This is the homily I gave today. The gospel reading was Luke 15:1-32.

That gospel reading gives us three different looks at one message: lost + found = celebrate.

We’ve heard these stories a lot of times. The middle one grabbed me this time. The woman loses a small coin and swept the whole house looking for it, then threw a party with her friends to celebrate finding it. I thought of losing my car keys. Have you been through that? We turn the house upside down to find them, and when we do, we react with a mixture of relief and annoyance. It doesn’t occur to us to celebrate finding them, we just want to get back to whatever. We emphasize the annoyance.

God’s reaction to the lost soul returning has no annoyance in it, because God didn’t have any other plans. Finding us lost souls is God’s main business, not an annoying distraction.

All three of the main characters in these parables, who had lost something or someone important, celebrate when the lost one is found again. Where do people get an attitude like that? Let me suggest what I think is one good possibility.

I’m kind of playing around with inventing a backstory for these characters who Jesus just made up in these parables, so let’s not get too carried away. But here’s my idea: This shepherd who leaves the 99 to find the one lost sheep, this poor woman who sweeps the house looking for the lost coin, this prodigal father – anybody who celebrates finding what was lost – probably grew up under the good influence of parents with that same attitude. We could ask any of them, “Why do you celebrate like this?” and they’d probably answer, “Because, that’s what we do.” That’s what we remember Mom and Dad doing when we were little.

A kid struggling in school comes home with a quiz with an A on it: Calls for celebration: let’s get down to Brown Cow or Hole-in-the-Wall for some ice cream cones. The neighborhood kid who enlisted in the Army or the Navy comes home safe from Afghanistan: calls for celebration – let’s bring a plate of cookies over.

Mothers and fathers set a tone that rubs off on their children, and it sticks. As children we can do our best to ignore everything that Mom and Dad tell us, but no matter how hard we might try, we can never forget how Mom and Dad acted, the atmosphere they created at home, the attitudes they lived by.

There is a dad in one of these parables, father raised one son who was dutiful and obedient and kept his rules. That’s the one we think is like us, even though sometimes we’re like the other son, who turned out to be kind of a goof, but when that wayward son hit bottom, he still had a glimmer of hope in him, and I think that must have come from the way he was brought up.

“Coming to his senses,” it says, he realized he still had a home he could go back to, even if he had cut himself off from his father’s love. Something about the life in that house growing up, the tone that father had set at home, made this young man think, “At least I’ve got a chance of him taking me back as a servant.”

He could think that way because something deep inside him sensed that his father still loved him and cared about him. We have that sense if we grew up in an atmosphere of love and care. The way our parents do that stays with us.

The most spiritual thing we do is not bible reading, prayer or coming to church. Even though all of those are things we should do frequently and mindfully. The most spiritual thing we do is make choices, day by day, especially the choices we make in view of others, most especially the choices we make in view of our children. Our choices are what sets the tone, what really define us, and they make an indelible impression on the young people who see them.

By making sound choices, we can be strong Catholic parents who are raising faith-filled children.

Remember what it’s like to be in love: we do some strange things and make some interesting choices. Our friends may think we’re a little crazy, because all we care about is the one you love. God is in love with us all, like that, to the point of going to some strange and wonderful lengths to get us. Like leaving 99 in the desert to go find one lost one. Like waiting at the gate for the wayward son to come home again. By our standards, this father is acting crazy. The other son kind of thinks so too; that’s because he represents us – the dutiful ones, the people who keep the rules and don’t go off wasting dad’s fortune.

Jesus portrays his own Father as a little crazy, because his point is that God is crazy in love with all of us. God is celebrating over the lost being found. The restoration of the damaged relationship is like the dead being raised back to life. After all, that’s why we’re all here at mass, celebrating how Jesus rising from the dead restores all our damaged relationships with God.

God sets a tone of mercy and forgiveness for us, hoping it rubs off on us, his children. If we can set that kind of tone in our homes and families, that’s something to celebrate.

I have really been struggling with what to do about Assad and Syria. Trying to learn the lessons of 20th century history, I agree with the President that the world cannot allow Assad to deploy chemical weapons unchecked — he, or someone else, will do it again, or worse.
But we also have to learn from another aspect of 20th century history: Gandhi and King taught us that nonviolence is what conquers evil. Meeting violence with violence just promotes violence.
Today’s gospel reading did it for me: we have to take up the cross, not take up arms, and we have to be willing to pay that cost.
So yes, condemn and punish Assad for his great crime against the people of Syria and the people of the world. Make it so he cannot do it again, and others are not emboldened to imitate him. Most importantly, accomplish this nonviolently. It can be done. It just won’t be easy or painless.