Reading: Luke 15:1-32 (Jesus' parables of a lost sheep, a lost coin, and a lost family member)
These parables are not, in the first instance, about forgiveness -- at least, no more particularly than anything (and everything?) about God's realm is about forgiveness.
It's tempting to think they are, especially with the third parable's perfect symmetry of a wasteful but penitent younger son, a loving and unconditionally generous father, and a moral but bitter elder son. But unlike other instances in the Gospels where Jesus responds to challenges to his practice and understanding of forgiveness (e.g. Mark 2:1-12; Matthew 18:21-22), in this case he is addressing a challenge to where and with whom he shares meals and makes community -- that is, who he includes in his list of "the righteous" and who he sees and treats as the heart and soul of God's vital people in his day.
The Pharisees and scribes are used to counting noses and checking attendance at the synagogue and in the temple to identify the righteous. They count these good folks as the moral majority of their time, and as the demographic whose needs and well-being they happily serve.
Jesus, however, grows into the habit of counting other kids of folks as friends and followers of God. His list includes "the sinners" who don't fit in to the synagogue-and-temple crowd. He sees them somehow as the heart and soul of God's new movement in his day. And he is content at times to by-pass synagogue and temple himself in order to spend time, share meals, and make community (common-cause) with them.
I wonder if at least some of them (who he likens to a lost sheep, a lost coin, or a lost family member, and who he celebrates finding and being restored to),were the "spiritual but not religious" people of their day?
If so, I wonder what Jesus, his choices of company, and his parables say to us who are spiritual and religious ... both in the church, and wanting to be where Jesus is?
No comments:
Post a Comment