The Fall into
Grace
Exodus 32:7-11, 13-14 I
Timothy 1:12-17 Luke 15:1-24
To the church in the
diaspora[1]
& to the church of
the unchurched[2]
Alleluia,
alleluia.
A reading from
the holy Gospel according to Luke.
Glory to you,
Lord.
(Lk 15:1-24)
A lost sheep
Tax collectors
and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus,
but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes
sinners and eats with them.” So to them he addressed this parable. “What man
among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the
ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when
he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy, and, upon his
arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them,
‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost
sheep.’ I tell you, in just the same way
there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over
ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.”
A lost coin
“Or
what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the
house, searching carefully until she finds it? And when she does find it, she
calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them,` Rejoice with me
because I have found the coin that I lost.’ In just the same way, I tell you, there
will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
A lost son
Then Jesus
said, “A man had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, ‘Father give
me the share of your estate that should come to me.’ So the father divided the
property between them. After a few days, the younger son collected all his
belongings and set off to a distant country where he squandered his inheritance
on a life of dissipation. When he had freely spent everything, a severe famine
struck that country, and he found himself in dire need. So he hired himself out
to one of the local citizens who sent him to his farm to tend the swine. He
longed to eat his fill of the pods on which the swine fed, but nobody gave him
any. Coming to his senses he thought about his father’s many hired hands who had
more than enough to eat while he was starving. He said to himself, I shall
arise and return to the house of his father. And I shall say to him, `Father, I
have sinned against heaven and you. I no longer deserve to be called your son;
treat me as you would treat one of your hired workers.’ So he got up and went
back to his father.
“While
he was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him, and was filled
with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him. His son said
to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer
deserve to be called your son.’ But his father ordered his servants, ‘Quickly
bring the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals
on his feet. Take the fattened calf and slaughter it. Then let us celebrate
with a feast because this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he
was lost, and has been found.’ Then the celebration began. “
The Gospel of
the Lord.
Praise to you, Lord Jesus
Christ.
----------------
Introduction
A comparative study
In this age when the world has become a global village and Jews,
Christians and Muslims are neighbors to one another, the comparative study of
these three great religions is helpful,
and in this post 9/11 era (comparable in status to eras BC and AD) a
comparative study is also imperative.
Religions of Law
Of these three monotheistic religions, Judaism and Islam are much
closer to each other than they are to Christianity. Both religions stress laws and obedience to
those laws. Both stress a connection between God’s happiness and our obedience
to those laws, and between God’s displeasure and our disobedience of them.
Two
centuries before Christ, Moses gave Jews
the Law. The rabbis, seeking to
ritualize God's presence in the smallest and most insignificant details of life,
turned the Law of Moses into a corpus of 613 major laws and a whole
constellation of minor rules and regulations. That body of laws to be religiously
observed by the faithful Jew became a heavy yoke placed upon the people’s
shoulders. The gospels frequently allude to that
burden (Mt 12:1-8, 9-14; 23: 1-8, 23;
Mk 7: 3-4; Lk 13:10-17). A good Jew – an Orthodox Jew – was and is one
who obeys Jewish religious laws.
Six
centuries after Christ, Mohammed gave Muslims the Five Pillars or supreme laws of
Islam to be religiously observed by the faithful Muslim. They are the law of Shahada (a proclamation of personal faith that there is no God but
Allah, and Mohammed is his prophet, the law of Salat (ritual prayer five times daily), the law of Zakat (a fixed percentage for
almsgiving), the law of Ramadan (the
great fast) and the law of the Hajj
(the once-in-a-life-time pilgrimage to
So Judaism and Islam stress the virtue of
consistent, constant obedience to God’s laws. The Orthodox Jew embracing the
yoke of the Law is matched by the Muslim embracing the yoke of Shari’ah. Shari’ah is the entire corpus
of commandments
and prohibitions in Islamic religious law covering almost every
aspect of life, from marriage to criminality and to the economic life of the
community. In its roots Shari’ah means “the path to
the watering place.” It has the idea of a road map of laws and observances guiding an observant Muslim to the cool clear waters
of salvation in the hot sands of the desert.
Antinomianism of
Christianity
Christianity, on the other hand, (when it does not stray from its
original Pauline inspiration), does not look favorably upon religious laws! It does not feel at home with them! In Galatians Paul writes, “Christ has freed us
from the curse of the Law [with its 613 plus laws]” (Gal
Guidance or consolation?
