Luke 15:4-6; Matthew 18:12-14; Gospel of Thomas 107; Psalm 100

Jesus and parables

Christian faith, if it is Christian, is shaped, not by our religious instincts, wishes and desires. Christian faith is not the projection of our needs and interests. Christian faith is shaped by Jesus - or it is not Christian. It may be religious and zealous. It may be attractive and popular. But unless it is in harmony with what Jesus was on about it is not Christian. Not everything that goes under the name of "Christian" or "God" or "church" is in fact Christian. The only reality that makes Christian faith Christian is Jesus!

Central to what Jesus what on about are his parables. They were his specific form of speech. You know many of the parables: about the prodigal son and the waiting father, the good Samaritan, the sower and the fate of his seed, finding the hidden treasure and the costly pearl, about the wheat and the tares, about the rich man and Lazarus, the Pharisee and publican, the lost sheep and the lost coin.

But do you know what? Although the stories seem very simple, easy to understand, but up to the present day scholars are not quite sure how to understand, how to interpret the parables. Indeed, in the last 100 years scholarly opinion has changed significantly as to how we should understand this specific form of communication that Jesus used to relate to the world.

When I was a student, I was told to look for the one point that counts. To do that you have to use your reason. The parables were seen mainly as teaching tools. The parable of the prodigal son teaches us about God's unconditional love. The parables of the hidden treasure and the costly pearl teach us about the joy of discovering what it important. But was Jesus primarily a teacher, perhaps like Socrates or other Greek philosophers? I doubt it. Jesus did not run a philosophical Seminar. He wanted to point people to life, to hope, to love - and therefore to God. And for that you need more than reason!

Within the culture of his day Jesus needed to use a form of communication that was not only interesting, but that involved people. It needed to be a form of communication that made a difference. That was able to become intimate and transform people.

If I give you a rational argument for the existence of God, you may like it or you may reject it or you may say "so what"? Whatever your response, it does not touch you at the deep level of your life. It remains in the area of reason and speculation.

But then you hear stories of courage and faith that not only touch your reason but your being. That move you to laughter or tears. Stories cut from the quarries of life that change you. I have been deeply moved and changed by stories of nameless people and by stories that hit the media - like the life stories of people like Knibb and Carey and Judsom and Mandela and Bonhoeffer and Aung San Suu Kyi.

Jesus said, and he said it often, it was his particular way of speaking of God: the ways of God (what in the New Testament is called the "kingdom of God") are like this story:

"Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbours, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.'

The story

It is a wonderful story about the sheep that got lost in the stony wilderness. When it realised that it was lost, it just laid down to save energies and eventually to die.

But there was the shepherd!

Then there was rustling in the bushes, footsteps. The shepherd appears. The joy of discovery gives him the strength to put the sheep on his shoulders and carry it back to the fold.

Joy needs to be shared! A party for the joy of discovery is called for.

No your reason may say. What about the 99?! Is it responsible to leave them alone? Remember David! When he went to fight Goliath, he left his herd of sheep in the hands of a keeper (1 Sam 17).

But, my friends, that is not the point of the story.

When people heard Jesus speak of a "shepherd" and of "sheep" they immediately made associations. We may even tune in. When we hear the word "shepherd".

The LORD is my shepherd,

I shall not want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures;

he leads me beside still waters;

he restores my soul.

(Psalm 23)

Again, when we hear the word "sheep":

Know that the LORD is God.

It is he that made us,

and we are his;

we are his people,

and the sheep of his pasture.

(Psalm 100)

You see. The story about the "shepherd" and the "sheep" is about God and his people. God wants to claim his people. Every one! Each one!

Not just the righteous, the faithful, those who are good, those who stay in the fold - that was more the opinion of the Pharisees. No, also the one who lost their way or who were pushed to the margin in the stony desert of life. The tax collectors and the sinners and the orphans and the widows.

The Gospel of Thomas misses the point altogether:

Jesus said: the kingdom is like a shepherd who had a hundred sheep. One of them went astray, it was the largest. He left the ninety-nine (and) sought for the one until he found it. After he had exerted himself, he said to the sheep, I love you more than the ninety nine. (§ 107)

No, no, no. Not large or small, good or bad, important or unimportant, famous or not famous. You are God's people, all of you, each one of you, and therefore God will not rest until everyone is found. God's love will not be full until God has brought every one back to the fold!

