News for you, and I have some Bad News.  Today’s Gospel opens with Jesus welcoming tax collectors and sinners and eating with them. So, I guess the Good News is that, if we want Jesus to come to dinner with us, all we need to do is sin big time, right? Hang out with all the wrong kind of people?  See how many of the Ten Commandments we can break?  Surely that will bring him to our house?
 
Sorry, Bad News: turning your back on God and deliberately sinning as much as you can isn’t going to bring Jesus to your house.
 
But there is Good News, sort of.  As Pope Francis points out, we’re ALL sinners.   
Even Pope Francis.  Did you know that he goes to confession every two weeks?  If he, the holiest person I know goes that often, then I wonder how often I need to be going?
 
Even those who would deny it, like the Pharisees and scribes, are sinners.  And Jesus ate with them too – remember that time where the sinful woman came and crashed Simon the Pharisee’s dinner party?
 
So I guess we’re all invited to dinner.
 
Now, although the Gospel says that Jesus addressed the Parable of the Prodigal Son to the Pharisees and scribes, Jesus was actually talking to all those present: in fact, he speaks first to the tax collectors and sinners through the example of the younger son, and then the Pharisees and scribes through the older son. 
 
First, the tax collectors and sinners.  They were both outcasts: one by virtue of their occupation, one by the circumstances of their life.  Sinners not only included those who did bad things, but would also include all those who were less than “perfect” – disabilities and illness were thought to be signs of sin.  But in this case, the people Jesus was talking to were the ones who had rejected in some way or fashion the religious precepts of their faith.
 
Still, despite their apparent sinfulness, they were drawn to Jesus, because of the “hole” they had – a holy longing for something that was missing in their lives.  There was a news story a couple of weeks ago which once again talked about whether or not we are “wired” for God – we are the only living creatures that have this desire for religion, something that St. Augustine knew hundreds of years ago. 
 
Jesus compares them to the younger son.  The boy demands – and receives – the inheritance that is by right.  He didn’t earn it, but it represents a gift promised to him by his Father, because he is his Father’s son.  Once he receives it, he immediately uses them for his own personal satisfaction and squanders them. Worse, he separates himself from his father so that he never has the opportunity to learn how to use them to his benefit. He thinks that he doesn’t need the Father – even more importantly, he doesn’t WANT his Father.  He flees far away so that he doesn’t even have to THINK about his Father. More on that later.
 
We, too, are entitled to our inheritance from God our Father.  Like the younger son, God has gifts for each one of us, promised to us and available for the asking by virtue of our being God’s children.  Not everyone is going to receive the same gifts, but as St. Paul tells the Corinthians and the Ephesians, God doesn’t call everyone to the same ministry, and He distributes His gifts as He sees fit so that we can accomplish God’s purposes for us.  We have to ask for them, though, and once we have received them we need to use them properly.  And many gifts require training to use; you might give your child a bicycle but it doesn’t follow that the child will be able to ride it right away.  Sometimes we put training wheels on it to help guide them; but even then they may fall.  The child must be taught how to ride.
 
Then there are the Pharisees and scribes.  Jesus compares them to the older son. He is also entitled to his portion of his inheritance – it is promised to him as well.  Unlike the younger son, though, the older one doesn’t ask for his gifts right away; he thinks he needs to work to earn them first.  When the younger son returns, the older son also separates himself from the Father, only he walks away from the gifts offered to him.  Maybe he’s thinking about all the time he wasted, slaving away, while his brother – who should have been disowned or at least blocked from returning – has been able to live the good life without any consequences.  (Well, there’s the pig thing but he deserved that for the way he treated his Father.)  Or, maybe he’s jealous of his brother – after all, maybe since he’s worked so hard all these years he thought he deserved to get a greater share of the inheritance? 
 
The Pharisees and scribes complained about the attention that Jesus gave to the outcasts.  If he really was the Messiah, shouldn’t he be rewarding them?  They deserved a reward for their faithfulness to the works of the law, and yet here Jesus was spending his time with losers.  His actions were taking away the gifts they wanted most – power and respect.
 
The irony in life is that there is no such thing as one person getting more than his fair share, for God’s gifts are infinite.
 
So we have the Younger son – at the end, he knew he was wrong.
 
And there’s the older son – who still thought he was right.  We never learn whether he came into the party or not.
 
Jesus reminds the tax collectors and sinners that the younger son’s sins were against both God and his father; remembering the 4th commandment of honoring one’s parents reminds us that the commandment comes from God and not from our parents.  It is God who we offend first.
 
And he reminds the Pharisees that they are rejecting God just as surely as the sinners were by rejecting their gifts and failing to accept that God’s mercy was for everyone.
 
Despite all that, God is waiting for us.  He not only welcomes us with open arms, He RUNS to us and meets us where we are, especially if we are tired and struggling to return to Him.  A humble and contrite heart he will not spurn.
 
Even with the older son, the Father goes to him when he refuses to come in.  Overcome with resentment, the older son is jealous of the attention given to the undeserving younger son – make no mistake, the younger son IS undeserving of the treatment he receives from his Father – but Jesus reminds us of the infinite mercy of God.
 
In both cases, the sons have the freedom to choose how they respond to their father.  One son abandons him, the other son resents him.  So it is with us.  Some slave away at their faith trying to “earn” their way to heaven and are resentful of anyone who has it better than they do or who can do more than they do; others take the gifts God has given them and turn their back on Him, refusing to acknowledge Him.
 
In the younger son’s case, there is also something else that we should note: it isn’t in the good times that the younger son realized his folly but it took a major disaster to awaken him to what he lost.  So it is with us.  It seems like we only turn back to God when things are bad; when things are tough.  Then we want God to take us back. 
 
And God will.  During this Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis has pointed out repeatedly that God’s mercy is limitless and available to all who turn back to Him.  It doesn’t mean that the problems will go away, but it does mean that He will be there with us to strengthen us and guide us and, most importantly, walk with us as we go through whatever we face. 
 
But He won’t force himself on us.  God’s love cannot penetrate a heart that is unwilling to receive it.
 
One final note.  We must celebrate whenever someone returns to God, for returning to God means returning to life.  Life is something worth celebrating – not just our time on Earth but the life which comes from spending eternity in heaven with God and His Son at the heavenly banquet prepared for us.  We will receive a taste of that banquet when we come to the table of the Lord shortly and receive Him in the Eucharist.  It is a time of celebration for saints and sinners alike.  We should reflect that joy as we come forward today.
 
For we know who’s coming to dinner.