One of the great chapters of the Gospel is Luke chapter 15. It contains three memorable parables sometimes called the “Parables of the Lost.” There is the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, and the parable of the lost son who ran, and the father who stood earnestly watching for his return.
As such, parables usually have a paradoxical or puzzling dimension about them. Many biblical scholars and the Fathers of the Church have often tried to make sense of some of the details in these and other parables. Common agreement is often hard to come by especially in the details of these three parables.
My own view is, that we ought to resist trying to make too much sense out of them, for example trying to explain why a shepherd would leave ninety-nine sheep in search of one that was lost, why not just cut his losses.
To some extent, the craziness of these parables, I suspect, is well intended. As if the Lord were trying to say to us that the heavenly Father loves us, even though it is utterly crazy for him to do so, at least from any human perspective. Why would a shepherd leave, and endanger the other sheep, to go in search of one crazy lost sheep? Why would a woman search so diligently for a coin, only to have a party that probably cost more than the coin she found? Why would an aristocratic, land owning father tolerate such abuse from, not one, but two sons?
Perhaps the craziness is the very point. In trying to make sense out of the craziness, is to miss the point, namely, that the Father is crazy to love us, but does so anyway. Yes, these parables, like so many others, are dripping with irony, rich with paradox, and, as such, run against the grain of worldly thinking. My ways are not your ways says the Lord my thoughts are not your thoughts ( Is 55:8).
In addition, a simple insight that I had missed, was supplied to me by the Venerable Archbishop Fulton J Sheen, in his talk, “The Parables of the Lost.” The detail he supplies has always been there, right before my very eyes. Yet somehow I missed it. But God’s Word is frequently this way, so rich in meaning, some of its greatest treasures hiding in plain sight.
The detail that Archbishop Sheen supplies is provided in the form of a question. And the question is, “Who suffered more? The lost sheep, or the shepherd who sought it? The lost coin, or the woman who diligently searched for it? The son who ran away, or the father who earnestly watched for his return? The angry son, or the father who emerged from the feast pleading for his son to enter with him?” Yes, who suffered more?
And for us, who suffers more, when we sin when we stray…, we who sin, or the heart of Christ who endured our guilt and experiences our rejection? Indeed, our Lord suffers more than any sinner who sins.
I realize it is mysterious to speak of Lord’s suffering. Some will simply not countenance the use of the word at all with reference to God. Surely we think, the Lord in his glorified state does not suffer. Yet mysteriously, he speaks of the suffering of his mystical body as reaching him, and says to Saul, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? (Acts 9:4). Somehow too, in caring for the hungry, thirsty, naked, lonely, we care for Christ (cf Matt 25:41ff). Thus, Christ’s union with his mystical body, the Church, while mysterious, is a real union, not just a moral union, or something theoretical, he does somehow still suffer, even while in his glorified body he has the beatific vision.
And thus again our question, “Who suffers more, we who stray and get lost, or the One who seeks us with love and an earnest desire to set things right?” Yes, here is something to ponder and to pray over, namely, the Lord’s passion (in both senses of the term) to seek us and to set things right, to call for us until we answer, to look for us until we are found.
Somehow that plaintive cry of God in the Garden, after Adam had sinned, still goes forth in the heart of God, in the heart of Christ, “Adam! Where are you?! Adam… where are you!?”
Amen! In the world standard such circumstances will never merit the way God responded. God is Love. And his love is beyond compare. Despite of our rejections, our disobediences and our immoral ways, God will always understand us because His mercy is overflowing. He always wait for us up to our last breath.
Anyone who loves someone else suffers. We suffer as our loved ones endure suffering themselves, waste their potential, or remain mired in sin and false gods. It is not unreasonable to suggest that God suffers as he sees His people suffer.
This made me think of the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. For each Mystery Our Lord took upon himself suffering for our sins. I try to focus on the idea that my sins are the specific cause. Each blow of the scourge is my sin or each blow of the hammer on the nails is struck by me with my sins. I know this may seem extreme and could get out of hand. It does make me very aware of my sins though. Helps to take away the idea of victimless sins and makes me really confront the times I have rationalize away a sin.
Thank you Msgr. Pope. Good way to start the day. Gets my thoughts rightly ordered.
I agree that this is something to be pondered over — but that is a major problem for many people in our culture. For example, to your question of who suffers more in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, many a person would first put themselves in the position of one of the three —- and regardless of which person he chose to be, he would say that “I am the one who suffers most,” because it is always about him and his problems and his desires. That is what our culture, and even our schools teach: “I’m number one!” And our reaction to a situation is not to “ponder” but to just react, period. “Does this hurt me? It must be bad. Does this make me feel good? It must be good.” In our culture, the ends almost always justify the means — especially if the end is my happiness.
That’s why our political discussions are only about the ends: “Don’t you want to help the poor? Don’t you want everyone to have good healthcare? Don’t you want mothers to love the children they have?” Everyone agrees to the good ends, and then urges the government off to do ANYTHING, good or bad, to achieve them, and thinks they are doing a good thing.