Marshall Hudgson writes that a Muslim does not so much seek consolation
as guidance from his faith. [4]
The opening chapter of the Qur’an asks for guidance in following the road map
that will lead to the watering place. On the other hand, a Christian does not
so much seek guidance as consolation from his faith -- the consolation of forgiveness for having gone astray and for not
having followed the road-map to the watering place. In his prayer of prayers (the
Our Father) the Christian prays
“Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” At the
end of the day, we all seek the consolation of forgiveness, for as Paul writes,
“None of us, none whatsoever, is righteous. We have all sinned
and have fallen short of the glory of God” (Rom
Consolation in the parable
of the lost sheep
Seeking the consolation of forgiveness, the sinful Christian
revels in Christ’s parable of a sheep which has gone astray and is finally
found by a loving shepherd who hoists the bleating animal upon his shoulders and
carries it safely back home. Then he calls in his friends and neighbors to
rejoice and celebrate over this one sheep which went astray but now has been found.
That parable greatly consoles all of us, for all of us fall short of the
glory of God.
Since both Judaism and Islam stress the virtue of consistent,
constant obedience to God’s laws, we wonder whether these two religions have
parables of their own about sheep which get lost and then are found, and at the
end of the day are celebrated. We wonder instead whether, by some unwritten law,
they are forbidden to internalize and tell such comforting parables. On the
other hand, Christianity (that antinomian scoundrel) without any hesitation revels
in parables like that of the one lost sheep.
We also wonder whether the feeling of sinfulness is a ponderous
bane and the feeling of righteousness a covetous boon in religions which stress
the virtue of consistent and constant obedience to God’s laws. That is not
without problems.
Consolation in the parable
of the Prodigal Son
Seeking the consolation of forgiveness, the sinful Christian
revels also and especially in the parable of the Prodigal Son. In my book that parable and the Good
Samaritan are the two most brightly shining stars in the New Testament sky. What
Jesus said of the two greatest commandments I say of these two parables:
"On these two depend the whole Law and the Prophets" (Mt
The Prodigal Son is a non-observant and disobedient pup who
wonders off into a foreign land where he squanders his inheritance on parties
and prostitutes. Reduced to slopping the pigs for a gentile farmer, he changes
his mind (the root meaning of repentance), turns his life around and makes his
way back to an incredibly forgiving father. The father quickly wraps his son’s
skeletal body in a rich robe, places a ruby ring on his boney finger and straps
soft sandals to his son’s calloused feet. Then he orders the fatted calf to be
slaughtered for a great banquet to celebrate a son who was lost but now has
been found. Down through the ages that parable has offered great consolation to
all who have fallen short of the glory of God, and that’s
all of us.
Since Judaism and Islam stress the virtue of consistent, constant
obedience to God’s laws, we wonder whether they have parables of their own
about prodigal sons who go astray and squander themselves on parties and
prostitutes, then repent and return home, and who at the end of the day are celebrated
with a fatted calf? We wonder instead whether by some unwritten law these two
great religions are forbidden to internalize or tell such comforting parables. On
the other hand, Christianity (that antinomian scoundrel) without any hesitation
revels in parables like that of the Prodigal Son.
And yes, again we wonder whether the feeling of sinfulness is a ponderous
bane and the feeling of righteousness a covetous boon in religions which stress
the virtue of consistent and constant obedience to God’s laws. That is not
without problems.
Everyman
The Prodigal Son is Everyman, for all fall short
of the glory of God. Paul isn’t
referring to just some incident of sexual impropriety committed, for example,
by some public figure in the men’s room of an airport – an incident which then besmirches
a clean record. “A clean record is
hogwash,” writes one Anglican theologian. Paul, he says, is referring to the
daily lot of all Christian people. None
of us wake up in the morning clean. We
all wake up to the knowledge of our failure: to what we should have done but did
not do and to what we have done amiss. We all wake up to our deceit and
indolence. We all besmirch our record
everyday. Some of our misdeeds might be less harmful or less public than those of
others, but they are misdeeds nevertheless. The more we’re in tune with our
besmirched record, the more we revel in Jesus’ parables of the stray sheep and
the Prodigal Son.
Conclusion
The fall into grace.
The same Anglican theologian disagrees with a
theology of man that sees him as created in an original state of goodness, who
by sin “falls from grace” with God. We and the Prodigal Son all start out, he
says, with a mixed bag of good and evil. We all start out
with the possibility of faithfulness or waywardness.
Like the artist Pompeo Batoni, who produced a magnificent
painting of the Prodigal Son, give this parable the full reign of your
imagination. Picture the father at the door of his house daily looking out at
the horizons longing to see a sign of his son returning. Picture the father overcome
with joy when at long last he spies him afar off in the distance. Picture the
two of them running out to meet each other. Picture the son finally falling
into the arms of his father. Picture the
father wrapping his son’s waywardness in a splendid robe. Picture all that, and
the parable is not about our fall from grace but about our fall into grace.
Every Mass has its dismissal. Ite Missa est. Go, the Mass is ended. Go, Christian sinner and
console yourself with the Parable of the Prodigal Son.