The Passage<\/p>\n
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him (Jesus).\u00a0 And the Pharisees and the scribes murmered, saying, \u201cThis man receives sinners and eats with them.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n So he (Jesus) told them this parable: \u201cWhat man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost, until he finds it?\u00a0 And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.\u00a0 And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, \u2018Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.\u2019\u00a0 Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine persons who need no repentance.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cOr what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek diligently until she finds it?\u00a0 And when she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, \u2018Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin which I had lost.\u2019\u00a0 Just so, I tell you, there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.\u201d<\/em> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0[Revised Standard Version]<\/p>\n \u201cBut I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal Life.\u201d<\/em> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0[1 Timothy 1.16]<\/p>\n \u00a0 In the Name of Christ + Jesus Our Lord<\/p>\n Focusing on the conversations that run from the LORD God to and between us during this Pentecost season is not always easily maintained.\u00a0 The conversations mix in with the stuff of this world\u2019s life \u2013 football and baseball games of some importance, the testing of good and bad ideas in the emerging political season, weighing the competency levels of those who intend to serve on local, state and national levels, and stark reminders of what happened twenty-one years ago on 09.11.<\/p>\n Of all this stuff, it is clear that the recall of 09.11.01 is healthy for all the people in this country.\u00a0 Yes, it catches us up in the horrors of that day, but it also recalls the determination that saw a country climb out of those horrors.\u00a0 We are still struck how people responded with no hesitation to give assistance to others, even if it meant that they would lose their own lives.<\/p>\n It is in that context, then, that our Lord, through today\u2019s Gospel, chooses to move our attention to the realities of his Life, particularly as they spill out from his Forgiveness.\u00a0 It is such Forgiveness that creates his people and sustains them.<\/p>\n The Lord\u2019s Forgiveness reveals itself in following circumstances: we see people in the Lord\u2019s parish communities offering their abilities and efforts for long hours so parishes can do their work well; we see people in the Lord\u2019s parish communities stepping into his Scriptures and Sacraments Sunday after Sunday even though their lives are being squeezed so hard they can barely breathe; we see people in the Lord\u2019s parish communities quietly reflecting his Life in their work places, their schools and their homes.<\/p>\n What is going in these situations is that the Lord\u2019s Forgiveness is working its ways into the lives of such people, re-creating, sustaining and energizing them! \u00a0\u00a0It is also the Lord\u2019s Forgiveness that swarms us with the deepest joy possible!<\/p>\n Such joy contrasts sharply with the joy surrounding us in this world\u2019s life.\u00a0 In the world\u2019s life deep joy would be \u2013 companies where you could work your entire life, a permanent shut-down of all the evil in the world\u2019s people, success in whatever you set out to do, lives that would be free of illness.<\/p>\n According to the Life given us by our Lord in Baptism, though, deep joy is unleashed when Forgiveness swarms the persons who repent!\u00a0 This is the reality thundering out of today\u2019s Gospel!<\/p>\n Luke notes that all the tax collectors and sinners, that is, people with no reputations or shoddy ones, are coming to listen to Jesus.\u00a0 The tax collectors were Jewish natives who worked for the Roman occupiers of their country and were well paid for it \u2013 their fellow countrymen resented both the taxes they had to pay as well as the higher life-style of these collectors.\u00a0 The sinners were Jewish people who either had no interest in the high standards of the Pharisees and scribes, or could not match their commitment levels.<\/p>\n However, the Pharisees and the scribes, the ones with the glittering reputations, are grumbling about Jesus.\u00a0 This \u201cgrumbling\u201d is the same word used to describe the \u201cmurmuring\u201d of the Lord\u2019s people as they made their way through the wilderness after the Exodus from Egypt.\u00a0 The Pharisees, who emerged in the years between the Babylonian Exile and Jesus (from the 400s BC to Jesus\u2019 birth), kept the Law, including its oral traditions, in the smallest detail.\u00a0 They were so intent on not going into another Exile that they expanded the Ten Commandments to Six Hundred Thirteen, and were highly serious about paying close attention to them!\u00a0 They looked down on and kept themselves separate from those individuals who did not share their understanding and their commitment.