Thursday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 5, 2020

Luke 15:1-10

The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So Jesus addressed this parable to them. “What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it? And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance. Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it? And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found the coin that I lost.’ In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

“The tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus.”  We should think about why the tax collectors and sinners wanted to listen to the Lord Jesus.  His message of repentance was harsh for the observant Jews; we would expect it to be forbidding to those who were not.  Still, they came, and the Lord became known for consorting with tax collectors, prostitutes, and other sinners.  They may have come to him originally because they heard of his miracles, or knew someone who had been cured.  Certainly, friends of Matthew would have met the Lord at his house and rejoiced at hearing a preacher who did not chase them away.  His rebukes of the Pharisees might also have aroused their curiosity.  At any rate, he had something to feed them, and they were hungry for it.

“But the Pharisees and scribes began to complain.”  The Pharisees and the scribes were not feeding these people spiritual food.  Perhaps they did not expect them to be hungry for God’s word.  They certainly did not see themselves as servants but as members of a class.  Today we might call this “clericalism”.  “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  It is as though the Pharisees believed deep-down that the tax collectors and prostitutes had always been sinners and always would be: that sinning was their identity.  We have this attitude when we look at elderly people or at folks with chronic health problems and we think that they must always have been old or sick; they could not have been young or healthy once.  This allows us to ignore them, to brush past them, and to avoid thinking that we must also age and lose our health one day.

“What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?”  As someone who used to raise hogs, this question has always baffled me.  If one of my pigs had gotten loose and disappeared over the horizon, I would not have gone looking for it.  I would have waved and wished it luck.  The fact is that a farmer or rancher loses animals from time to time, and unless this is the only sheep he owns or is one of just a couple, he does not spend much time worrying about it.  The apparent recklessness of the owner of the sheep in the parable brings to mind the rich man who loaned his servant an extravagant amount of money and also of the father of the prodigal son, who disregarded the loss and shame which his son caused him.  “And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors.”  The work and trouble as well as potential danger of hunting down this lost sheep are quickly forgotten and the owner rejoices when he finds it.  It is as though he had come upon a long, lost friend.  

“I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.”  The over-the-top joy of the sheep’s owner is nothing as compared to the jubilation in heaven over a sinner who repents.  Now, the souls in heaven are already perfectly happy and the sight of the repentance of the sinner does not affect them personally, but they exult because of the glory that this repentance renders to God.  The “ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance” is the Lord implying, “the ninety-nine people who consider themselves righteous who do not think they need to repent.”  These do not render glory to God.

“Or what woman having ten coins and losing one would not light a lamp and sweep the house, searching carefully until she finds it?”  The Greek text says that the woman possessed ten drachmas.  While it is difficult to estimate the value of a drachma in today’s currency, it might have amounted to a day’s wages for a skilled worker such as a smith or a carpenter.  We can well imagine here the frantic nature of the search and the great relief of finding the coin.  Here again, the joy of finding the lost item goes beyond what seems warranted.  “In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  We see how God values the souls he has created: the magnitude of his love is absolutely incomprehensible.  He loves simply out of who he is.  This is our God.  We stand rapt in wonder as he gaze at it in the Scriptures, and as we realize that this is how much he loves each of us.