Fourth Sunday in Lent 2022 C

INTRO:
Have you simply looked at a person and evaluated him or her on what they are wearing?

Several years ago, I was disappointed to hear that some girls would group themselves as “friends” by making sure they were wearing a certain type of hairband!!

Boys were doing the same by making sure their group all had the same tennis shoes.
These children of God were separating themselves from others.

That is happening to many adults these days when watching the news or discussing news at a dinner party. People take “political sides” or “stances” that divide us.

When praying over the Gospel reading for you this week, I kept hearing the phrase

“This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

Of course, these words were spoken by the PHARISEES about Jesus’s character and what he was doing. He was being judged, criticized, despised because Jesus, as a JEW, was not supposed to associate with tax collectors and sinners, JEWS DID NOT ASSOCIATE WITH PEOPLE THAT HAVE DIFFERENT WAYS OF LIFE.

So, what is God saying to me and you these days on this fourth week of LENT? Does God want us to EAT WITH SINNERS?

I believe YES. JESUS associated with everyone. If we associate only with those who think and act like us, we are missing out on developing our ability to fully love, and that means developing our ability to look at ONES HEART and not their opinions.

What JESUS was good at was LOOKING AT SOMEONE’S HEART, not their sins. Quietly he is saying to himself when he is with a SINNER,
“MY FATHER CREATED THAT HEART IN that person
and I love what my father created.”

Even the Scriptures remind us: If you love those who love you what good is that?

AND at the end of this story what happens??? The SINNER comes home and who cares WHAT THE SINNER DID! Let us eat!
The merciful father is putting on a feast for THE SINNER.

CONCLUSION

There is a FEAST here for you today as well. Let us EAT and Celebrate. Let us consume the REAL PRESENCE of JESUS CHRIST and become more like him when watching TV or discussing “people” who think and act differently. Let us be calm in the presence of others and love the HEARTS of all which were created by God our father.