Scripture Daily

Context No. 274 of 4322 · Luke

Context · Reflection

Luke 15:1-7: in context

1Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming close to him to hear him. 2The Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, “This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.” 3He told them this parable: 4“Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? 5When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ 7I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.

The setup to this famous parable matters as much as the story. Tax collectors and sinners are crowding in to hear Jesus, and the religious experts are muttering about it. This man, they say, welcomes sinners and eats with them. The complaint is not that Jesus tolerates such people but that he seems to enjoy them, to share a table with them. The parable is his answer to that exact grumble.

So he tells them about a shepherd with a hundred sheep who loses one, and asks a question that already contains its own scandal: which of you would not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? He risks the many to recover the single stray. And when he finds it, the sheep does not have to walk itself home in shame. He lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing, carries it back, and calls his friends and neighbors together to celebrate with him. Then the line that turns back on the people who started the muttering: there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

The grumblers had counted themselves among the ninety-nine who need nothing, and that is exactly why they cannot join the party. Heaven throws its loudest celebration over precisely the return they resent. Whose homecoming have I been quietly annoyed by, standing with the ones who need no repentance, instead of joining the joy over someone found?

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