Who suffers more? Most of us really don’t care, as long as it is not us. We don’t know what the word sacrifice means anymore.
Amen!
And speaking of “Adam, where are you?” – I wrote a blog article a while back from a slightly different perspective, if you are interested:
http://justingridveritasluxmea.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/adam-where-are-you.html
God bless
Justin
Sorry Msgr Pope but because of the “Where Are You” in the post’s title I just couldn’t resist…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-HOyx_FH4E
My favorite part of this post was when you said this isn’t theoretical.
(Skipped the video because I am visiting my sister’s house and don’t want to be a distraction.)
The question about who suffered the most gave me a tingle that surged upward from my heart. At one time that would have been a lot more unpleasant than it is now but, in the last ten years I have so benefited from facing the discomforts that I’ve hidden from that is a motivating discomfort.
Another motivating discomfort; as Justin pointed out in the ‘blog page that he shared; God knew where Adam (and Eve) were, both physically and spiritually. So, when He asked, Adam had to look at himself and take a step to reach back to God’s call. How many times does He call to us and how rarely is the answer returned?
But all the suffering which we bring on ourselves and, as a result, inspire in those who love us, is shown somehow as measureable. As if the measuring systems that we’ve devised somehow came before the infinite aspect of God’s love which we seek to understand by the measures we use to break into chunks that we can understand, instead of accepting that we (including myself) can’t understand it and further accepting the challenge to stretch our awareness. We may never understand God, in His infinite aspect but, we can reach out to that infinite and have some measureless moments. By measureless I don’t mean an exemption of the standard called measuring because that designates it as a standard but, rather freedom from its limitations.
At times I’ve seen a skilled worker make a near perfect fit without any use of measuring devices. When I was in my teens I bought an old car that needed fixing. After repairs certain engine bolts had to be tightened to a specific tension which could be measured by a thing like a torque wrench. I took the torque wrench and headed for the car but, before I got there my father (who’d been a mechanic for many years) grabbed another wrench and tightened the bolts while having a look at what I can only call unfocussed concentration.
When he was done I said that I’d verify the tension with the torque wrench and he merely shrugged and told me that the right tension was there but to go ahead and test. I tested and every bolt was dead on as near as the measuring device could detect. He had merely shrugged, instead of acting wounded or playing some other guilt card, because he knew that he had not played a god like role but, had used skills that he’d acquired over a thorough learning experience.
Yet, how many will play God by rejecting attempts to verify and by saying that listeners had to believe it because they say so. Often after interupting a serious attempt to look at the facts and come to a quality conclusion.
Are we still stuck in the false promise that was only implied, not stated outright, at the time of the first sin that we would become gods if we took the quick, and over-reaching leap of partaking of a certain substance and learning about good and evil – instead of following the directions which God had laid out for us?
However, when we look at the infinite as that to which measurement has no relationship then the so called “crazy” behaviour of giving more than is gained starts to make sense when we measure the relative comforts that the shepherd abandoned at his camp to face the harsh weather for his lost sheep. Or the money that the woman spent to celebrate that her coin was no longer lost. Or when we measure the financial loss that the father in the parable has experienced when the prodigal returned home broke after squandering a large portion of the family’s financial resources. The Oxford Dictionary shows sacrifice coming from sacer “holy” and the Merriam-Webster shows facere as “to make”
Einstein seemed to encounter the infinite and, thereby, realize the limited value of empirical measurements so he showed us usage of the relative.
A few loaves and fishes can probably feed a small family but even a few dozen could never feed the multitude. The greater empirical value was not enough as I’ve devised a way to add to it by showing the relative “enough and “not enough”, and its relative value, to illustrate. However, Christ discarded measurement and used the measureless and mysterious infinite to which measure does not apply and fed them with leftovers for later.
Not to criticize Einstein for his use of relativity, but to say that he built an excellent foundation which provided a platform to reach toward, not the measureless but, that to which our post original sin measures got us sidetracked from.
So, is sacrifice to make holy or, to make in a holy way or, does it matter? When something is holy it relates to God Who is infinite and to the infinite measuring of loss and gain by our mathematical standard has no relevance; for Love is not a book keeping experience. It is LOVE!
God, in His measureless infinity is so perfect that He is too sane for our craziness to comprehend.
Perhaps Adam was too confused to know where he was because of his sin? Perhaps God does not recognize Adam when he sins. “I never knew you.” It is like a wife who wears black when her husband only knows her when she wears white. When she wears black, the husband thinks, “Who are you?! You’re not who I married. Wife, where are you?”
I found myself pondering the parallel between God’s persistent cry to Adam, “Adam, Adam, where are you?!” and our dear Savior’s own heart-wrenching cry, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?!” …I came across an interesting reflection by JP II on the meaning of these words from the Cross: http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/audiences/alpha/data/aud19881130en.html
The Holy Spirit continually calls the lost one to reconciliation. Do the righteous ones help or hinder today?