GUILTY OR NOT GUILTY?

Ikadalawampu’t Anim na Linggo sa Karaniwang Panahon
Luke 16: 19-31

Guilty or not guilty? Tayo po ba ay guilty o not not guilty?

Ang mayamang lalaki – na mayaman nga pero, napansin ba ninyo, kahit man lamang pangalan ay wala – siya ba ay guilty o not guilty? Anong palagay ninyo?

Hindi sinasabi ng talinhaga na masamang tao ang mayamang lalaking yaon. Tahimik ito tungkol sa kung paano siya yumaman. Malinaw rin namang inilalarawan na ang mayamang lalaking yaon ay hindi maramot kay Lazaro dahil pinapayagan pa nga niyang humandusay ito sa pintuan ng kanyang mansyon at mamulot din ng mga mumong nahuhulog mula sa kanyang hapag. Tila not guilty ang mayamang yaon. Mukhang wala naman siyang ginagawang masama kay Lazaro. Inosente siya. Subalit, ang pagka-inosente niya mismo ang nagdala sa kanya sa impiyerno. Ang ganitong uri ng pagka-inosente ay pagkawalang-pakialam.

Maliwanag ang paalaala, aral, at babala ng talinhaga: hindi porke hindi tayo guilty ay nakatitiyak tayong maliligtas. May mga pagkakataong kaya pala tayo not guilty ay dahil wala talaga tayong pakialam. Guilty pa rin tayo, pero guilty tayo hindi para sa anumang masamang ginawa natin kundi para sa anumang kabutihang hindi natin ginawa. Hinahatulan din tayo ng ating pagka-inosente.

Kapag iniisip natin ang mga kasalanan natin laban sa ating kapwa, nakatuon lang ba tayo sa kasamaang ginawa natin at binabale-wala naman natin ang kabutihang hindi natin ginawa? Kapag inuusisa natin ang ating budhi, isinasaalang-alang lang ba natin ang masamang nagawa natin sa iba at isinasaisang-tabi naman natin ang mabuting ipinakait natin sa kanila? Kapag nagsisisi tayo sa ating mga kasalanan, nagsisisi ba tayo dahil nasaktan natin ang ating kapwa ngunit hindi tayo nagsisisi sa ating kawalang-pakialam sa iba? Taus ba sa ating puso ang pagdarasal natin, “I confess to Almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, for I have sinned through my own fault in what I have done and IN WHAT I HAVE FAILED TO DO”?

At ano nga ba ang hindi natin nagawa at hindi ginawa?

Kailangan pa bang isugo ni Abraham si Lazaro mula sa mga patay para balaan tayo at kumbinsihin na guilting-guilty tayo kahit wala tayong masamang ginagawa? Hindi pa ba sapat ang mga paalaala sa atin ng mga buhay? At gayung hindi nga tayo nakikinig sa mga buhay, sigurado bang makikinig tayo sa mga patay? Kung meron mang bumangon mula sa mga patay, hindi kaya iyon babagon para husgahan na tayo, sa halip na balaan lamang?

Pero, teka, meron nang bumangon mula sa mga patay, hindi ba? Ang pangalan Niya ay Jesus. Pero, sineryoso na nga ba natin talaga ang babala Niya?

OUR STORY

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lk 15:1-32

Two religious attitudes collide in the gospel today, and the collision is highly significant. What is the right attitude toward sinners? On the one hand, we have the scribes and the Pharisees who protest Jesus’ open mingling with public sinners. They believe that religious people should stay away not only from sin but from sinners as well. They strongly believe in segregation. On the other hand, Jesus completely opposes their view. Instead of staying away from sinners, Jesus mingles with them and even eats with them. And He does this in the sight of everyone. Thus, to the question “What is the correct attitude toward sinners”, the scribes and the Pharisees answer with “segregation” but Jesus replies with compassion.

