"A man had two sons ..."

Homily for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year C
Exodus 32.7-11, 13-14 Psalm 51 1 Timothy 1.12-17 Luke 15.1-32

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A man had two sons. The man’s name was Abraham. His sons’ names were Isaac and Ishmael. Isaac was born to Abraham’s wife, Sarah, in her old age, and he was chosen by God to be the father of a great people, the Jewish nation. Into the Jewish people, a man was born named Jesus, the Son of God; and that was the beginning of the Christian family. Abraham’s other son, Ishmael, was born to a slave, Hagar, but he, too, was destined to be the father of a great nation, a people that many generations later would be called Muslim. Abraham loved both of his sons – each in a different way. And through them, his descendents became greater than the stars in the heaven or the sands on the shore of the sea.

A man had two sons. So began a story told by Jesus, a descendant of Abraham, a story told to a group of Pharisees and scribes, tax collectors and sinners. We don’t know the name of the man in the story, or the names of either of the sons, and that’s really not important. What’s important is the love that the man has for his sons, an unconditional love for each of them, a love that leads him to share what he has with them, a love that celebrates and rejoices when the younger son returns home after wandering away. We all know this man, this father, or at least we try to know him as Our Father. Because we are all his sons and daughters.

A man had two sons. It’s been almost two-thousand years since Jesus told his story. This man’s name was David, and he worked as a computer programmer on the 97th floor of Tower One at the World Trade Center in New York City. We’ll never know exactly what happened with David after the airplane hit the tower where he was working on the morning of September 11, 2001, but we do know that David never returned home to his wife and his two sons. His family still tells stories about how he could fix things in creative ways – like using pieces of car tires to patch up a pair of old, worn work boots. And they remember how much David loved each of them. Their lives were changed after that day nine years ago, and the family will never be the same. And there are many other families like them.

A man had two sons. This last man is symbolic, he represents the human heart. One side of the heart, one “son,” is love, mercy, and humility; the other is hate, jealousy, and pride. And they both live within each of us. We have the capacity to hate, we have the ability to put our needs first, always and everywhere. But we also have a heart to love, a soul to forgive, and a desire to seek peace. With God’s grace, we can be formed into his children, with the same characteristics of our heavenly Father, to the degree that we reflect his love. Or we can turn our backs from the one who made us and instead cultivate the self-seeking idols of pleasure, ambition, and power. It’s a choice that we must make – love or hate, mercy or jealousy, humility or pride. Only one path leads to life. Only one path leads to joy. Think about it. What will be the end of your story?