Wednesday
"What do you think? If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?" (v.12)
Background
Jesus' words remind us that the good shepherd goes and looks forthe sheep that is lost. This should be an uncomfortable, hair shirtreading for us. There are so many questions begged by this passage,the key one is, "Who are the lost ones?" The one is lost and islooked for. Who are the found ones?
If the lost ones are in the minority then what does that say of theChurch today? This is where the hair shirt nature of this sayingcomes in - maybe the Church is the sheep that is lost. Maybe wehave become so caught up in being the Church that we are lost.Perhaps we have lost our purpose and mission because we have spentso much energy looking inward and seeking to preserve what wehave.
God wants us to be concerned with those who are missing from theChurch. Our energy and passion needs to be for the ones who have noexperience of God. We need to find ourselves so that the onesentrusted to us are not lost through our lack of reaching out tothem.
In a throwaway society we need to make sure that we don't 'throwaway' that which has (or those who have) been entrusted to us.
To Ponder
Who are the ones who are lost today?
To what extent does living in a throwaway societymake us careless of minorities and those who are 'lost'?
What can we do so that those we find might wishto stay?