The lost sheep
1 Meanwhile tax collectors and sinners were seeking the company of Jesus, all of them eager to hear what he had to say.
2 But the Pharisees and the scribes frowned at this, mut tering, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
3 So Jesus told them this parable:
4 “Who among you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, will not leave the nine ty-nine in the wilderness and seek out the lost one till he finds it?
5 And finding it, will he not joyfully carry it home on his shoulders?
6 Then he will call his friends and neighbors together and say: ‘Celebrate with me for I have found my lost sheep.’
7 I tell you, just so, there will be more re joicing in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine upright who do not need to repent.
8 What woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one, will not light a lamp and sweep the house in a thorough search till she finds the lost coin?
9 And finding it, she will call her friends and neighbors and say: ‘Celebrate with me for I have found the silver coin I lost!’
10 I tell you, in the same way there is rejoicing among the angels of God over one repentant sinner.”
The prodigal son
11 Jesus continued, “There was a man with two sons.
12 The younger said to his father: ‘Give me my share of the estate.’ So the father divided his property between them.
13 Some days later, the younger son gathered all his belongings and started off for a distant land where he squandered his wealth in loose living.
14 Having spent everything, he was hard pressed when a severe famine broke out in that land.
15 So he hired himself out to a well-to-do citizen of that place and was sent to work on a pig farm.
16 So famished was he that he longed to fill his stomach even with the food given to the pigs, but no one offered him anything.
17 Finally coming to his senses, he said: ‘How many of my father’s hired workers have food to spare, and here I am starving to death!
18 I will get up and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against God and before you.
19 I no longer deserve to be called your son. Treat me then as one of your hired servants.’ With that thought in mind he set off for his father’s house.
20 He was still a long way off when his father caught sight of him. His father was so deeply moved with compassion that he ran out to meet him, threw his arms around his neck and kissed him.
21 The son said: ‘Father, I have sinned against Heav en and before you. I no longer de serve to be called your son…’
22 But the father turned to his servants: ‘Quick! Bring out the finest robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
23 Take the fattened calf and kill it. We shall celebrate and have a feast,
24 for this son of mine was dead and has come back to life. He was lost and is found.’ And the celebration began.
25 Meanwhile, the elder son had been working in the fields. As he returned and was near the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing.
26 He called one of the servants and asked what it was all about.
27 The servant answered: ‘Your brother has come home safe and sound, and your father is so happy about it that he has ordered this celebration and killed the fattened calf.’
28 The elder son became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and pleaded with him.
29 The indignant son said: ‘Look, I have slaved for you all these years. Never have I disobeyed your orders. Yet you have never given me even a young goat to celebrate with my friends.
30 Then when this son of yours returns after squandering your property with loose women, you kill the fattened calf for him.’
31 The father said: ‘My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.
32 But this brother of yours was dead, and has come back to life. He was lost and is found. And for that we had to rejoice and be glad.’”
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Comments Luke, Chapter 15
THE BLACK SHEEP
Why are the Pharisees complaining? Not out of love for religion but because they feel left out: if Jesus associates with sinners and treats them like the just ones, what have they gained with all their observances? But Jesus did not come to give prizes, but to save, The person who loves tries to save his neighbor instead of condemning him.
Happy the one sheep Jesus went after, leaving the ninety-ine! Poor righteous ones who do not need God’s forgiveness!
In large cities today, the church seems to be left with only one sheep.How come it does not getout, namely, let go of its income,its privileges or its devotions of a comm.ercial style, to go out looking for the ninety-nine who got lost? To leave the comfortable circle of believers who have no puoblems, to look beyond our renewed rituals, and to be ready to be criticized just as Jesus was criticized, is the challenge today.
Who lights the lamp,sweeps the house and searches except God himself? But, out of respect for God, the Jews of Jesus’ time preferred not to name him, and they used expressions such as the angels or heaven.
ORIGINAL SIN
THE PRODIGAL FATHER
There are three characters in this parable: the father, representing God; the older son, the Phari see But who is the younger son ? Is he the sinner or perhaps Man?
The Man wants freedom and thinks, many times, that God takes it away from him. He begins by liaving the Father, whose love he does not understand and whose presence has become a burden to him. After having wasted the heritage whose value he does not appreciate, he loses his honor and becomes the slave of others and of shamefull actions (pigs were unclean animals to the jews).
But the son returns, Having become aware of his salvery, he convinces himself that God has a better destiny in mind for him, and he begins on the road back to his home. Upon returning, he discovers that the Father is evry different from the idea that he had formed of him: the father is waiting for him and runs to meet him; he restores his dignity,erasing the memory of the lost inheritance. And there is a celebration of the feast to which Jesus referred so many times.
At last we understand that God is Father. He did not put us on earth to collect merits and rewards but to discover that we are his children.However,we are, in fact,bornsinners. We are born sinners:from the start of our lives we are led by our feelings and the bad example of the society in which we have been raised. There is still more:as long as God does not take the initiative and reveal himself to us, we cannot think of freedom other than in terms of becoming independent of him.
God is not surprised by our wickedness since, in creating us free, he accepted the risk that we might fall. He does not goalong with our distinctions between righteous and sinners, which presupposes that some deserve reward and otherspunishment. On the contrary,God is with all of us in our experiences of good and of evil,until he can call us his children,thanks to his only Son, Jesus. Note this marvelous sentence:I have sinned against God and before you. God, who is Truth and Holiness,is offended by sin. But he is also the Father who cares for the son; the son sins before him who brings good out of evil.
Such is our God and Father, the one who creates us day after day, without our being aware of it ,while we go on our way; the one who seeks sinners whom he can fill with his treasures.
But the older son,the one who obeys,though with a closed heart, understands none of this. He has served with the hope of being rewarded,or at least,the hope of being seen as superior to others; and so he is unable to welcome sinners or to participate in the feast of Christ, because,in fact, he does not know how to love.