Lk 19:10 reveals to us the mind of Christ regarding His understanding of His mission: “For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.” For the Pharisees – whose name literally means “the separated ones” – and for the scribes, who are the experts of the Law, this view of Jesus on His mission is a distorted view. They cannot take it and so they keep on complaining why Jesus openly associates Himself with public sinners. Both public sinners and the self-righteous religious leaders, however, seek Jesus’ company and listen to His words. Thus, Jesus narrates the story that is the favorite of many through ages: The Parable of the Prodigal Son.

A man had two sons whom he loved so much but who both abandoned him. The younger son abandoned him by leaving home while the elder abandoned him, too, even by staying home. The younger left home with an inheritance taken prior to his father’s passing away while the elder stayed home with a hatred that was far from merely passing. On the one hand, the younger left home, thinking that he would experience joy away from his father only to realize in the end that his joy is in his father’s heart. On the other hand, the elder stayed home but, surprisingly, never considered himself a son but a slave.

When the younger son realized his mistake, he thought he was no longer worthy to be called a son. He left home, thinking that joy was anywhere except in his own family, but he arrived at just where he left: his home. And, though his father welcomed him as his son, he was no longer the same person when he returned. At the end of his journey, he had a new understand of himself as a son and a deeper appreciation of his father’s embrace. This is the same with what the poet T. S. Eliot wrote:

At the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

But the elder son? Aha, with all his obedience to his father, he looks at himself as a slave! Obedience for him is not service but servitude, not love but slavery. His staying home is, after all, not a staying with the father but with a master. He who stayed home was not a son but a slave. When his father pleaded with him to enter and join in the feast for the return of his younger brother, he was enraged and, like a long sleeping volcano, he suddenly erupted with fire and fury: “All this years,” he dared berate his father, “I have slaved for you. I never disobeyed even one of your orders. But you have not given me even a kid goat to feast on with my friends. But when this son of yours came home, after squandering your hard-earned money with loose women, you even killed the fatted calf for him.” His anger was such that he was practically immobilized outside their house. He could not enter into their own home not because he was forbidden but because he simply wouldn’t. Do you notice that when the parable started, it was the younger son who went out of the house while the elder stayed inside it, but when it ended, it was the elder son who was outside while the younger was inside?

The words of their father can melt anyone’s heart. “My son,” the father immediately reminded his first-born, “you are with me always; and all that I have is yours.” Wallowing in the mud of hatred, envy, and self-pity, however, the elder son failed to realized that if all that the father had was his and the younger son belonged to the father, therefore, the returnee was not only his father’s prodigal son but his own reconciled brother. And because he failed to understand this, the elder son simply could not share in his father’s joy. How pathetic.

How pathetic we are if we were that elder son. But are we?

Among the many golden lessons of this parable, what we should focus on is not only the fact that the father loved both his sons. We should not miss the point that the father also lived in the hope that his sons would love each other as much as he loved each of them. That kind of love mirrors the personal and unconditional love of God for each of us. That same kind of hope, God, our Father, has in His heart. God loves us more than we know so that we, in turn, may love one another. The reason why Jesus commands us to love one another is that He has loved us first. And we are to love one another not with our hearts but with the heart of Christ. “A new commandment I give unto you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” says the Lord in Jn 13:34.

It is very intriguing that Jesus did not end His parable today. What could have happened, if after his father’s explanation, the elder son still refused to go in? What could the younger son do had he learned that his elder brother was outside the house and would not go in? What else would the father do to persuade his elder son to rejoice with him? How about the younger son’s resolution to be a better man – would it be lasting or fleeting? We are left hanging. We simply do not know what happened next. I suppose, Jesus intentionally kept His story open-ended. He did not give the parable a clear conclusion because He wanted us to give it an ending ourselves.

For this is our story. How will we conclude it?

FIGURING OUT

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
Lk 14:25-33

His mother advised him: “Whatever you say, say nothing.” However, Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet, did not heed his mother’s advice. Reflecting on his relationship with his father who was a quiet farmer, Heaney wrote how his father’s silence was a constant challenge for a son who wished to know him more and be closer to him. In his poem entitled, Follow, Heaney wrote:

I wanted to grow up and plough,
To close one eye, stiffen my arm.
All I ever did was follow
In his broad shadow round the farm.

