Who is the stray?
The 17th Sunday after Pentecost
The
Pharisees in this Sunday's Gospel reading had made their peace with the fact
that a segment of the population was lost - outside the circle of
righteousness. And they grew steadily
more disappointed with Jesus. Unlike them,
he didn't seem interested in consolidating the gains of Judaism in the lives of
people who believed they were already on the road to righteousness. Rather than
associate with the seriously religious, Jesus demonstrated a penchant for gathering around himself a
community of people he referred to as the lost
sheep of the house of Israel: the marginally religious, tax collectors and
low lifes. To make matters worse, Jesus
seemed reasonably comfortable in the presence of such folk. The Pharisees
grumbled about this in the hearing of Jesus' disciples.
Year C
Luke 15:1-10
Over the
years I have lost any number of clerical collars, Bic lighters, pens and pocket
knives. Some of them have gone overboard
(the lighters falling from shirt pockets and the knives knocked out of my hand
while cutting lines) but some of these have just disappeared into the
ether. They're all in unknown places
because I never really bothered to look for them or, frankly, didn't care if
they were lost because I could always get another one along the way.
They were lost, or remained lost, because I just didn't care.
They were lost, or remained lost, because I just didn't care.
The
Pharisees in this Sunday's Gospel reading had made their peace with the fact
that a segment of the population was lost - outside the circle of
righteousness. And they grew steadily
more disappointed with Jesus. Unlike them,
he didn't seem interested in consolidating the gains of Judaism in the lives of
people who believed they were already on the road to righteousness. Rather than
associate with the seriously religious, Jesus demonstrated a penchant for gathering around himself a
community of people he referred to as the lost
sheep of the house of Israel: the marginally religious, tax collectors and
low lifes. To make matters worse, Jesus
seemed reasonably comfortable in the presence of such folk. The Pharisees
grumbled about this in the hearing of Jesus' disciples.
Jesus
then tells a story about two individuals who would not be satisfied until they
had restored a lost element - the one missing coin out of ten and the one
missing sheep out of a hundred - individuals for whom that missing portion was
a painful reality. They would search for
the one even if that meant leaving to the side, for a while, the sheep who had
not strayed. The lost are like this he
said: they are valuable and worth the energy of a search. And God is like this: he will not make peace
with the loss of his creatures. What
sort of Shepherd would?
That's
all I wanted to say. Among the list of
"things I wish I'd said but didn't" has to be a line from Sarah Dylan
Breuer's lectionary blog:
"If
one sheep is with the shepherd and ninety-nine aren't, who's really the
stray?"
