6 November 2025 - to seek and save the lost

 

Today's Readings
(Audio) 

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."

Jesus was a visible manifestation of the heart of the Father. He came because God so loved the world that he, the only Son, was sent to save it. The Pharisees were content to restrict God's mercy and to set limits on his love. They thought they were already walking in it themselves and had no significant motivation to share it. To them, most of the world seemed like a lost cause. But the Pharisees were not necessarily correct about their own relationship to God being entirely healthy. Their unwillingness to share it to others was compounded by the fact that they were typically unable to do much to help to bring others to God. Sinners and tax collectors were more likely to have a negative effect on them, rather than receiving anything beneficial from them. They weren't well equipped to make a difference, and even if they had been, their hearts weren't in it.

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?

Jesus had an entirely different attitude toward the lost sheep of Israel. He didn't see them as a liability. He pursued them as only someone not concerned with normal human limitations would do. He could seek the lost sheep without risk to himself or risk to the ninety-nine that remained behind. The Pharisees had to be concerned with themselves and with those who already gave the appearance of a spiritual life. They only had so much attention they could apply to all of the things that clamored for their attention. Thus, they found competing claims threatening, and focused mainly on keeping themselves safe. They weren't about to go on expedition to dinners with sinners, because, after all, what benefit was that to them? But Jesus was different. He was free from the prison of selfishness that ensnared most of the world and was thus able to be entirely available to search for every sheep that went astray. 

It is only in Christ that we ourselves may become free from the prison of self and available for others. This is what Paul described in his letter to the church at Rome:

None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself.
For if we live, we live for the Lord,
and if we die, we die for the Lord;
so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord's.

When we belong to him we begin to share his joy when the lost sheep is located and the lost coin is found. In fact, the degree to which we do share this joy is a good indicator of the degree to which God's priorities have become our own. This joy is the beginning of that which will be fully realized in the heavenly banquet. It will be filled, not only with our own joy that we managed to make it home, but with the joy of God himself in the fact that he brought us safely into his presence.

We Belong To God