A Homily for the Third Sunday after Pentecost

​+ “This man receives sinners and eats with them!” We can sense the self-righteous indignation seep from these words—when no other line of attack is possible, an ad hominem slur is never long in coming so as to draw others into a pharisaic rage. “How could he?” “How dare he?” it is decried—without any basis other than a narcissistic fear that what has been done will detract from one’s own security and self-importance. “I would never do that,” it is claimed; and rightly—the “I” concerned being so focused on its own ego and prejudices that it has long-since become incapable of acting in any manner that involves sacrifice, risk or even heroism for a greater good.
 
In the face of this sanctimonious rage, Our Blessed Lord asks: “What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it?” The answer, of course, is that no man would be so stupid as to do this. A lost sheep is lost, probably through its own fault, and must simply be written off. Ninety-nine are more important than one, and leaving them at risk in the wilderness (the Latin says “in deserto”—in the desert) is sheer foolishness.
 
Regardless, Our Lord insists on searching out and bringing home the lost sheep: “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance,” He teaches us in this Holy Mass.
 
This is a truly comforting teaching, for as the Prophet Isaiah reminds us: “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way.” (Is. 53:6) It is consoling to know that even when we fall into sin and error we shall be sought out and carried back into the fold and welcomed with much rejoicing. It gives us hope when despair threatens to devour us. It sheds light when the shadows of death drag us further into their abyss. Indeed, this is one of the fundamental and defining doctrines of Christianity: that grace and forgiveness of sins are available even for the worst of sinners.
 
And yet, the attitude of the Scribes and Pharisees that Our Lord so clearly rebukes in the Holy Gospel of this Mass has a tendency to resurface, even in the Church herself. The temptation for us to become a group of very “proper” people, safely sanitised from any of the serious sins that others commit, and to show scorn and disbelief when people stray, is always present. Writing-off the lost sheep of our day is commonplace: “It’s a sad story,” we recount, “We must pray for him or her,” we say.
 
Well, yes, of course we must pray for those who have strayed. But we must also work for their return to the fold. We must do all that we can to find them, lay them on our shoulders and bring them back. And we must be willing to rejoice at their return and reintegrate them (and not gossip about the sordid details of their past—real or imagined).
 
This is not to condone sin or to make light of it or its consequences. Indeed, this is to take sin so utterly seriously as to mount an urgent search and rescue mission when someone is lost in its byways! We must hate the sin but love the sinner, as the adage goes. We must practice that “true justice” which “has compassion” of which St Gregory the Great spoke at Matins this morning, and eschew the “false justice” which merely metes out cold scorn towards those who have become lost.
 
In our day, unfortunately, justice and compassion rarely travel together. We either drown people in torrents of false compassion that do not call them to repentance, or we use the workings of justice simply to dispose of those who stray—banishing them more effectively than they themselves had done through their sins.
 
St Benedict will have none of this. “Listen, my son, to the precepts of thy master and incline the ear of thy heart; freely receive and faithfully fulfil the instructions of thy loving father, that by the labour of obedience thou mayest return to him from whom thou hast strayed by the sloth of disobedience,” the Prologue of the Holy Rule begins. Speaking later, of monks who stray, St Benedict insists: “the abbot is bound to use the greatest care, and to exercise all prudence and diligence, so that he may not lose any of the sheep entrusted to him.” (Ch. 37)
 
A headline that reads “Sinner becomes a monk” is not really newsworthy—it is a normal reality. Or rather, it is newsworthy, because it announces the Good News that in face of the reality of sin, repentance, forgiveness and reintegration are possible—indeed they are necessary—in monasteries, in our families and in all our different church communities.
 
As we offer this Holy Mass and worship the Father who accepted the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross offered for the forgiveness of sins, let us beg for an increase in true evangelical zeal in ourselves and in the Church that we may never cease in our duty to seek out and bring back those who are lost. +

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