God-Shepherds-Parables

HOMILY ADVENT WEEK 02 02 – Year II

God as Loving Father and Good Shepherd

(Is 40:1-11; Ps 96; Mt 18:12-14)

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There’s nothing like a parable to illustrate a spiritual point in a new way, or to offer new insight to a familiar point. Jesus used these short stories drawn from everyday life to surprise his hearers and help them grasp the truth about life in his kingdom. Rather than simple tales, these parables always had some kind of twist that was meant to surprise his hearers and move them to deeper faith.

Two parables doing just that are the Parable of the Prodigal Son from Luke, and today’s parable about a shepherd leaving ninety-nine sheep in the wilderness while he goes after one stray.

As an entry point into today’s parable, and the twist in it, let’s briefly review the Lukan parable I prefer to call the Loving Father and the Two Lost Sons. The younger son obviously sinned by alienating himself from his family, religion and culture, but he repented and returned to receive his father’s forgiveness. The older son, on the other hand, dutifully stayed home, but was full of painful emotions like anger and jealousy, as well as negative attitudes such as false pride, stubborn self- will, and judgmentalism, leading him to argue with his father and leaving us wonder if he makes it into the banquet. John of the Cross would say the younger one was struggling with the Dark Night of the Senses, while the older was struggling with the Dark Night of the Spirit.

One twist here is that both the sons were lost – one needing forgiveness for his sin, the other needing healing for his sinfulness, that which makes one sin – his emotions and defects of character.  Another twist is the loving father whose extravagant gesture of forgiveness (no questioning, punishing, revenge of any kind) – just total joy at the return of the stray, and re-instituting him into the family with the ring, sandals and robe. To be waiting for the stray, to run out to meet and embrace him as the father does – is to blow away all our preconceived images of what God might be like. Angie Mihalicz’s Christian Ethics class in Beauval is a good example. When she asked the students to write their own story of being prodigal sons or daughters, that was easy, but to a person they could not finish the story when it came to the part of coming home. They all said, “That’s not how it is – we are always remembered for what we did wrong!” So the bottom line of this parable is not just our need to admit times when we sinned and our need for healing like the older son: above all, we are invited to become like the loving father.

Shepherd and sheep in the Holy Land 2016

There are three important twists in today’s parable. One is that it is God who is the “good shepherd.” We tend to think of Jesus as the main character in the parable, as he is, after all, the “good shepherd” who lays down his life for his sheep (John 10:11). But this time, Jesus tells us that God the Father is also like a shepherd: “It is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost” (Matthew 18:14, emphasis added). Jesus is telling us that the One who made the heavens and the earth, almighty God himself, is as tender and loving as any shepherd. As Bishop Robert Barron puts it, “God is like this kooky shepherd. God loves irrationally, exuberantly risking it all in order to find the one who wandered away. What good news: God does not love according to a strict justice on our terms, but loves in God’s own extravagant way.”

Another twist comes from Ron Rolheiser OMI, who asks this question of the parable: does this mean God love sinners more than righteous people, if God is like a shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine in the wilderness to seek out one lost sheep? The answer is – no – there are no righteous people! We are all sinners in need of both forgiveness and healing, like the two sons above. The ninety-nine wandering in the wilderness are just as lost as the stray, albeit it in a different way.

The last twist has to do with the numbers in the story, always important in the Hebrew mentality. One hundred is a whole number, while ninety-nine is incomplete. God wants every one of God’s sheep back in God’s flock, and will not rest until God has done everything possible to invite, cajole, attract each sinner back to the eternal banquet table.

A practical example would be a mother hosting a thanksgiving dinner for her family, and one member for some reason is not present and accounted for. That mother cannot really rest, relax and celebrate until that one missing person is at least contacted and in touch, because the family is not complete. Our loving father is like that mother in spades, the “hound of heaven” always seeking out the lost so God’s family can be complete.

The first reading from Isaiah, in its own way, underlines these observations. God comes to the aid of our suffering humanity – in a word, God “has our back.” God will always turn everything to the good for those who love God. And Isaiah insists, while everything else is transient and temporary, the “word of our God will stand forever.” God is always totally trustworthy, and always present to us through God’s own word, adding emphasis for us to be like Mary, pondering God’s word in our minds and hearts, especially through Lectio Divina and contemplative prayer based on the Word.

The Eucharist is a foretaste of the eternal banquet God has planned for us, communicating to us God’s extravagant love as forgiveness and healing, through both Word and Sacrament. May our celebration deepen our faith in God as our Good Shepherd, lead us to experience God’s love through forgiveness and healing, and empower us to live in God’s kingdom with peace and joy.