Thursday in the 31st Week of Ordinary Time, November 4, 2021

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.”  The events recounted in the Gospel reading for today’s Mass occurred on the road to Jerusalem.  It is not clear whether the Lord is still in Galilee or has entered Judea.  It is a few days walk between Capernaum, where Jesus often stayed, and Jerusalem, but he proceeds only gradually because he often stops to speak to the crowds or to heal the sick.  Here we see that the local tax collectors and “sinners” approach him.  The Jewish people despised the tax collectors as collaborators with the Roman occupiers and as men who coerced people into paying more than was due, for their own profit.  It is not clear what is meant by the very general “sinners” although this might include prostitutes and possibly those who lived outside the cities and towns, like the shepherds.  The derelicts who haunt the fringes of every society and time might also be numbered with them.  The Pharisees and perhaps people in general would have thought of them as “sinners” in the sense that they lived outside the Law in terms of personal morality as well as in that they would have been considered ritually unclean.  That such people approached to listen to Jesus gives us an indication of the wonder and awe that surrounded him.  But this very fact annoyed the Pharisees: “The Pharisees and scribes began to complain.”  We might think that the Pharisees and scribes had better things to do, but they had erected a cult to ritual purity quite unlike anything commanded in the Law.  For them, the presence of a person they deemed “unclean” threatened to contaminate all who around them.  It was, they thought, their responsibility to complain.  But they went a step further, attempting to insinuate that Jesus was unclean through his association with these folks: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  Here, they act out of jealousy and seek to outrage the large crowd against the One they followed.  We note that the Lord at this moment has not “welcomed” them and is not eating with them.  The Pharisees bring this up as an accusation against previous actions.  We see how out of touch the Pharisees are, for the crowd is following the Lord partly because they believe he will reform the religion which they had corrupted.

“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?”  The Lord does not rebuke the Pharisees before the crowd but takes the opportunity he teach everyone about repentance.  To do this, he speaks of sheep and shepherds.  The shepherd has a hundred sheep and “loses” one.  That is, he does not kill it or drive it away; it wanders from the fold of its own accord, perhaps seeking better nourishment.  It will not find it, of course, for if the grass was of greater richness in another place the shepherd would have led his flock there.  Instead, it will find itself in a desolate place.  The shepherd, counting his sheep towards the end of the day, notices that one is missing.  He leaves his flock in the hands of his assistants, who are to stand pat, and goes off into the desolation to find his sheep.  Perhaps the sheep hears the shepherd’s voice and responds, or perhaps, because he carries it back on his shoulders, the shepherd finds it hungry and exhausted.  He returns to the flock with the sheep and “calls together his friends and neighbors” upon his arrival home.  He says to them, “Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep!”  His great joy at finding this sheep tells us something of the pains the shepherd took in locating it.  The Lord concludes this parable, saying, “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.”  Why is this?  It sounds as though it is better to sin and repent than to stay clear of sin.  But this is really about the Shepherd and his dedication and sacrifice in finding the sheep that “was lost”.  The meaning becomes clearer when we know that the Greek word translated as “lost” also has the meaning of “to die” and “to perish”.  It is the Lord who brings back the sinner from the dead.

“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 tells us that the woman had ten drachmas.  A “drachma” was a coin worth a full day’s work, so we can see that this amounted to a lot of money, likely the result of years of saving.  She would have felt the loss keenly.  Therefore, she lights a lamp and goes thoroughly through the house in search of it. “And when she does find it, she calls together her friends and neighbors.”  She does so out of the joy that her strenuous efforts have been successful.  

“In just the same way, I tell you, there will be rejoicing among the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  The Pharisees did not preach repentance from sin.  They preached the need to remain ritually clean, which they associated with righteous behavior.  The Lord discounts this obsession of theirs entirely because it dispenses with a God of mercy and love in favor of a god who counted beans and looked for the slightest dust on shelves.  Jesus teaches that he has come from heaven to save us who are dead in sin and to “raise us up” on his shoulders.