My dear friends God is essentially mysterious, His ways are not our ways, what he does, how he behaves, how he acts, when we get down to it truly confounds us. His whole way of thinking is on an entirely different level, which, often times, strikes a dissonant chord in our hearts and can kind of rub against the grain of how we think it is appropriate to behave or act.
When it comes down to it, put rather simply, according to our thoughts God is out of His mind. According to our way of thinking God does not understand the importance of being practical. When compared to our logic God is, so to speak, out of his mind. We see this on perfect display in our Gospel reading today. Jesus has decided to tell a trio of parables to the crowd that has gathered to listen to Him. These parables teach us through analogy about how God acts and thinks. In the first one we hear of this good shepherd figure whom leaves the 99 in search of the one. Well, hold on a second, really think this through, is that necessarily the best way to approach the situation? To put at risk the other 99 for the sake of this one disobedient, wandering sheep? In the second parable our Lord tells us about a woman who frantically turns over her house looking for one coin. Note, that the Greek word used for coin here denotes a very small coin. So she spends hours looking through the house for a penny. Is that practical? Does that really jive with how we would approach a lost coin? And then after finding the coin she wants to throw a party? Could you imagine receiving a phone call to come over to party, sure yea what’s the celebration for? Well my penny was lost but now it’s found, come on over. You’d think she’s nuts! Then we have the third parable, that of the Prodigal Son. The father in the story upon seeing his son return from, who first insulted him by asking for his inheritance before his dad dies, and then squandered it all on a life of dissipation, the father runs out to meet him, embraces him, gives him a ring and a robe symbols that denote that he still belongs to this family and then proceeds to slaughter the fatted calf for a party. What? No punishment? No giving him what is due for his actions? Where’s the justice in that? You see my friends what we have here is full blown proof that according to our way of thinking God is simply out of his mind.
This means then that we need to figure out how to appreciate God’s ways in our lives and in order to do so we have to kind of re-wire ourselves. Because His thoughts are so far above our thoughts we have to reconfigure our own processes in order for this to make sense. Our interior way of thinking needs to be re-wired. Picture a bunch of wires making up a circuit that is trying to bring electricity to a light bulb. Unless and until the current passes through them no light will get to that bulb. We are those wires and God is the current trying to pass through. We have the power to let the current pass through us, use us, and produce the Light of the World. But if we are not configured in accordance with the current we will never be able to transmit the light in its proper way and so sometimes we give up and refuse to be used and allow darkness to spread. Time passes the wires get crusty, older, and tangled. Now it’s a confusing mess and a life with God and the Church can see near impossible. St. Paul would have felt the same way when he said: “I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and arrogant, but (he continues) I have been mercifully treated.” The Psalmist today shares the same desire as he prays: “A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me.” Renewal, re-wire, re-configure, clean heart, receive God’s mercy, however you want to put it we need to surrender more readily to God’s logic in order to appreciate how deeply he loves us.
Like the good shepherd chasing one lonely sheep, the crazy lady turning over furniture for a penny, the father running down the hill to meet his Son so too does the compassion of God the Father go to such extremes for each and everyone of us.
God’s love mysteriously for some reason seeks out us sinners and desires to encounter us. In the moment when we come to our senses like the prodigal son and initiate a return to our Heavenly Father he shows us a compassion that is both radically immediate and radically intimate.
Notice how in the parable of the Prodigal Son the father ‘caught sight of the son’ while he was still far off. The moment we turn just the tiniest bit towards God the Father; he catches sight of us. Every Sunday when we walk through the doors of the Church to come and worship Him; he catches sight of us. When our knees hit the pew; he catches sight of us. When we pray, when we stop, take a second to think of him, when we do anything at any moment that puts God first in our lives; immediately he catches sight of us and is filled with intimate compassion. Why does the Lord catch sight of us? … Because He never stops looking!
In the parable the father catches sight of his son while he’s still a long way off precisely because everyday he would sit at the window and wait, looking out on the horizon for the smallest sign that his son was coming home. So too does God the Father wait, wait, and wait, for the smallest sign that you his daughter or you his son is coming towards him.
In a few moments God will catch sight of you as you approach His sanctuary to receive the Eucharist. His gaze will fix upon you with gratitude that you have accepted his invitation to come to the Eucharistic feast for which the Lamb of God was slaughtered on your behalf. As you receive his Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity in the Eucharist, the God who is essentially mysterious, beyond all our ways and our thoughts, will pour his mercy and love over your heart renewing it and giving it the strength to be steadfast in faith. In this encounter with the compassion of God the Father you will be empowered to bring the same love that has won you over to all those you come into contact with this week.
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