"you"

That message would raise different responses in people.

The Pharisees may become angry. They are more concerned with the 99 who are in the fold. Outsiders, prodigal sons and daughters, tax collectors and sinners will not be part of the restoration of Israel. The Pharisees would either have to repent or oppose Jesus.

Then there are the normal people, the farm hands and trades people. They would feel included as they discover that God is not about laws and temple and morality and religion and liturgy. But that God is about life and joy and hope and that God has no other passion but to include them.

And then there are the marginal people. The lepers, the poor, the women, the children, the tax collectors. Excluded from God's people by the Pharisees. But Jesus brings "God" to the poor as a word of hope. You are not fated and you are not damned. There is a place for you in the heart of God.

So with this story of the shepherd and the lost sheep, Jesus does not only appeal to our reason, saying "God loves you and God wants you". There is Eros to the Agape, the love of God. More so: Jesus personalises that Eros. He woos for our agreement. He solicits our response.

God will rejoice when he has found and brought back, because that makes God's love full.

Jesus and this parable

This parable is the theological basis for Jesus' being and Jesus' life style. With his life he put flesh to this parable. He accepted responsibility for what he said. Hid deeds lived out what the parable announced.

He went to the lost sheep of Israel. And yet his vision was wider. He knew that God is the creator of heaven and earth, and therefore Jesus included in his life concern all people. But with a special leaning for those whom the culture and religion of his day had neglected.

The story's history

Jesus' story about the shepherd and the joy of finding a lost sheep soon began to have its own history. In different situations, different applications are made. Some fit and some don't quite fit. That is the risk you take if you tell and retell ancient stories.

Let us briefly look at the story's history in the New Testament.

In Luke 15:7, immediately after the parable, it says:

... I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance."

There was no word in the parable about the lost sheep's repentance. All the emphasis was on the shepherd's passion to find and the communal joy of discovery. The shift in emphasis is clear. While the parable places all the emphases of the shepherd seeking and finding the sheep, the sheep being tired and passive, here - in a different situation! - we have the added emphasis on the importance of a human response of repentance.

In introducing the parable, the evangelist Luke explains in advance what for him in his situation the parable implies:

... all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." (Luke 15:1f.)

Luke obviously sees the need in his church to remind hard hearted religious people that God at the core of his being is driven by love. That God is partial. He is partial to those in need. There is a leaning to grace. It was therefore natural that God's man, Jesus, would have fellowship with tax collectors and sinners. As a shepherd seeks his lost sheep and rejoices when he has found it, so God seeks for those who are pressed to the margin and God rejoices when they realise that he is their God.

In the gospel of Matthew the same story becomes part of church policy. It is addressed to the gathered community:

... the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" ... "Take care that you do not despise one of these little ones; for, I tell you, in heaven their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.

Then the parable of the lost sheep is told, with the conclusion: "... it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost." (Matthew 18:9-14)

Do not despise the "little ones". In this case the evangelist is not thinking of children, but he means the people of little faith; people at the margin of the church. On the authority of Jesus' parable of the "shepherd" and the "lost sheep", the evangelist declares: "... it is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost" (18:14).

A church that honours Jesus, a faith that is shaped by Jesus, does not, never, give up on people. The church is an open and compassionate community that seeks to echo the story of the shepherd who leaves 99 in order to find one who is lost in the stony desert of life.

Invitation

My friends, can we find our place in the parable? Shall we continue its story? Shall we evermore return to the well spring from which it comes? Perhaps we mirror the shepherd who has the inner passion to seek that which is lost and bring it home into the fold. Perhaps we are the sheep. Feeling lost and weary, ready to lay down and wonder what would happen.

When the early Christians experienced Jesus as the focus of their lives, this is what Jesus spoke into their lives:

"I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. .... I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep." (John 10:11-15)

You belong to God. I hope that the joy of belonging will be and will remain the underlying melody in your life.