Sunday Reflection with Fr Robin Gibbons - 28 July 2013

Fr Robin Gibbons

Seventeenth Sunday of the Year C

The whole business of Sodom and Gomorrah gets a bit out of hand from time to time. Ignorant people suggest that the sins of the people were forbidden homosexual practices. However a clearer re-reading of the text knocks that old canard on the head! Whatever went on it was certainly more to do with total inhospitality, a lack of basic respect leading to a repulsive attack on strangers. I wonder why people who use this and other passages in the Old and New Testaments won’t or don’t put it into context. Maybe it’s too easy to attack what we don’t like or understand by using chunks from scripture that seem to agree with our prejudices.

If we think of what Abraham asks of God in the reading from Genesis we find a totally different approach from the Most High. Every time Abraham asks if God will spare Sodom and Gomorrah because there are just and true people in the city, the answer is in the affirmative. The number decreases but the answer is the same ‘I will NOT destroy it!’. We know because we are let into the secret of Jesus and his sinless sacrifice, that God will have mercy on our equivalents of Sodom and Gomorrah all because of ONE, just, sinless person, who loved us and gave his life up for the life of the world. Isn’t that a wonderful gift for our world ? Then why don’t we proclaim this good news?
Jesus underscores this need for mercy and compassion, teaching his disciples (and us) the prayer of access to God, the Our Father. He reminds us that this prayer works because we receive forgiveness as we too forgive.

I really wish we would learn that lesson, for mercy brings us very close to the heart of God. Jesus tells us that our heavenly Father is also our dearest friend, open to all we are no matter how sinful we might be. The Lord answers friends who are persistent in asking, opens the door to those who knock on it, and freely gives the Holy Spirit to us. But at a price and what may this be?. Simply compassion and openness, believing in the truth that Christ forgives us our sins.

Let us answer the knock on the door of our heart and let the Spirit in! Kyrie eleison!

Fr Robin Gibbons is an Eastern Rite Chaplain for the Melkite Greek Catholics in Britain.