GETTING BACK WHAT WE HAVE LOST

‘Tax Collectors and sinners’ are a social group of people who have been excluded from the community. ‘Pharisees and scribes’ are a social group of people who have not been excluded from the community. These complain that Jesus is welcoming those who have been excluded and is eating with them. Is He approving of their sin? They think He is! But while they fear Jesus has gone over to the dark side, Jesus clearly sees Himself bringing the two sides together. He was a person of reconciliation in a world that had accepted, and may have even enjoyed, divisions. Jesus is struggling to pull together what others wish to pull apart.

He offers two parables for their reflection. The first about a wandering and lost sheep, the second about a lost coin. So, He knows they are lost. But what is new is that He is searching for them, including them in the community of the ‘already found’ and inviting the community to a celebration of their inclusion. Notice how Jesus wants his listeners to recognise the parables in their own experience. ‘ Which of you….’ ‘What woman ….’. Jesus seems pretty sure that His parables are revealing something about the best in human nature.

Then it gets even more interesting. In Sacred Scripture numbers are very symbolic. One hundred and Ten connote completeness, fullness and wholeness. There is a pull in every human heart towards this wholeness. The shepherd and the woman of the parables are creating a social wholeness which will open the door to spiritual wholeness – the integration of heaven and earth. All Jesus can see is that His community is split into two camps and they must re-engage in the struggle for community. The shepherd seeks the One sheep to add to the ninety-nine. The woman seeks the one coin and adds it to the nine. In this way, a divided  community can become whole. This longing to find the missing one represents the realignment of God with Creation. God wants unity. This is why the angels rejoice much more when a whole is created by the inclusion of what was excluded than when an incompleteness – even a just incompleteness – leaves the community short. The synchronised rejoicing in heaven and earth is The Sign that things are the way they are meant to be.

I find myself smiling as I watch, listen and contemplate this strange behaviour of Jesus. And I also find myself seriously challenged by His teaching. It’s too easy to accept the loss of relationships as inevitable. When we fall out with and lose family, friends, neighbours, work colleagues and even members of our own parish community, when we lose our creativity and energy to do something to fix it, when we lose our desire to contribute to the wellbeing and future of all creation, we may have been overly impressed by the inevitability of loss. We may just shrug off our losses rather than searching for and reclaiming them. We can become numb to the pain of missing what was once crucial to our lives. Instead, Jesus, the Beloved Son of God is not resigned. He is searching the wilderness and sweeping the house. He will not settle for loss. “For the Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost.” (Luke19:10). And He does not see these as private reunions which take place behind closed doors. When He finds the One who restores completeness, the whole community are gathered. One whole, invites and creates another whole! Getting back what we have lost, receiving into our heart and soul what makes us complete overflows into party time. This joy is contagious and the whole community are infected. Perhaps it is the same Angels rejoicing in heaven who spoke to the shepherds at His birth and said, “Good news of great Joy for all the people.” (Luke 2:10)

Throughout the timeline of our lives, we walk with one another, and there are times in everyone’s life when there is a getting lost and a coming home, of not being there and suddenly being there again. Jesus is an artist of relationships and his exquisite teaching creates the spaces we need for spiritual encounters to happen. It seems that when we pursue reconciliation, the angels are quick to get in on the act and all creation comes along for the ride. I guess the question is, who needs to come off my hit list!