Luke 15:1-7
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him [Jesus]. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” - Luke 15:1-2
There are those that the scribes and Pharisees regarded as unsuitable or unclean so as not to have anything to do with them. They certainly objected to Jesus hobnobbing with tax collectors and sinners, whoever falls in that category for them. Jesus hears their complaint about him and tells them a parable about a lost sheep and how a shepherd would go out of his way to search that one out, even at the risk of leaving ninety-nine other sheep behind. Jesus asks them, “Which one of you wouldn’t do this?”
Have you ever thought about how ridiculous it is, what Jesus is proposing? It’s ludicrous! What shepherd with any good sense would risk the lives of ninety-nine sheep in order to search out just one that strayed and got lost? Of course not! But don’t you see that this is the way that Jesus works, and this is the nature of his parables. He uses hyperbole to catch his audience’s attention. But this is the point isn’t it. Jesus isn’t describing what you and I would do, or what any scribe or Pharisee would do. We have more sense than that. But Jesus isn’t describing any person with an ounce of reason, really. Jesus is talking about God here. God is the reckless shepherd who will go to great lengths to search out the lost and upon finding the one stray lamb, rejoices!
God’s reckless love doesn’t make sense to us. We rationalize and reason why it is we will have nothing to do with a sinner, with whatever definition we wish to give the word “sinner.” We will get on our moral high horse and declare that “those sinners” are not worthy of our attention and we will throw them into whatever pit of hell we can imagine for them. Our love has limits. God’s love? Well? Perhaps a second, third, fourth… look at the parable again. And then we may begin to fathom what God’s love is like.
Let us pray: O God, teach us your ways to love others as you have loved us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.