4th Sunday of Lent, Year C
First Reading: Josh 5:9a, 10-12
Second Reading: 2 Cor 5:17-21
Gospel Reading: Lk 15:1-3, 11-32
God established Adam and Eve in his friendship, but they stopped trusting him, rebelled against him, and disobeyed him.
What motivated them?
We, their descendants, are tempted by the world, the flesh, and the devil.
For them it was not the world, for, unlike us, they were not covetous. Moreover the whole world was theirs; there were no worldly goods they did not possess.
It was not the flesh, for, unlike us, they were masters of their senses. Besides, there was no physical pleasure they did not already enjoy.
It was the devil. How did he persuade them?
God had forbidden them to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, lest they die. As Pope St. John Paul II noted, they did not at that point know what “die” meant. God was asking them to trust him, like a mother warning a child not to touch a hot stove.
I first understood God’s command when a woman taking my parish RCIA course said after our talk on the commandments, “I wish I had committed some of these sins, so that I would know for myself they were wrong.”
Satan persuaded Adam and Eve that God was trying to keep them in the dark about good and evil; that instead of trusting him, they should find out for themselves.
That was the first human sin, says the Catechism of the Catholic Church, and all subsequent sin has been the same. We do not trust God for our happiness, but take the good things he has created (like sex) at the wrong times, or in the wrong ways – ways that God has forbidden because he knows they will not make us happy in the long run.
Lack of trust in their father’s goodness is what motivates both sons in this Sunday’s parable: the younger son seizes what he wants, while the elder son tries to earn it.
“For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command,” the elder son tells his father; “yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.”
His father replies not like a master to a slave, but like a father to his son: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”
God is our Father. In tempting Adam and Eve, Satan tried to abolish our sense of his fatherhood and leave us with a sense of the master-slave relationship only, said St. John Paul.
Satan still tempts us to think of God as our Baal (“Master”). “I go to Mass every Sunday and pay into the collection,” a man told me, “But since God has stricken my daughter with this disease, I no longer do any more.” Another said, “I resent those who repent on their deathbeds; why should they not work for their salvation like the rest of us?”
With regard to God, we have no right of our own to any merit, notes the Catechism. “Between God and us there is an immeasurable inequality, for we have received everything from him, our Creator.”
St. Thomas More warned that if we try to make a contract with God about what we will do for him and what he will do for us – as though he should be content with the service we care to allow him – God will not sign it; we shall have to provide both signatures ourselves.
From Luke 15, we know that the younger son repented; we are not told about the elder son. However, in another parable, Jesus said that the man who prayed “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” went home justified while the man who pointed out to God that he did not commit adultery, but fasted twice a week and paid tithes on all his possessions did not.
Father Hawkswell is again teaching The Catholic Faith in Plain English. The whole course is available in written form and Sessions 1-25 in YouTube form at beholdvancouver.org/catholic-faith-course. Session 26, “Sin and Forgiveness,” will be available in YouTube form starting March 27.