{"id":4343,"date":"2013-09-21T16:49:33","date_gmt":"2013-09-21T15:49:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/?p=4343"},"modified":"2013-09-21T16:49:33","modified_gmt":"2013-09-21T15:49:33","slug":"cutting-or-not-cutting-your-losses-24th-sunday-of-ordinary-time-15-09-13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/?p=4343","title":{"rendered":"Cutting or Not Cutting Your Losses. 24th Sunday of Ordinary Time (15.09.13)"},"content":{"rendered":"

24th Sunday of Ordinary Time (15.09.13)<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Cutting or Not Cutting Your Losses<\/strong><\/p>\n

What does the phrase \u2018to cut your losses\u2019 mean? A generally accepted definition is – to walk away from an investment of self, time, effort or money with nothing to show except the prospect of even more loss. As a preparation for listening to God\u2019s Word the 24th. Sunday of the Year (15 September 2013) you might like to ask yourself the question, \u2018Have I ever cut my losses?\u2019 If the answer is \u2018yes\u2019, then the follow up is \u2018Over what?\u2019 and \u2018How often?\u2019 If the answer is \u2018I cannot remember\u2019 then maybe now is the time for reflexion!<\/p>\n

Many Baptised people have insufficient insight about God\u2019s Word. Consequently the Sunday readings mostly glance off the surface of their busy lives. Worshippers, sitting or standing while God\u2019s Word is read, may be physically in church but their attention can be anywhere except on God\u2019s Word! This isn\u2019t always a matter of disrespect but of a lack of knowledge. Jesus\u2019 parable, about the seed (Word) at the edge of the path which is stolen by the birds, is applicable. If the homily then fails to connect with the congregation, the moment of evangelisation is lost, for another week.<\/p>\n

The miracle is that, despite the multiple genuine opportunities with which we provide Him daily, God does not cut his losses as far as we are concerned! It would be impossible to calculate the number of graced moments from God that each human has let by, and continues to let by, without a response. Yet, God continues his outreach of love to us … unconditionally. It\u2019s a breath-taking truth so far removed from our behaviour that we find it hard to grasp.<\/p>\n

In this Sunday\u2019s Exodus Reading, Moses is cast in the role, as mediator, of Christ\u2019s precursor. Moses weighs in on behalf of humanity when God\u2019s just anger is fit to burst. As leverage Moses cites the faith of Abraham, Isaac and generations when the chosen people were faithful. This speaks to us of the power of intercessionary prayer and lifestyle of dedicated lay Christians, especially parents, as well as that of Cistercians and Carmelites and the like. Do we remember and give thanks, sufficiently, for those who have, and are now, by their lives interceding for us? Do we choose to copy them?<\/p>\n

Paul writing to Timothy (2nd Reading) is utterly certain that he owes his own conversion and faith to the abundant love shown to him by Jesus Christ whom, previously as Saul, he had persecuted. Can you recall \u2018Damascus Road\u2019 happenings in your life – probably very personal and small scale i.e. no resulting temporary blindness? That\u2019s not to say there wasn\u2019t deliberate \u2018blindness\u2018 prior to the happening!\u00a0 Are such graced moments of love recalled as frequently and clearly as those which injure our pride?<\/p>\n

Jesus in Luke\u2019s Gospel this Sunday, emphasises personal responsibility when describing the loss of an animal and a coin. Losing either would affect not only their owner but also affect the community because everyone would have been connected. Hence the communal celebration when the \u2018lost\u2019 are found.<\/p>\n

Jesus\u2019 teaching ratchets up another level when the care of another person is at stake. The parable of the\u00a0 \u2018prodigal\u2019, the lost younger son, is well known but not necessarily properly understood.<\/p>\n

As is the case with all Scripture, understanding depends upon our willingness to acquire background knowledge of times and customs the better to appreciate the significance of the parables.\u00a0 There\u2019s also the question of our willingness to invoke the help of the Holy Spirit. We need God\u2019s grace to bring home to us, personally, the implications of God\u2019s teaching for our own life. Otherwise we are but dysfunctional, distracted spectators at the feast of God\u2019s healing Word.<\/p>\n

The parable of the Prodigal Son has many levels of teaching. One less frequently appreciated, perhaps, concerns the elder son. Adding insult to injury, in the eyes of that elder son, is that as the owner of all his father possesses (the younger son having taken and squandered his share of the family property) he is seeing his property and funds being used to welcome home his \u2018wastrel\u2019 brother. The best robe, ring, sandals, fattened calf, other food and all the rest was the elder son\u2019s property and nobody had asked his permission! On one level, it\u2019s possible to understand the elder son\u2019s anger. On another, it says that not only does God not cut his losses in his loving outreach to each of us, but he also calls upon us to open our hearts and pockets to all \u2018prodigals\u2019. Jesus is convinced that our God constantly steps outside of human logic and expects his followers to do the same.<\/p>\n

Why would anyone risk 99 sheep for one that wandered away, or spend precious time and effort searching for just a single misplaced coin? Jesus tells us that we follow a God who is as spontaneous and illogical in searching for humans who are lost as we are in searching for the things (of less value) that we lose.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most enduring image of God\u2019s uniqueness is found in Jesus\u2019 teaching about the prodigal father. But we can only appreciate the father\u2019s off-the-chart behaviour when we compare it with the logical reaction of his older son.<\/p>\n

How do we deal with a God whose only goal is to bring life to others, especially when God\u2019s passion for another\u2019s life encroaches upon our personal domain? Listen carefully to how\u00a0 the father in the parable responds to his older son\u2019s objections: \u201cMy son, you are here with me always, everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again, he was lost and has been found.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jesus is telling his followers that as long as they\u2019re on their own paths to life, they shouldn\u2019t resent or object to the different ways in which others discover and walk their paths. Jesus demands love from his imitators, not strict justice. You can hear Jesus\u2019 teaching echoed in much of what Pope Francis is saying now.<\/p>\n

At least 25 years before Luke wrote his Gospel, St. Paul had reminded his Corinthian community that as followers of a loving Jesus, they had committed themselves to cultivate the same attribute. \u201cLove,\u201d the Apostle wrote, \u201cis patient. Love is kind. It is not jealous, is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things\u201d (1 Cor 13:4-7).<\/p>\n

Those who worship a strict \u201cjustice, hellfire and brimstone\u201d unreal divinity are in deep trouble.<\/p>\n

The first Act of Penance at Mass has deeply meaningful words for us to share if we care to go deeper than rote recitation – \u201cI confess to almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault…….\u201d Some may contend the words of this Act of Penance do not allow that not all break the Ten Commandments all the time. While this is an individually defensible position, in an assembly of the repentant, the \u2018I\u2019 embraces not only those with me but the antecedents.<\/p>\n

Cutting loose a casualness over a shallowness of faith is not a loss but a gain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

24th Sunday of Ordinary Time (15.09.13) Cutting or Not Cutting Your Losses What does the phrase \u2018to cut your losses\u2019 mean? A generally accepted definition is – to walk away from an investment of self, time, effort or money with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archdiocese-of-liverpool"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4344,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4343\/revisions\/4344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/stbedesclaytongreen.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}