Everyone knows what it’s like to get lost. We’ve all done it – you take a wrong turn at some point, you end up somewhere you aren’t meant to be, you don’t know how to get back on track. In Luke’s Gospel this week, Jesus tells a parable about a lost sheep. And that sheep is us. When it comes to God, we have gone the wrong way, we have ended up where we shouldn’t be, we can’t get ourselves back on track.
But the parable isn’t told to wag a disapproving finger – quite the opposite! Where so many religious people write off the lost, Jesus tells a story where God goes looking for them, where he’s happy to find them, where he brings them back home. That hope for the lost is what Christianity is all about.
But Jesus’ critics don’t think they are lost in the first place. And often we’re tempted to think the same. Does this parable mean we’re ok and don’t need to repent? Or is the person who thinks they know their way the one who is actually the most lost of all?
Ed