Advent, Day 10

Jesus said to his disciples:  "What is your opinion?  If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray?  And if he finds it, amen, I say to you, he rejoices more over it than over the ninety-nine that did not stray.  In just the same way, it is not the will of your heavenly Father that one of these little ones be lost."

        I did my first exegetical paper for my Master's degree in Pastoral Studies on this passage from Matthew 18:12-14, which is the Gospel reading for today.  My thesis was that God wants us all to be saved and to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; and Jesus teaches the little ones that we have responsibility to care for each other, to seek out the lost, forgive and receive them back into the community.  This passage is a part of the larger "Community Discourse" found in Matthew's gospel and Jesus was talking to the disciples about how to live together and to preserve their community.  

        Don't we have responsibility for all the little ones that Jesus talks about?  Who are the little ones?  Are they the marginalized?  Are they the lost?  Are they us?  We have all gone astray at some point in our lives.  I believe Jesus is telling us that not only do we have to pay attention to our own salvation but also the salvation of the lost sheep as well.  How do we accomplish this?  I believe that God wants us all to enter the Kingdom and to continue to bring the Reign of God closer to us now by bringing the lost back into the fold.

        Here's an interesting quote from Pope Francis from just before he was installed as a pope:   

"A church that limits itself to just carrying out administrative duties, caring for its tiny flock, is a church that in the long run will get sick. The pastor who isolates himself is not a true pastor of sheep, but a 'hairdresser' for sheep who spends his time putting curlers on them instead of going to look for others."  He said the situation today is the mirror opposite of the biblical parable of the shepherd who leaves his 99 sheep to find the one that is lost. "Today we have one in the pen and 99 we need to go looking for."