<\/p>\n The scribes were experts in the Law \u2013 they studied the Law to protect and defend it (remember it is detailed in the Torah, the first five books of the Old Testament). \u00a0They instructed others in the Law, passing on their learning without any fees or charges; they also served as judges in the administration of the Law.<\/p>\n The high view that the Pharisees and scribes had of themselves shows up in the way they address Jesus in today\u2019s Gospel.\u00a0 \u201cThis \u2018fellow\u2019 or \u2018man\u2019 (note the lack of respect!) welcomes sinners (obviously they are not in the same category!) and eats with them (horrifying!)!\u201d\u00a0 As he responds to their grumbling, Jesus relates two parables.<\/p>\n In the first one he describes the search for a lost sheep and the joy at finding it (sheep do not have ability to take care of themselves, this explains the drive to find it).\u00a0 Jesus notes the \u201cjoy\u201d in heaven that erupts over the finding (the Greek word is describing the Life of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!).\u00a0 This \u201cjoy\u201d comes from eternity into this world through the Lord Jesus Christ.\u00a0 Today this joy keeps coming from eternity into this world through the Lord\u2019s Scriptures along with his Sacraments of Baptism, Forgiveness and Eucharist.<\/p>\n Such joy is unleashed by one repentant sinner (the people who discover they have been living for themselves and now are being turned back to the Lord who baptized them)!\u00a0 This joy is not unleashed by the crowd that needs no repentance (a critical observation about the Pharisees and scribes!).<\/p>\n In the second parable Jesus describes the search for a lost coin and the joy at finding it.<\/p>\n The lost coin was a Greek drachma, similar to a Roman denarius; it was worth a day\u2019s earnings (today\u2019s pay of fifteen dollars per hour would amount to one hundred twenty dollars).\u00a0 In Jesus\u2019 day, ten of these coins could be the life savings of a family, seeing them through the periods when there was no work; that\u2019s why there was this intense drive to find it.<\/p>\n The same Greek word is used for the \u201cjoy\u201d at the finding of the lost coin, turning us again into the eternal Life of LORD God.\u00a0 Jesus points out the \u201cjoy\u201d among the Lord\u2019s angels that is triggered by one repentant sinner, one person being swarmed with his Forgiveness; one person who has found out that living for oneself results in a dead-end.\u00a0 It is striking to observe that this repentance is not occurring on a massive scale (it\u2019s like twelve people being fed in the Eucharist rather than the five thousand in John 6; the occurrence is like one day rather than all three hundred sixty-five).<\/p>\n Notice, however, the pattern in both parables \u2013 something is lost, there is a determined search for it, what is lost is found, there is great joy at the finding.\u00a0 Deep joy erupts in heaven and on earth when a person discovers that he or she has been pulled away from living for self and now begins to live in the Lord who rescues and sustains his people.\u00a0 Such repentance, signaling a person\u2019s turn from the self to the LORD God, swarms him or her with the Lord\u2019s Forgiveness.<\/p>\n This repentance enables us to see the people in the Lord\u2019s parish communities who quietly reflect his Life in their homes, their work places and their schools.\u00a0 It enables us to see the people in the Lord\u2019s parish communities stepping into his Scriptures and Sacraments Sunday after Sunday even though their lives are being squeezed so hard they can barely breathe.\u00a0 It enables us to see the people in the Lord\u2019s parish communities offering their abilities and efforts for long hours so parishes can do their work well.<\/p>\n The realities of our repentance and the Lord\u2019s Forgiveness are seen most clearly in Jesus\u2019 Cross.\u00a0 The Cross pulls our sin (our instinctive self-absorption) into it, crushes it and re-sets us in the Life streaming from his Baptism.\u00a0 If we\u2019re like the Pharisees or the scribes in today\u2019s Gospel (a very real possibility for today\u2019s Christians), there is no need to repent!\u00a0 If we\u2019re like the tax collector or the sinner (also a very real possibility for today\u2019s Christians), there is a significant and driving need to repent!<\/p>\n If we\u2019re like the Pharisees or the scribes, we avoid the Cross; if we\u2019re like tax collector or sinner, we let the Cross embrace us.\u00a0 The Cross vividly reminds us that the LORD God steps into the messiness and sorriness of our self-centered lives, crushes the sin that is always grinding us down, restores us to his Life and now swarms us with his Forgiveness!\u00a0 May that Forgiveness continue to run through the conversations we are having with our Lord and one another as we make our way through the stuff of this world\u2019s life!<\/p>\n Now may the peace of the Lord God, which is beyond all understanding, keep our<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0 hearts and minds through Christ + Jesus Our Lord<\/p>\n
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