I was a nuisance, tripping, falling,
Yapping always. But today
It is my father who keeps stumbling
Behind me, and will not go away.

That son started trying to follow the footsteps of the father, but he realized later on that, because their skills were different, their harvests were not the same: potatoes for his father, poems for the son. Truly, very different! Nonetheless, despite the great difference between their skills, their roots kept them attached to each other. It is correct to say, indeed, that no matter how close to each other, each one has to figure out for himself or herself his or her own vocation in life.

In our first reading today, the author of the book of Wisdom keeps our eyes open to the truth that it should not surprise us to find how difficult it is for us to grasp the mind of God because just to understand one another is already hard for us. In fact, sometimes we fail to understand our selves too. While the author of the book of Wisdom talks to God, he actually address himself to us when he says, “For the deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans.”

In the second reading today, we have part of the letter of St. Paul the Apostle to a man named Philemon. Whoever wishes to understand the contents of this letter needs to know its context. From Jerusalem, where he was arrested, Paul – because of his dual citizenship – demanded that he be tried in Rome by the Roman curia. Upon disembarking in Rome, Paul was immediately put under house arrest. What we read today in the liturgy is the part of Paul’s letter where he figured out how to send back a runaway slave to its Christian master. The Christian master was Philemon while the runaway slave was Onesimus. When Onesimus ran away from his master, he met Paul and was converted into Christianity. Thus, the former slave was returning to his former master as a brother already. The words of Paul were carefully written from the heart: “I, Paul, an old man, and now also a prisoner for Christ Jesus, urge you on behalf of my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become in my imprisonment; I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you. Perhaps, this is why he was away from you for a while, that you might have him back forever, no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a brother, beloved especially to me, but even more so to you, as a man and in the Lord. So, if you regard me as a partner, welcome him as you would me.” Pulling some strings, Paul, though imprisoned, set his love into action to set free one who was formerly imprisoned by slavery.

Indeed, our readings today have many figuring out to do. Even in the gospel, Jesus advises us to think really carefully. The demands of following Him are difficult. While Christian discipleship absolutely does not mean going around wearing long faces, it is also certainly not a laughing matter. Thus, anyone who wishes to truly follow Jesus must first carefully figure out over and over again the cost of Christian discipleship. He or she must also consider well if he or she has the resources to meet the cost of following Jesus.

Many times, the heaviest cross we have to bear is not what we need to embrace but what we must let go on account of our following Jesus. In following Jesus, in becoming more like Him, many tend to think only in terms of what they have to do. But there is also so much that we need to undo in order to truly and fully carry our cross each day. We have to undo our pride, our inordinate attachments, our selfish motives, our illicit relationships, our doubts, our indifference, our self-sufficiency, our greed, our sins, etc. We need to undo our selves and allow the grace of God to re-invent us from deep within. We must die to our selves so that we may be a new creation in Christ. The challenge is just too difficult. It requires more than just serious thought.
Thus, after stating His demands, Jesus advises us to think well before deciding to follow Him. The demands are heavy and the considerations they require are great. Difficult demands involve difficult decisions. And difficult decisions are best made on one’s knees.

To underline the value of His advice, Jesus gives us a pair of parables today. whoever plans to build a tower must first sit down and calculate if he has enough resources to spend because if he has none and has started to build nonetheless, the tower of his dreams will be nothing but a colossal monument to his stupidity. In the same way, the king who discovers that his forces are outnumbered by his enemies must also first sit down and discern if he will attack or detract. In this pair of parables, the wise advise given to us is as clear as the sun: sit down, pause, do not rush, study the cost, reflect on the demands, discern well.

Christian discipleship is following the broad shadow of a Master who traveled through a life of loving, carrying a cross over his shoulder. And not one us can do that casually. We must pray and discern well. We do have a lot of figuring out to do. Do we really give time for it?