Dear Friends,

The parable of the lost sheep in St. Luke 15, verses 1 to 7 is perhaps one of the most familiar of the stories of Jesus; and because of this we may well feel we understand its meaning fully. However, recently when this parable was part of the Gospel set in the Book of Common Prayer at Holy Communion, I saw something more than I had before, and this I would share with you.

Jesus told the parable because the Pharisees and Jewish teachers of the law were critical of his attitude towards the hated tax collectors and other people notorious for their wrong way of life. It is verses 1 and 2 of Luke 15 which set the scene and out of which the parable is told.

It is clear that these people, notorious for their failure to come up to the moral standards set by the church of their day, that is the Jewish religious community, found that they experienced a totally different reception from Jesus than from the Jewish church.

These tax collectors and 'sinners' had experienced rejection, condemnation, and little or no love from the Pharisees and Jewish religious teachers. They knew that they were considered by them as outcasts and evil. They found the church looking down on them and avoiding them.

With Jesus it was so different. He accepted them and loved them and befriended them. Though they knew Jesus did not approve or condone their sins, yet he did not despise them or turn away from them, but sought to love and change them, and so they came to him. These sinners knew Jesus would receive them and befriend them, whereas the Jewish church felt it right and proper to have nothing to do with them, and cast them off.

It is a sad fact that more often than not the Christian church has shown a similar spirit as the Pharisees and teachers of the law did in Jesus' day. This has turned people away from Christ, and made them feel that there is no place for them in the church, or has made them turn away from the church in revulsion. In the praiseworthy desire to uphold the moral standards of the Bible, the church has often presented the idea that Christianity looks down on sinners, and that they are to be avoided.

It is plain in the narrative of Luke 15 that the Jewish leaders felt themselves spiritually and morally superior to these tax collectors and 'sinners', and that they were to be avoided. The church has often portrayed a similar image, and individual Christians have shown this spirit to others also.

The whole point of the parable of the Lost Sheep is that Jesus wished to show the Jewish leaders how wrong their attitude was. By the parable Jesus, not only says he came to befriend sinners, but also to seek and to save them. He wanted to let them know he had come to win their forgiveness and rescue them from their wandering away from God.

The Shepherd shows a picture of marvelous love. The lost sheep, who had willfully strayed away and is in great danger because of its own folly, is not rebuked and criticised, but wonderfully loved. The sheep is placed on the shepherds shoulder in intimate contact. The shepherd rejoices over the sheep because he had found it and it is now safe. All is forgiven.

Jesus paints the shepherd as going to great trouble and sacrifice to find and save the sheep. This Jesus did so marvelously upon the cross. Jesus tells us that, so happy is the shepherd at the safety of the sheep, that he calls friends together to rejoice. Jesus tells us that this is the attitude of heaven towards sinners repenting and being saved. It gladdens the heart of Jesus when sinners are saved.

There is no sense of despising the sinner or looking down on him. The wrong is not condoned, but the sinner is beloved and never belittled.

The sting in the tail of the parable to the Pharisees is in the sarcasm concerning the 99 righteous persons. Jesus must be referring to the Pharisees. Plainly he is using their idea that they were safely accepted by God when he calls them righteous persons needing no repentance. The Pharisees really thought they were righteous without sins to repent of, when the Bible clearly tells us even the most holy people are still sinners, and that it is simply by the grace of God they are kept from the sins which are still residing deep in their fallen human nature.

Jesus is not really suggesting that the 99 were really the flock of God, but rather that they thought they were. Jesus makes it plain that there is no joy in heaven over them.

What the tax collectors and sinners found in Jesus was one who never made them feel inferior and despised, but found in Jesus someone who really loved them. It is what the woman found, who was taken in adultery. We read her story in John chapter 8. All the Jews despised her and looked down on her and condemned her. Jesus loved her, forgave her, accepted her, and blessed her, without in anyway saying her sins were unimportant or right. He tells her she must sin no more, but also tells her he does not condemn her.

We Christians must be like our master, Jesus. We must be to others as Jesus has been, and continues to be, to us. It is wonderful peace to know Jesus never despises us, even though he knows all about our sins and our inner sinfulness. It is our joy that we have felt the power of Jesus' love changing us, as we have been made to understand that he has saved us from all our sins.

As a church let us turn away from all self-righteous criticism of others. Let us be ready to own that we are sinners too, and if we have been delivered from the outward sins which others have committed, it is God's grace that has done it, and not our doing. Let us love and accept all whatever they are like, and tell them of a loving Saviour who did not come to judge or blame, but to seek and save that he came. Let us, by our love for them, show that love of Jesus.

Your servant for Christ's sake,