Twenty-fourth Sunday of the Year -- September 12, 2004

    Some of the most moving passages in all of Scripture have to do with God speaking to Himself, determining to forgive the sins of His people. I am thinking especially of that beautiful poetic presentation of Yahweh’s love for Israel recorded in the book of the prophet Hosea. God says to His chosen people: “What shall I do with you, O Ephraim? What shall I do with you, O Judah? Your love is like a morning cloud, like the dew that goes early away.” And further on, the prophet continues the lament of God over the sinful ways of Israel: “My people are bent on turning away from me....”
    Such stubborn resistance to God and His ways seem reasonably to call for God to turn His back on His people. Such repeated, stubborn refusals to follow the right path cries out for the wrath of God to be poured out on such a people. Sometimes the prophets themselves felt this way. The Twelve Apostles, on one occasion while with Jesus, when He was refused entrance into a town because of His controversial mission, asked the Lord whether they should call out to God to rain down fire and destruction on that town. And our Lord rebuked them.
    And soft is the rebuke to such angry, wrathful hearts are the words of Hosea the prophet when he has God say, as He contemplates the evil, rebellious ways of His people, “How can I give you up, O Ephraim! How can I hand you over, O Israel!... My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender. I will not execute my fierce anger.”
    How such long-suffering compassion? How such mercy? Hosea tells us in the following words, “I will not execute my fierce anger.” Why not? Because “I am God and not man, the Holy One in your midst.” That’s why. Because “I am God and not man.”
    Unlike us, God’s mercy and forgiveness do not dry up and wither over time. Like the father in today’s Gospel story of the Prodigal Son, God waits to forgive and receive us back. We see this in today’s story, where the young rebellious son, after leaving home and spending all his inheritance, returns home to be his father’s slave, there the father is, doing what? Waiting. Peering down the road for the distant figure of his son. And finally one day, as the father took a moment to yet again with hope stand awhile near the road and look -- there, finally, one day appeared a familiar figure, a familiar walk. And the Scripture says that while the boy was still a long way off, his father caught sight of him and was deeply moved. He ran out to meet him, threw his arms around his neck, and kissed him.”
    Such is the mercy, the forgiveness, the long-suffering patience of God. For God does not offer forgiveness begrudgingly, after we have begged and begged for it. God does not turn His back on us until we come to our senses. No, like with the young, rebellious boy in the Gospel, even while in the depths of his sin and depravity, there, there God still spoke to him, urging him back to his senses, back to what he had left behind in his choice to sin, back to all that forgiveness brings -- back to his true home, the companionship of family, the peace and harmony of reconciliation.
    God would lavish His forgiveness upon us -- if we would but return to Him. There, with God, awaits us no small space in the corner of God’s house, the dunce’s seat until we learn to act better.     Rather, the descriptions of forgiveness in the Bible are amazing in their extravagance: all the angels of heaven rejoicing over the repentance of one sinner, the father in today’s story who would not even listen to his son’s pleas to be treated like a servant but who ordered that a fine robe be put upon his son, shoes on his feet, a ring on his finger, and then he ushered him into the house, where the feasting was to begin.
    Only when we begin to see God in this way, in the true way, the way Jesus revealed Him, will we have the fullest motivation to seek forgiveness of Him. Only when we face the reality -- the cold hard facts -- of the nature of sin as described in the Gospel as slopping around with swine will we lift up our eyes and say to ourselves: “I have left the Father’s house for this?” We will only joyfully trace our way back to God when we learn to hear those words in the confessional -- “I absolve you from your sins...” -- as the sacramental echo of Jesus’ own words as He was dying on the Cross: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Father, forgive them, for they do not see the utter insanity of sin, the utter destruction brought by embracing evil. Forgive them, for they do not see that their sins are my torment. Forgive them, for they do not yet know the great joy of living in your Kingdom. Forgive them, for my Cross will be their way back to you.
    All of that is bound up with what I mean by the great forgiveness of God. Lavish, extravagant, almost embarrassing in its utter one-sidedness. But there it is. God looks upon us His creatures and sees that, yes, we are a wandering lot, a sometimes rebellious people, often duped by the seduction of sin. But He says to Himself, “How can I forget you?” God can’t, He won’t. For forgiveness is not something in God that is brought forth by our finally getting around to asking for it; rather, God waits on the side of the road, eyes trained on the horizon, His divine hand holding the finest robe and a royal ring, His servants back in the house preparing the feast.