Homilies & Thoughts

The death penalty is certainly a controversial subject. And with any controversial subject, we have a tendency to talk past one another. We speak different languages. We have different priorities.

Those who support the death penalty speak about safety, the community, justice, and making things right for victims. Those who oppose it speak about mercy, rehabilitation, and the protection of life, often with the conviction that we have advanced beyond this kind of punishment.

We like to make the Gospel safe and comfortable. We like to keep its demands at a distance, so that it has plenty to say about other people and very little to say about us.

And that is easy to do today. We hear Jesus confronting the chief priests and elders, and we treat it as somebody else’s argument from two thousand years ago. He exposes their refusal to repent, even when tax collectors and prostitutes do. And we feel comfortable, because we have already decided that we are on the side of the underdogs. We are the good guys in this story.

If we were at mass yesterday, or looked at yesterday’s readings, we may notice something familiar in today’s Gospel. When Jesus asks, “Who do the crowds say that I am?” the disciples give the same answers we heard yesterday in the story about Herod. The same guesses about Jesus keep coming up.

These passages almost follow one another in Luke, but there is a story between them. And I think it helps to look at the chapter in order, because we have heard much of it throughout this week.

Herod is an interesting figure in the Gospels. With several members of the same family sharing that name, it can be hard to keep them straight. But the Herod in today’s Gospel is the same Herod Antipas who had John the Baptist beheaded. Mark tells us that he enjoyed listening to John, even though he was perplexed by what he heard. And then he had his head cut off. Now he wants to hear more about Jesus. He keeps trying to see him. Once again, he’s perplexed.

When do we give up? I think that is one of the questions the Lord addresses in today’s Gospel.

There is a phrase often used in the business world that applies to much of life: the sunk cost fallacy. We have spent so much time, money, or effort on something that we feel we must keep doing it, even when it is not accomplishing what we hoped. Sometimes the best choice is to start over and endure the pain of doing so.

People often struggle with the way the Lord talks about family, because he seems to distance himself even from the concept of it.

But over the years, I have noticed something unusual. The people who complain the most about these sayings often have the most difficult relationships with their own families. They object to the Lord saying these things, but then they are always fighting with their relatives. They are distant from some of them and no longer speak to others.

When we hear this parable, we often think of deathbed conversions. We think of the repentant thief crucified beside Jesus, or of someone who comes to faith very late in life. And perhaps something in us objects: they did not go through the difficult part of the Christian life. They did not spend years and decades struggling to be good and holy. They just slipped in at the last minute.

This seems like an unusual passage to choose for a Gospel reading. There’s really nothing happening here. It’s three verses, mostly a list of people who were there.

And yet, tucked into that list is a small detail that matters: “and many others.” It doesn’t tell us who they were. It simply tells us that many other people were with Jesus, supporting his ministry and playing an essential part in it.

The Lord tells us that the one who has been forgiven much will show great love. But think back to this past Sunday. In Matthew’s Gospel, we heard the parable of the master who forgave his servant an immense debt. That servant then went out and refused to show the same kind of forgiveness to someone else.

That creates an interesting contrast with what the Lord says today. In the parable, the one who was forgiven an immense, if not impossible, debt did not respond with love at all. So why does this sinful woman respond differently? Why does she love greatly when the servant in the parable did not?

I think we’ve all met people whom you can never please. No matter what you do, it’s never the right thing. They always have another complaint. But that is not what this Gospel is about, although there are similarities. Jesus is describing people who want their own decisions affirmed.

They play the flute, and you should dance. They sing a dirge, and you should weep. That is how the Pharisees and the Sadducees are behaving. It’s not that they can’t be pleased. It’s that the only way to please them is to do exactly what they want. They want control, and Jesus and John the Baptist are not giving them that control.

This scene in the Gospel has been depicted in art many times. For many people, especially mothers, it is a deeply emotional scene. But it also shows us something important about our faith.

One of the great challenges in the early Church was getting people to accept that God truly became man. There were people who did not want to believe that Jesus was truly human. They wanted to believe that it was somehow an appearance, that it had been faked. They were scandalized by the Crucifixion. God dying on a cross—that is difficult to accept.

We are astoundingly capable of being self-centered. We can put ourselves—our desires, our wants, our will—above everything and everyone. We can make ourselves the center of the universe and measure everything by what it means for us. And I think that is at the heart of this parable.

We hear today’s Gospel as a lesson about forgiveness: we must forgive if we are to be forgiven. And certainly that is its message. But Jesus also shows us what can keep that lesson from ever reaching the heart. He shows us someone who receives an extraordinary gift and goes on living as though nothing has changed.