Fifth Sunday of Lent 2016: John 8:1-11

Jesus never condemns sinners. In today’s Gospel he refuses to condemn the woman, caught in adultery, to the death penalty as was demanded by Old Testament law (the man would have been subject to the same law by the way!). Once again the Pharisees are trying to trick Jesus. We may wonder what Jesus was writing on the ground as they continued to question him, but he delivers the winning statement in this debate and the condemners are forced to leave one by one.

We live in a stone-throwing society which cares little for the circumstances that cause people to make wrong choices. We want someone to blame, and the sooner the better. Those who accuse others often do so from a lack of self-knowledge and laziness, because it is very easy to be negative. We have all had a part to play in creating climate injustice, but the blame game won’t solve the issue. We need to be proactive and challenge complacency on this issue wherever we see it. We make mistakes but we can always start again. When we relate compassionately to those who are in difficulty we can rediscover our common humanity.

"Yet all is not lost. Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start, despite their mental and social conditioning … No system can completely suppress our openness to what is good, true and beautiful, or our God-given ability to respond to his grace at work deep in our hearts. I appeal to everyone throughout the world not to forget this dignity which is ours. No one has the right to take it from us. Laudato Si’, 205

Fourth Sunday of Lent: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

 Sometimes we can be so familiar with a particular Gospel passage we tend to switch off after the first few sentences. That would be a shame, especially when this is one of the great blockbuster parables. The Pharisees were a group obsessed with ritual purity and Jesus’ parables of things lost and found is his response to these barriers which excluded people from community and from God. The real challenge in this parable is what happens after the lost son returns. The elder brother has ‘worked like a slave’ all those years and is understandably upset. But the point the Father makes is that his outreach to the younger brother will not change his inheritance. It will cost him nothing to reach out. He has nothing to lose by welcoming home the lost. The Father’s behaviour towards the younger son would have been considered extremely foolish by those around him. But the message is clear: no matter how far we wander from home, God is still a loving God. The elder brother has a choice, to come to the party or to sulk in the corner. Luke, being the excellent storyteller that he is, leaves the reader to decide the outcome.

Today, we can try to place ourselves somewhere in this parable. Where do you stand? We might even think of the thousands of refugees who are displaced around the world. Can we open our hearts and our communities to them? Today’s parables shows us that God returns the lost to the community, regardless of the boundaries that we have put in place, and teaches a lesson in radical hospitality.

"God of love, show us our place in this world as channels of your love for all the creatures of this earth, for not one of them is forgotten in your sight. Enlighten those who possess power and money that they may avoid the sin of indifference, that they may love the common good, advance the weak, and care for this world in which we live". Laudato Si’, 246