Matthew 18:12 - 14
“What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? And if he finds it, truly I tell you, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should perish."
In the Western world, our lives are largely governed by competition. Our political systems and economic systems are based on competitive frameworks that judge how we are doing by how well or how poorly someone else is doing. Whether in business, school, or personal life we always have one eye on those we deem our "competitors."
In our world, the currency of competition tends to circle around money, status and power. We'll go to great lengths to come out "ahead" in one of these three areas.
We speak with pride about competition. We join the "rat race." It's "a dog-eat-dog world." "Only the strong survive." "There have to be winners and losers." The metaphors of competition and comparison are ingrained in our conversational lexicon.
We assume that for some folks to be okay, others have to "lose" or be underneath the powers that be. It is a flawed assumption, especially in the realm of money, status and power, yet a powerful assumption that most of us buy into without question.
You'll never find Jesus dividing the world between winners and losers. Jesus turned the world's view upside down, with the first coming last and the last coming first.
The reading for today makes clear how Jesus feels about people. As long as there is even one person disconnected, disenfranchised, separated from meaning, Jesus will not rest satisfied.
As symbols, 100 represents completeness. 99 represents incompleteness. In the ancient understanding of numbers, the 99 might as well be 34. Either way, both 99 and 34 fall short of completeness. As long as even one person is estranged from God, life and purpose, all is not well.
I read this passage and my mind turns to some persons I've known through the years, persons who were separated and disenfranchised. For example, I think of the day laborers I knew a few years ago. Each day the entire group waited along Market Street in East Houston for contractors to pick them up and take them to construction sites, regardless of the searing heat or bitter cold. They were desperate for daily work to support their families meagerly.
I think of the prostitute who showed up at the church when she needed a meal or money for drugs. She loved God but didn't know how to get unhooked from the prostitution or the drugs.
I think of the homeless man at the intersection I frequented. I knew his name and engaged him in conversation a couple of times a week as I passed his intersection. I'd miss the light deliberately so we could talk during the red light. When I gave him $5, $10 or $20, he'd immediately buy food with it and share the food with his friends who lived under the bridge with him.
In a competitive system, these persons were on the bottom. In some ways, they were used and abused, the have-nots of our world.
But in the Jesus-system, there are no have-nots. They are infinitely valuable, worth giving everything for, because every person is infinitely valuable.
A great many Christians can no longer hear Jesus' words about the worth of all people. They can no longer see him extending himself to "the little and the least" in our world. They are sold on the Western political and economic systems that measure a person's worth by the amount of money, power and status a person possesses.
Jesus doesn't rest until there is wholeness among the entire human family. There are sheep to bring back to the flock.
Perhaps not in terms of money, status and power . . . but in some way, every human person is "little and lost."
and we shy away from that sheep, i shy and am shied, because we, i, think somehow this or that lost one is complicit in what is their lostness. i believe they are somehow accountable for the whereness of their lostness. i quickly weigh in my mind whether they are worth the personal cost to me to veer from my path to show kindness and dignity and invitation. they might take something from me, this lost sheep. they might abuse my gift of kindness. they might trample the dignity i try to acknowledge in them or trample mine. my kindness may be wasted energy that i could have used on a “better” sheep, a more worthy investment, one who knew their lostness, had wandered in their whereness long enough to learned their lesson, and was now trying to wander back into the fold. all this in less than a fraction of a second as i pass them by or avoid them. but honestly i can and do extend myself for mere moments of gifting dignity and kindness (at least a moment of a moment) to the man or woman on the street, these at the very bottom my heart understands are not there of of their own doing.
ReplyDeletebut i judged hardest and am least likely to swerve for the lost whereness of the sheep who deserves the whereness of his or her lostness. marty on the street or others i have met over the years i sense that the lostness was not something they were complicit in and, as uncomfortable as it is to say, i see how they were not in control of it. so many forces i will never know or understand, that they may not even know or understand, were and are out of their control and have corralled their direction. they, like myself, stand on the shoulders of those that came before them for better or worse. perhaps they bare a degree of responsible yet are not fully complicit in the whereness of their lostness.
historically it has been the whereness of the lost that i think should not be lost that i struggle against and with and shun the most. maybe this shunning will teach them their lesson they so obviously need. it is the one who i or others think deserves this whereness of their lostness that kindness, invitation, is not extended to…yet this verse you site indicates the one who has wandered off from the fold, that christ seeks, is the one who belongs and is the one i too should seek. why as the church, as a community of believers, why as me, why others, is this the one shunned and cast aside the most? who we won’t go out of our way for, wont invite in? it is this one we loved that appears to no longer belong that we do not seek and even shun? that we even now struggle to extend even basic human dignities to? why are we like this? why am i like this? it doesn’t seem so unique to me or another, it seems more the human condition? why are we such a fearful people? when will we, i, stop being afraid of other?